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Concepts of Justice and The Law [Period 4, Class #2, Jan 12]

"Welcome back," Alex said, nodding at her students. "Since last week went so well, I thought it best if we dive right in. So this week we're going to be discussing capital punishment. Capital, in this case, refers to the head. As in, your head, and the State's ability to separate it from your body. We're talking about the death penalty: a government executing its own citizens."

They could have started with something more dry and theoretical, but Alex was more a fan of practical applications of the law. And nothing stirred discussion like the death penalty.

"Most countries have a history of some kind with the death penalty. It's a quick way for the government to silence dissent, and to deal with those citizens that the rest of society has deemed unfit. It's fallen out of favor in most countries in this world, but there are those which still practice it. Including the United States, the country that Fandom is adjacent to."

She was still a touch unclear on whether the US had any jurisdiction over Fandom. She would imagine not so much, all things considered.

"Proponents of the death penalty will say that it functions as a deterrent. If Joe Citizen knows that murdering his neighbors could end in his death, maybe he'll think twice and put down that hacksaw. Advocates also say that it provides an appropriate punishment to the crime. It fills a psychological need for retribution, and it gives the victims' families closure. It guarantees that that criminal will never re-offend. And as a prosecutor, I will add that it gives me a certain amount of leverage in dealing with a suspect. Many criminals are willing to confess or hand over important information if I take the death penalty out of consideration. They'll still be in jail for the rest of their lives."

She lifted her shoulders. "That's one side of the issue. People on the other side say that the death penalty is barbaric, and that a government shouldn't be involved in revenge killings. Critics say that it's not effective as a deterrent, and that life imprisonment fulfills all the necessary conditions of punishment. Those against it will also note that it's rarely implemented in a fair manner: in most countries, the poor, the ethnic minorities, and the underclass will make up a majority of those put to death. And this is before we get to the much thornier issue of what happens when an innocent person is wrongly convicted. A life sentence can be commuted; if the prisoner's already dead, then the government has innocent blood on its hands."

"So let's talk about capital punishment. Whether the government has the right to take a life, and what that means for a free society." As an afterthought, she pulled out her class roster and squinted at it. "And ... Karla and ... Kurt? Congratulations, you're going to be my teaching assistants. If you strongly object to the idea, see me after class to lodge a complaint."

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"Everything has a price," Karla said promptly. "And some crimes are so horrible that the price is death." She paused for a moment and then added, "Of course, I'm arguing it from a different emotional position. In my world, killing is almost...institutionalized? So it doesn't have the same emotional weight to it for me."

She chewed on her lip, deep in thought. "That doesn't mean I don't find the thought of it disturbing, mind. There is merit for debate. Especially when I'll be the one making that decision soon."

Edited 2010-01-12 19:48 (UTC)

"The point to bear in mind is that everyone pays that price," Alex said. "If you let dangerous criminals live, and they kill more, those deaths are on your conscience. If you take the lives of criminals, then you run the risk of executing the innocent. Either way, it's going to get messy. Those are going to be decisions you'll have to make yourself, if you're going to be the one running the show. It's a matter of what you can live with."

"In my world, the question isn't really about letting dangerous murderers live," Karla said quietly. "While we have no laws against murder, each person knows that they're literally taking their life in their own hands as soon as they raise those hands against another. It can be taken by anyone who has a right to call in the debt that the was incurred by the taking of the life. As a Queen, my right to that debt outweighs any other claimants--thus ending the spectre of a blood feud. As a system, it works well...so long as the Queen in question actually cares about justice and the well-being of her people."

"And so long as the Queen is free from bias," Alex said. "Everyone has some. Is there any sort of council that advises her? Can overrule her, if necessary?"

"She has her First Circle," Karla said, nodding, "and it's filled with people she trusts. While they can't overrule her, there's the understanding that if the majority of males in her First Circle oppose an action and she takes it anyway, she is signaling that she no longer desires their counsel. They can resign their contracts and if she can't get enough other males to fill those contracts, she can no longer rule. And if she becomes too much a monster...other steps can be taken."

"Checks and balances," Alex nodded. "Open to corruption, if there are too many cronies to fill the spots in her circle, but not a bad system otherwise."

"If you know of a system of governance impervious to corruption," Karla said with a wry smile, "I would pay you for the knowledge."

Tucking her hair behind her ear, she added, "There are other, larger-scale checks and balances, too. A Village Queen is the most answerable to her people, as she will have the hardest time filling her Court if she loses members. Above her are District and Province Queens and the Territory Queen who rules them all. Each Queen is voted to her position by the group below her, so even if a Province Queen can find puppet males to join her Court, the Village and District Queens can vote someone else to take her place. And if she refuses...well, like I said, there are other steps that can be taken. Which is why we don't consider the murder of a Queen to automatically be treason."

"I've been meaning to ask, if you know how that got started," Dinah said, looking over at Karla. "Has it always been that way? Or was it something political, to stop blood feuds?"

"Which part?" Karla asked, confused. "How did what get started?"

"The paying a fine for causing a death," Dinah said, then frowned. "No, paying restitution to the family, instead of it being a lock-them-up matter."

"Huh? Oh." Karla smiled a little and shook her head. "When I say everything has a price, I'm not actually saying everything has a price tag. The debt that is incurred and the price I can extract usually has very little to do with money."

Karla was starting to get an inkling that if Dinah was confused about the way of life in Kaeleer, maybe she hadn't been doing such a stellar job of explaining things as she thought.

"It's another way of saying that every action you take has consequences and anyone affected by those consequences has a right to demand restitution for them, according to the laws of Protocol. It can be money, favors, information, imprisonment, physical harm, or even one's own life. It's just a reminder than anything you do incurs a personal cost."

"Ohhhhhh. Okay, that always made me wonder... so, the Queen sets the price?" Dinah asked, looking thoughtful. "And if the victim doesn't have a family, is it lower? Or, or, if it was someone else who committed a crime, hurt someone, is it less?"

Edited 2010-01-12 21:58 (UTC)

"Depends," Karla said, chewing on her bottom lip. "Protocol kind of outlines different, acceptable means of handling thing, so that people don't just go out and kill someone's whole family just because they stole a loaf of bread or something. The price is usually set by whichever person with a right to call in the debt gets there first--though if they overstep the rights to that price, they can be the ones who end up owing."

The problem was, Karla realized, that much her explanations didn't make sense without a real knowledge of how her society was set up. "A lot of it depends on the circumstances around the killing. The lack of a family may make it less likely for someone to step forward and demand that price be paid, but not necessarily. If someone viciously kills the old widow down the street, even though her family is gone, her friends and neighbors may still demand it. Or the local Village Queen might. Like I said...circumstances."

"Hunh." Dinah thought about that, considering, and said, "Your world's a lot more-- I'm not sure I mean personal. But more...one-on-one?" She blew out a breath, then said, "I mean, I have barely any shot of meeting the President of the United States. Maybe if I went into government, or I won some huge award, or did something really heroic." Maaaaybe. "But your world, anyone can go meet the Queens, not just the Village, but the Province and Region ones, right? So it's more-- hands-on." Less codified, more situational. That was part, Dinah realized, of what made Karla's world seem alien to her; nobody had run government like that in the U.S. in a couple centuries, at least. Maybe even longer. And it was hard for her to trust that kind of system.

"Exactly," Karla said, a bit relieved. "Rather than waiting for me to hear of something that happened in the mountains, the local Queens, Black Widows, and Warlord Princes will take care of it. And, yes, anyone can meet the Queens. Half the time, they're there, wandering around their respective villages and towns. Queens who wall themselves away from their people forget just why they were born to the caste to begin with. Though if we didn't have Craft, the system probably wouldn't work as well."

Dinah nodded slowly. "That makes communication easier, and finding out the truth easier-- I'm thinking of the telepathy as well as the Black Widows-- and there's more... well, if you're typical, there's more unilateral belief in the system. Just less extreme diversity, too, I think. I mean, do you have people in cities, who want to, oh, get rid of all magic, or not pay taxes because of some legal principle, or who think that aliens from the stars abduct them sometimes?"

Karla's view on legal stuff in her world might have been skewed because she was a Queen; she'd been genuinely shocked by the vision of the slums Dinah had shown her. But just the way she kept emphasizing how long their system had been in place without change kind of gave Dinah the idea that people hadn't been questioning it much before.

"What? No way!" Karla said, shaking her head vigorously. "Especially not getting rid of magic. Then we'd all be--we wouldn't be Blood." Self-correction counted for something, right? She'd known better than to just finish that sentence the way she'd started it.

"Even kindred have Protocol and castes the same way the human Blood do. Their societies aren't the same, of course, but there's a lot of overlap--far more overlap than would be possible by coincidence. And most of the kindred Territories had been closed to humans since the end of the Terreille-Kaeleeran war. There's something in the Craft, I think. Something we inherited from the dragons that makes our society function the way it does."

Dinah frowned, but thoughtfully, thinking of Ino. "Maybe. A lot of it. But not all of it. People don't work like that. Even if you guys have magic and insticts that tilt you one way and all." She'd picked up on that slip, yeah, but she knew how much Karla worked against the whole 'don't wanna be a landen' thing. "I mean, the landen don't have that. And they're part of your system, even if they're separate." And inequal. "But yeah, the magic makes a lot of stuff not-obvious to those of us outside it."

~~Ahem.~~

She was trying; she really, really was! And she was good when dealing with people. It was just when thinking in abstracts that she often forgot.

She was a fish dreaming of being a frog who wanted to be a lion! Or however that conversation had gone.

"I know it doesn't make sense to anyone here," Karla said, a little abashed. "Yours doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, either. I can see where it seems almost...fairer? than my system is. And in a lot of ways it is fairer, especially for the landens who are caught in a system where they have no say. But there are realities of my world that can't be covered by your laws. And so we work at cross-purposes, because you can't imagine a world with them and I can't imagine one without."

"Yup," Dinah said philosophically. "And our system has its inequities too. Like the thing with the death penalty. And I'll be your environment is in better shape, since the Queens would mostly sense if it was going bad. And we don't have all those extra non-human species to deal with either. We'd probably suck at that, given how metas get dealt with in my world as fairy-tales."

Don't forget the sheep! The sheep were important to that story too!

Edited 2010-01-13 18:53 (UTC)

They were very necessary! For strategic sheep purposes!

"Still, if there are ways I can improve things for all my people, I'm duty-bound to learn them," Karla said, all earnestness. "That's why I decided to take this class. I want to make things better for everyone."

Sometimes she was like an After-School Special or something.

Which worked, because sometimes Dinah acted like Cartoon Physics and Ethics applied to her.

"Sometimes I feel like we need a flowchart or a spreadsheet or something to keep track of all the differences, though."

"We should track the similarities," Karla said with a wry grin. "Save on paper."

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Concepts of Justice and The Law [Period 4, Class #2, Jan 12]

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