Trials and Tribulations

Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes relates to Law and Justice through the eyes of Judge Alex Cormier first in this next section. She is fatigued by the trivial case she is trying and wonders aloud to the police prosecutor why "the taxpayers of New Hampshire (are) shelling out money for a case like this to be tried." I completely agree with Cormier's attitude towards this particular situation and will share with you the circumstances of the afore mentioned case:

"The two men standing in front of Alex's bench shared a duplex, but hated each other. Arliss Undergroot was a Sheetrock installer with tattoes up and down both arms, a shaved head, and enough piercings in his head to have set off the metal detectors at the courthouse. Rodney Eakes was a vegan bank teller with a prized record collection of original cast recordings fro Broadway shows. Arliss lived downstairs, Rodney lived upstairs. A few months back, Rodney had brought home a bale of hay, planning to use it for mulching his organic garden, but he never got around to it and the hay bale remained on Arliss's proch. Arliss asked Rodney to get rid of the hay, but Rodney hadn't moved fast enough. So one night, Arliss and his girlfriend cut the twine and spread the hay out over the front lawn."

Rodney called the police and they had actually arrested Arliss on the grounds of criminal mischief: legalspeak for destroying a bale of hay. The police prosecutor had already proved that Arliss had taken the bale of hay and spread it over the lawn, so the burden of proof was fulfilled. However, Cormier pities Arliss's situation: if convicted he would have a criminal record. So she instead asks the prosecutor how much the victim paid for the bale of hay. Ultimately, Arliss payed for the four dollar bale of hay and a fifteen-minute recess was called.

The rest of this section of reading focuses around Josie struggling with her grief as she returns to school, Cormier's incessant worrying about Josie when she's at school, and a flash back to the year before the shooting when Josie and Peter got along as coworkers in an office supply store, not law and justice. Better luck next time.

Details, Details.

Criminal procedure law attempts to find balance between the individual’s rights protected by the Due Process model and the justice that is served by the Crime Control model. The reality of this idealistic and impossible goal all comes down to the details of definitions and specific instances, as Chapter Six: Criminal Procedure clearly explains.

Laws for criminal procedure are founded upon the Bill of Rights, state constitutions, federal and state statutes, and the 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 8^th, and 14^th Amendments and have been haphazardly established by the Supreme Court on a case-by-case basis.

The 4^th Amendment in particular led to the creation of the warrant and reasonableness clauses, which state that all warrants must be based on “probable cause” and must specifically define the person or place to be searched. Probable cause exists when “the facts and circumstances within the officers’ knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been committed” (Brinegar v. United States 1949). The 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, is also responsible for the "knock and announce" policy in the case of an arrest or search, with the exception of an immediate threat of serious harm to the officers or others (Tennessee v. Garner 1985).

Nineteen Minutes: Law and Justice in a Post-Columbine Culture

"If we don't change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going." --Chinese Proverb

Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes is a story of the complexities unveiled by the events surrounding a school shooting. The novel is composed in time frames in accordance to the shooting, beginning with the day of the event, and then flashing back seventeen years, then flying forward to a few hours after the shooting, and so on. These time sequences are told from the points of view of up to six different characters, each revealing the multifaceted parameters of intent, revenge, justice, and guilt through their own thoughts and actions, and the actions of those around them.

The story begins on March 6, 2007 with Josie Cormier getting ready for school. Josie is the angst ridden teenage daughter of Superior Court Judge Alex Cormier, who is disillusioned with her pseudo-reality and has therefore been inconspicuously stealing sleeping pills from her mother for months, just so that she can down them in a lethal dose of alcohol when her "friends" discover how different and unhappy she really is. Josie's character deals mostly with the emotional aspects of the shooting and its aftermath, like missing her murdered boyfriend to the point of debilitation and playing six degrees with the wounded, and not so much with justice or law.

Justice is portrayed in this story in many characters, however, including Alex Cormier, Josie's mother. She is the youngest and reportedly fairest Superior Court Judge in Grafton County, New Hampshire, and while she seems completely oblivious to Josie's dark musings, she does care for her daughter dearly. Unfortunately, her talents lie with the repeat offenders that wander through her courtroom, not making an emotional connection with her daughter.

Judge Cormier's friend and OB GYN, Lacy Houghton, is another character of justice in Nineteen Minutes. Lacy delivered Josie when Alex was still a lawyer, struggling to understand how she would mother a child when she could not even keep a house plant alive. Lacy is also the mother of Josie's childhood friend, Peter Houghton, who, through a long series of unfortunate events becomes the school shooter.

Before Peter Houghton was an outcast, he was expected to follow in his older brother Joey's shoes as a great high school athlete. Sadly, Joey's tragic death during his senior year only alienated Peter further. Until one day even his best friend Josie left him for the "in crowd" on a promise that she would make them stop picking on him. The bullying did not stop for Peter, however, and he became a time bomb.

The story opens with Peter's suicide note, but he was apprehended before he killed himself so the story continues on with the preparation for his trial. Lacy tries to buy milk at the store, and ultimately cannot because she sees a change tin for the victims of the shooting and listens to the cashier's blind accusations of, "It makes you wonder about the parents, you know?" Lacy's justice is far different from that of the victim's parents, but Lacy stays silent. She wants everyone to understand that she lost her child, her Peter, too--just a long time before. She feels that she is blamed for not keeping a closer eye on Peter, for not knowing what he planned to do. After Joey died, Lacy found heroin in his room, so her theory was that if she did not want to find anything she did not want to see, then she would not pry.

Detective Patrick Ducharme was the first officer in the high school during the shooting, and was the officer to apprehend Peter. The Detective's character deals with the aftermath of crime and procedural law. He is on his way to the crime lab to have some evidentiary cocaine processed when he heres the code 1000. Patrick was the one to find Josie, scratched, but otherwise unharmed, and remove her from the wreckage with noticing her dead boyfriend lying next to her. Detective Ducharme is the character who plays Peter's video game simulation of nerds creating weapons and killing all the jocks, bullies, and popular kids, which results in a massacre of a SWAT team. He also investigates the suicide of a victim's mother in a local gun shop could be argued as an indirect result of Peter's shootings, but would not likely hold up in court.

Peter spends most of his time in detention fighting the counsel of his Defense Attorney, Jordan. Jordan saves Peter from a probable cause hearing that would put his family under the microscope and most likely discover his mens rea. Apparently, Jordan has discovered an untested yet valid defense, but the reader is unaware of the details of this defense at this point.

The Alford Plea: Black, White, Grey, or Green?

A British defendant once protested, "As God, is my judge, I'm innocent." To which a jurist, Lord Birkett, responded, "He isn't. I am; you're not."

Of the five possible pleas of a defendant, guilty is by far the most common. Standing mute, or refusing to plea, and nolo contendere, or accepting guilty punishment but not admitting liability, are less common. The least common plea of all, then, would be the Alford plea.

It's controversial nature, and the fact that the acceptance of the Alford plea is left to the discretion of the court, both contribute to it's lowly status on the "popular plea totum pole."

The Alford plea originated from the Supreme Court case, North Carolina v. Alford (1970). The case notes that, "An individual accused of crime may voluntarily, knowingly, and understandingly consent to the imposition of a prison sentence even if he is unwilling or unable to admit his participation in the acts constituting the crime when a defendant intelligently concludes that his interests require entry of a guilty plea and the record before the judge contains strong evidence of actual guilt"

(http://definitions.uslegal.com/a/alford-plea/)

As mentioned in the text, judges are at odds with defendants who use the Alford plea for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the Alford plea allows defendants to maintain their innocence while accepting the reasonable possibility of guilt; however, in many courts, a defendant is expected to admit guilt on the record to be charged with the crime and given punishment. Secondly, and less profoundly, judges just plain-old don't like it.

I too wrestle with the idea of the Alford plea. On the one hand, I can see where the need for justice and the probability of guilt unfairly coincide with an innocent man's actions or behaviors, in which case a defendant who invokes the Alford plea is protected from admitting actual guilt and a more severe punishment. Conversely, I also understand the judge and jury's need for admitted liability before convicting a defendant of guilt. In this case, however, I lean more towards the former than the latter, mostly because I disagree on principle with the stark "guilty" or "not guilty" ideals with which the judge and jury tend to conform.

In this case, as in most, the shades of grey are most important in matters of black and white.

Stare Decisis: Hypocrisy or Justice?

My understanding of the concept "stare decisis," according to the text (p.55-58), is: future decisions bound to the governing of consistent prior decisions, or, more simply, precedent. Specifically, precedent is "the influence of prior cases on current cases;" moreover, stare decisis binds some judges and courts to "let the decision stand," just as it means in Latin.

I struggle with my opinion of stare decisis on both principle and practice.

I do agree that a judicial body should be able to alter or reverse a previous decision based on new information or circumstances. Note, though, that I do not commend making a practice of such changes as it would be highly harmful to the law and therefore society.

Conversely, my own sense of justice screams, "That's not fair!!" I have argued far too many times against the hypocrisy of double standards and unequal treatment to now become an advocate of such a weak, unbalanced, and irregular form of justice.

So where is the middle ground between such justice and hypocrisy? Should a decision made hundreds of years ago still be applied to cases today, despite the thousands of differences between the two worlds in which they were made? Should a just decision, under no circumstances, ever be threatened by reversal? How do we know when a practiced precedent is no longer just?

As usual, it all comes down to the details. Change is innate to human nature with the passing of time and should be accounted for in all aspects of law and justice. As our understanding of criminal motive develops, so should the sentencing for such criminals, while giving careful thought to the principles and ratio decendi for the original precedent. Even in a rapidly changing world, some decisions stand the test of time as true precedents for humanity.

I am still shaky on the details of the practice of stare decisis. I know, though, that there are cases in which I find it most effective and just, such as Brown v Board of Education and Wolf v. Colorado. On the other hand, I live in fear of such decisions as Hernandez v Texas and Roe v Wade being overruled at any time, near or far, in the future.

Overall, I have decided that I am a proponent of stare decisis and a fearer of its abuse. Long live hypocrisy, if only it serve justice.

http://courtoons.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/stare-decisis2.jpg

Chapter 2: Justice and the Law

For starters, this chapter, like the previous, deals mostly with lofty and abstract ideals and definitions, which I am not generally a fan of, no matter the topic. I am a realist in all senses of the word; therefore, I too, am one of those legal realists Dr. Ball keeps referring to in class. That said, I am assuredly learning quite a lot about an interesting subject, despite my personal preferences.

The introduction aptly illustrates "the tensions between the legal positivists and natural law advocates," as exemplified throughout the Nazi regime during World War II, in order to introduce the audience to the argument over wisdom and enforcement of some "'universal standards' with which all cultures must comply." Did the Allied forces have the right to try Nazi war criminals for "crimes [which were] legal under positivist Nazi law, [but] violated universal principles of civilized behavior and human dignity"? (p.27) My opinion: yes, they did, and, yes, we do.

In my lifetime, humanity has faced at least one atrocity in kind to the Holocaust: genocide in Darfur. This video link is a slightly sensationalized, but altogether impressive call to action against the widespread and systematic murder, rape, abduction, and displacement of thousands and thousands of humans.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=19692949

Beyond introductions, I also found Distributive justice interesting and relevant. I repeatedly hear Aristotle's definition of "just" welfare echoed by modern politicians, news correspondents, teachers, and and politically-aware citizens. According to Aristotle, "Help for the disabled, the temporarily unemployed, and for the formerly productive who by no fault of their own lack the capacity to function independently is considered just ... because such people have earned it by their past efforts."

"On the other hand, ... a woman who has three or four children out of wedlock and ... has never contributed anything to society [has real need] but it is self-induced and thus abusive of the welfare system and exploitative of those whose money is taken from them to support it. Providing such a person with needed resources may be decent and compassionate, but it is not ... just." (p.29) The comparison of yearly salaries amongst certain valuable or invaluable people is also a brilliant description of how distributive justice fails to meet every need for every contributor; for example, "athletes and actors, who contribute nothing to the community except entertainment, [make] more each year then an entire four-hundred-person police force, whose contributions to the community are enormous." (p.29) As a realist living in the mess of modern society, I must ultimately agree that "Justice is made to give everyone his due; to the rich his richness, to the poor his poverty." (Anatole France)

As far as Transcendental and Evolutionary perspectives go, I tend towards evolution with musings of transcendentalism.

I'm still not sure what equity is... other than a Latin derivative of the word "just," I keep thinking "Home Equity Loan" which I definitely don't understand. Really though, is it like Justice's vitamin, taken every day with breakfast, or is more like a 5-hour energy shot and used only when needed?

I like the idea of the Court of Chancery because stone-cold and unmerciful judges were directed to "view each case as unique, to be flexible and empathetic, and to think in terms of standards or principles of fairness rather than rules of law." (p.41) This is the first time intent is mentioned in the text. (Sigh of relief. Finally!) Honestly, the Court of Chancery's potential for corruption, unique outlook on criminals and citizens, plus its old-school name brings to mind The Canterbury Tales. Score. I digress...

I appreciate the texts honesty when it describes the crime control and due process models as extremes on the same continuum and then explains how, "no modern legal system competely conforms to either of these ideal types." (p.51) Legal adjustments to these models are required because both extremes can be exaggerated, as seen in several un-just Supreme Court cases .

Well, I'm completely new to blogging, but those are some of my thoughts on Chapter 2. Hopefully I'll get better at this.

Until next time.