For HttpClient-4.1 using TLSv1.2, code would go something like this:
SSLContext sslContext = SSLContext.getInstance("TLSv1.2");
sslContext.init(null, null, new SecureRandom());
SSLSocketFactory sf = new SSLSocketFactory(sslContext);
Scheme httpsScheme = new Scheme("https", 443, sf);
SchemeRegistry schemeRegistry = new SchemeRegistry();
schemeRegistry.register(httpsScheme);
ClientConnectionManager cm = new SingleClientConnManager(schemeRegistry);
HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient(cm);
// Use client to make the connection and get the results.