Non sequitur. It's the final result, and not the "procedural due process" that matters [see "Malleus Maleficarum" on such fine procedural topics like "whether it is permissible to offer the accused witch her life to induce confession and then to go back on that offer" - it was permissible], for what does it matter whether the rack was applied first or the strappado? Church courts of the time were dirty and bloody places, just as secular courts were. Later they became cleaner not because of their nonexisting innate goodness, but when their jurisdiction was drastically clipped.
In addition to the link I had in my previous post, here's a second Thomas Madden link:
http://www.crisismagazine.com/october2003/madden.htm
Intriguing quote:
"After the reforms, the Spanish Inquisition had very few critics. Staffed by well-educated legal professionals, it was one of the most efficient and compassionate judicial bodies in Europe.
"No major court in Europe executed fewer people than the Spanish Inquisition. This was a time, after all, when damaging shrubs in a public garden in London carried the death penalty. Across Europe, executions were everyday events. But not so with the Spanish Inquisition. In its 350-year lifespan only about 4,000 people were put to the stake. Compare that with the witch-hunts that raged across the rest of Catholic and Protestant Europe, in which 60,000 people, mostly women, were roasted. Spain was spared this hysteria precisely because the Spanish Inquisition stopped it at the border.
"When the first accusations of witchcraft surfaced in northern Spain, the Inquisition sent its people to investigate. These trained legal scholars found no believable evidence for witches’ Sabbaths, black magic, or baby roasting. It was also noted that those confessing to witchcraft had a curious inability to fly through keyholes.
"While Europeans were throwing women onto bonfires with abandon, the Spanish Inquisition slammed the door shut on this insanity. (For the record, the Roman Inquisition also kept the witch craze from infecting Italy.)"