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Law, Justice, and Crime Dramas (Oh My)
Sep. 19th, 2015 08:10 amI have often heard people, both in person and online, use the words justice and law like they mean the same thing. And they don't.
Justice = pertaining to what is just. Just is having a basis in reason or logic, morally right or correct.
Law = a rule of conduct or action established by a custom or laid down and enforced by a governing authority. Also the whole body of such rules.
Notice that law has nothing about those rules being fair or just. That's because they don't have to be. Laws are only as fair or just as the people involved. If the people making the laws are unfair or unjust – or just enough of them to pass a bit of legislature, then laws they make are often unfair and unjust.
But even if the laws are fair and just, you still have to deal with the other people in the chain of a court of law. If one or more people in the chain is corrupt and doesn't obey the rules, then the system does not work. That doesn't mean the system it and of itself is bad. The problem largely lies in people.
Now do I think our (American) system of justice, which is actually a system of law, is perfect? No. Setting aside problems of corruption, poor training, and unfair laws being passed, no system is perfect. They all have their short-comings. They all have their members that disobey the rules because the rules are inconvenient for them and they think they can get away with it.
But let's talk about this in context of fiction. Fictional worlds have the flexibility to be more or less or about equal with the level of corruption in the people in the system, or fairness of the laws being made for particular city, state, country, etc. Most of the fictional crime shows like Bones or CSI or Law & Order claim (more on that in a minute) to be about the same in a largely realistic setting. The world of 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 is what most people would consider more corrupt and/or unjust than local-Earth. Polychrome Heroics is a world where, in general, the corruption and unjust is less than local-Earth.
Mileage, of course, may vary on how corrupt or unjust someone considers the system. There are a lot of people who don't complain about corrupted officials or unjust laws until it directly affects them. Or they think it will – which politicians love to play with. Take the estate tax. It only applies of a very narrow band of people – you have a LOT of money, like Scourge McDuck lot of money, for it to apply to your heirs when you die. But some politicians started calling it the death tax and now people who don't have enough assets for the estate tax to apply are suddenly worried that it will. Or that they will be paying taxes twice on the same money. Except you, assuming you have amassed enough assets, don't pay the estate tax. The people who inherited your big pile of money do. Because it was a gain, they earned wealth that they didn't have before, it is taxed.
But back to law and system of justice. I took some classes in criminal justice and now have difficulty watching any of the crime drama shows. Because while they claim to be a realistic setting, where the laws are same unless otherwise noted – either that is fib or everyone of those fictional worlds has a lot of ignored corruption. Because they violate the laws of criminal procedure and other laws related to death investigations ALL THE TIME.
Don't believe me? I'll explain.
How many times have you seen the investigators on CSI or Law & Order or in bit of police procedural mystery book, move the body? Did you know they aren't supposed to do that? Until the medical examiner or coroner (depending on which system your area has) or their representative says it is okay to move the body, you cannot move the body. The ME has custody of the remains until it is released to the family. The ME is one who determines the manner of death – is it homicide, suicide, accident, natural, or other? Now whether that homicide was a murder is a matter for the court to decide. Oh yeah, murder is a legal term. It is an illegal homicide. Homicide just means that person died as the results of the actions of another. So all murders are homicides but not all homicides are murders.
Here's an example for an actual series. Last night my Mom was watching an episode of Bones. In the episode, the team suspects that the 40ish man who died did not die of his heart condition but was murdered. To prove this, they smuggled the body out of the funeral home, did some science*, found out they were right, and went on to make the killer confess at the funeral. The killer died soon after because she had used her medicine to poison her son and therefore her life-threatening medical condition wasn't being treated properly.
What's the problem? The problem is that, even if the killer hadn't died, they never be able to convict in a properly working US court.
Once the autopsy is complete, the manner of death determined, and the death certificate signed by the ME or coroner, the body is released to the family. Legally, it belongs to them. That's why, you own all of dead relatives remains. That's why if you want to exhume a body you have to either (A) get the family's permission – written permission – or (B) get a court order signed by a judge. Judges, in general, aren't keen on digging up bodies without the family's permission so if you are going to do so, you better have a good argument and evidence for why it is necessary for that judge.
According to my mom, they tried to get a court order but it was rejected. So what did they do? Violate the law. Taking the body out of the funeral home like that is theft, and doing science on it in many districts would be considered desecration of a corpse, and might be considered down the road evidence tampering.
Because they found out the death was homicide and the identity of their killer by illegal means, just how much that evidence they can use in court? NONE! The judge would deem it inadmissible because it was illegally obtained. And because what someone does once, they could have done other times, every case anyone involved in this mess has worked on would be granted an automatic appeal or re-trial with the evidence they touched inadmissible because the court cannot guarantee that it was not illegally obtained or tampered with. Since this kind of BS is messing with data, the scientists would place in academic no-man's land – they aren't going to get grants and no reputable institute would hire them. Assuming they weren't in prison for evidence tampering and obstruction of justice. They all, scientists, FBI agent, any one else involved, and their employers be sued.
That is the result of what the courts like to “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine.”
Side note – because the victim was Dead on Arrival (DOA) at the hospital and unconscious the entire time the paramedics were with him, no ME worth their salt would just agree that was a natural death unless the person had documented hospices-level illness. Which I didn't get the impression that he was. Even then, if there is monkey business suspected, the ME can still perform an autopsy before determining the cause and the manner of death. Legally and procedurally speaking, their victim died without the attendance of a physician and his death should have been treated as a potential homicide until it is proven otherwise. Even if you die in the presence of a doctor and have known health problems, if your physicians suspects that your death isn't normal, they are obligated to tell the ME and request an autopsy be performed.
*On the science note, the body was embalmed – which destroys or makes detection of poisons or toxins very difficult. In cases where they have proved someone was poisoned after they were embalmed, most of the time the toxicologist was working with samples obtained at the hospital or their autopsy BEFORE they were embalmed. Let's not go into (for the moment) that it usually takes at least six weeks to get a toxic report back and why.
Justice = pertaining to what is just. Just is having a basis in reason or logic, morally right or correct.
Law = a rule of conduct or action established by a custom or laid down and enforced by a governing authority. Also the whole body of such rules.
Notice that law has nothing about those rules being fair or just. That's because they don't have to be. Laws are only as fair or just as the people involved. If the people making the laws are unfair or unjust – or just enough of them to pass a bit of legislature, then laws they make are often unfair and unjust.
But even if the laws are fair and just, you still have to deal with the other people in the chain of a court of law. If one or more people in the chain is corrupt and doesn't obey the rules, then the system does not work. That doesn't mean the system it and of itself is bad. The problem largely lies in people.
Now do I think our (American) system of justice, which is actually a system of law, is perfect? No. Setting aside problems of corruption, poor training, and unfair laws being passed, no system is perfect. They all have their short-comings. They all have their members that disobey the rules because the rules are inconvenient for them and they think they can get away with it.
But let's talk about this in context of fiction. Fictional worlds have the flexibility to be more or less or about equal with the level of corruption in the people in the system, or fairness of the laws being made for particular city, state, country, etc. Most of the fictional crime shows like Bones or CSI or Law & Order claim (more on that in a minute) to be about the same in a largely realistic setting. The world of 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 is what most people would consider more corrupt and/or unjust than local-Earth. Polychrome Heroics is a world where, in general, the corruption and unjust is less than local-Earth.
Mileage, of course, may vary on how corrupt or unjust someone considers the system. There are a lot of people who don't complain about corrupted officials or unjust laws until it directly affects them. Or they think it will – which politicians love to play with. Take the estate tax. It only applies of a very narrow band of people – you have a LOT of money, like Scourge McDuck lot of money, for it to apply to your heirs when you die. But some politicians started calling it the death tax and now people who don't have enough assets for the estate tax to apply are suddenly worried that it will. Or that they will be paying taxes twice on the same money. Except you, assuming you have amassed enough assets, don't pay the estate tax. The people who inherited your big pile of money do. Because it was a gain, they earned wealth that they didn't have before, it is taxed.
But back to law and system of justice. I took some classes in criminal justice and now have difficulty watching any of the crime drama shows. Because while they claim to be a realistic setting, where the laws are same unless otherwise noted – either that is fib or everyone of those fictional worlds has a lot of ignored corruption. Because they violate the laws of criminal procedure and other laws related to death investigations ALL THE TIME.
Don't believe me? I'll explain.
How many times have you seen the investigators on CSI or Law & Order or in bit of police procedural mystery book, move the body? Did you know they aren't supposed to do that? Until the medical examiner or coroner (depending on which system your area has) or their representative says it is okay to move the body, you cannot move the body. The ME has custody of the remains until it is released to the family. The ME is one who determines the manner of death – is it homicide, suicide, accident, natural, or other? Now whether that homicide was a murder is a matter for the court to decide. Oh yeah, murder is a legal term. It is an illegal homicide. Homicide just means that person died as the results of the actions of another. So all murders are homicides but not all homicides are murders.
Here's an example for an actual series. Last night my Mom was watching an episode of Bones. In the episode, the team suspects that the 40ish man who died did not die of his heart condition but was murdered. To prove this, they smuggled the body out of the funeral home, did some science*, found out they were right, and went on to make the killer confess at the funeral. The killer died soon after because she had used her medicine to poison her son and therefore her life-threatening medical condition wasn't being treated properly.
What's the problem? The problem is that, even if the killer hadn't died, they never be able to convict in a properly working US court.
Once the autopsy is complete, the manner of death determined, and the death certificate signed by the ME or coroner, the body is released to the family. Legally, it belongs to them. That's why, you own all of dead relatives remains. That's why if you want to exhume a body you have to either (A) get the family's permission – written permission – or (B) get a court order signed by a judge. Judges, in general, aren't keen on digging up bodies without the family's permission so if you are going to do so, you better have a good argument and evidence for why it is necessary for that judge.
According to my mom, they tried to get a court order but it was rejected. So what did they do? Violate the law. Taking the body out of the funeral home like that is theft, and doing science on it in many districts would be considered desecration of a corpse, and might be considered down the road evidence tampering.
Because they found out the death was homicide and the identity of their killer by illegal means, just how much that evidence they can use in court? NONE! The judge would deem it inadmissible because it was illegally obtained. And because what someone does once, they could have done other times, every case anyone involved in this mess has worked on would be granted an automatic appeal or re-trial with the evidence they touched inadmissible because the court cannot guarantee that it was not illegally obtained or tampered with. Since this kind of BS is messing with data, the scientists would place in academic no-man's land – they aren't going to get grants and no reputable institute would hire them. Assuming they weren't in prison for evidence tampering and obstruction of justice. They all, scientists, FBI agent, any one else involved, and their employers be sued.
That is the result of what the courts like to “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine.”
Side note – because the victim was Dead on Arrival (DOA) at the hospital and unconscious the entire time the paramedics were with him, no ME worth their salt would just agree that was a natural death unless the person had documented hospices-level illness. Which I didn't get the impression that he was. Even then, if there is monkey business suspected, the ME can still perform an autopsy before determining the cause and the manner of death. Legally and procedurally speaking, their victim died without the attendance of a physician and his death should have been treated as a potential homicide until it is proven otherwise. Even if you die in the presence of a doctor and have known health problems, if your physicians suspects that your death isn't normal, they are obligated to tell the ME and request an autopsy be performed.
*On the science note, the body was embalmed – which destroys or makes detection of poisons or toxins very difficult. In cases where they have proved someone was poisoned after they were embalmed, most of the time the toxicologist was working with samples obtained at the hospital or their autopsy BEFORE they were embalmed. Let's not go into (for the moment) that it usually takes at least six weeks to get a toxic report back and why.
