Justice Stevens emphasizes today "no member of the [California Supreme] court suggested" that the showing of a video of a murdered victim's light set to music" shed any light on the character of the offense, the character of the offender, or the defendant's moral culpability". His point was that such emotive evidence problematically interfered with the murderer's sentencing, possibly inclining the jury towards death.
I am basically unread in this field, and am sure this has all been discussed ad naseaum, but it seems at least arguable to me that the defendant's moral culpability is somewhat wrapped up in who he killed. Of course, I appreciate the prejudice laden implications of considering the nature of the victim when deciding how society is to punish criminals, but when meting out a punishment that is meant in large part to be retributive, I'm not sure it makes sense that the way the victim was killed is relevant, but the character of the victim him or herself isn't. Why isn't the video relevant because it shows an innocent's life was nipped in the bud?
11/10/2008
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3 comments:
It would be kind of messed up for our legal system to encourage jurors to base their judgment not on the criminal's action or even his character, but on that of the victim. Should Matthew Shepherd's killers have been able to obtain a lesser punishment because they brutally murdered a gay, HIV+ man instead of a straight, chaste woman, because the jury thought Shepherd more deserving of death than the hypothetical female victim?
We already have in statute provisions that increase punishment for those who attack children, the elderly, pregnant women and the mentally retarded. These categorical aggravating factors are much preferable to a case-by-case analysis by jurors of how virtuous the victim was.
As I mentioned in my post, I recognize the problem (though on the point you made, being a law and order guy I think both criminals probably deserve death). But in the context of whether a particular piece of evidence is a permissible thing to put into the black box of the jury, I don't see why not. You feed the jury all kinds of things and let them render the community's judgment. These days, a jury might feel, for example, that Matthew Shepherd's murder was the more reprehensible because of the oppression that he suffered, and I don't see why the constitution would stand in the way.
These days, a jury might feel, for example, that Matthew Shepherd's murder was the more reprehensible because of the oppression that he suffered
So the more someone has suffered before death, the worse killing him is? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
We already account for extra-bad motives (such as racial, religious, and other forms of animus) in charging people with crimes; these matter because the criminal's motive and state of mind have long been accepted as relevant aspects of a crime.
But inevitably if you start talking about how good or oppressed a person was in order to aggravate the punishment, the defense needs to be allowed to counter what you're saying about the victim and say, "No, she was a skanky witch who was cheating on her husband" [gasp from the heretofore grieving spouse] "and while she didn't deserve to die, exactly, she's not the angel the prosecution is painting for you."
I can't imagine a much uglier scene than a defense attorney ripping apart the victim's reputation. I had hoped we'd left that behind with the change in how sexual assault could be defended, but letting a rape defendant bring in the moral character of the survivor pretty much drags her sexual history back in. Let there be justice for the victim as an abstraction, not as fallible flesh-and-blood.
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