fandomhigh | Concepts of Justice and The Law [Period 4, Class #3, Jan 19]

"This week," Alex said, "we're going to be discussing something known as mens rea. In Latin, the full expression is actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea -- the act does not make one guilty unless the mind is also guilty. In other words, we're going to talk about a specific kind of intent."

This was more a procedural issue than last week's death penalty discussion, but Alex hoped the students would listen further than 'oh, no, Latin' and realize the issue was actually fairly intriguing. At least, if you were a law geek, anyway.

"What does it mean to have a guilty mind?" Alex lifted her shoulders. "In most cases, it means the ability to form the intent to commit those actions. If a toddler is playing with a loaded gun, and shoots a sibling, the situation is a grim tragedy. If a sixteen-year-old does the same thing, it would still be a tragedy, but many would consider the teenager old enough to be held accountable. The teenager should know that guns are dangerous, while the toddler would not comprehend that.

"Age isn't the only qualifier. A man in the grip of paranoid schizophrenic delusions shoots his neighbor because he thinks his neighbor is an alien sent to kill him. Should he be held accountable? Plenty would say no. What if the man had previously undergone treatment for schizophrenia, but elected to stop taking his medication? It could be assumed then that his lucid self knew the risks and chose to accept them. The matter becomes murkier if the schizophrenic was never previously violent, and had no reason to think he would be this time.

"Mental capability can also refer to someone with certain disabilities. A severely retarded woman playing with a loaded gun may not be any more capable of understanding the possible consequences than the toddler above. So what about someone mildly retarded? What about a person who is less intelligent than the average? If a man receives a head injury and loses the ability to control his impulses, then robs a liquor store at gunpoint, what sort of punishment should he receive?

"If a woman drives herself home from a bar, drunk, and runs over a pedestrian, few would argue that she should be found guilty of a crime. What if her drink was 'spiked,' and she did not know that she was intoxicated? What if she was drinking at home, but suddenly needed to drive a friend to the hospital? Her intentions matter.

"Mens rea, in its essence, is asking us who was able to form the intent to cause harm -- or chose to act in a way that showed a clear indifference to the result of those actions. So let's talk about intent."

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Ben shrugged. "Maybe it's just because no one has tried to prosecute it yet. Writing it off as 'Fandom weirdness' doesn't negate the consequences of your actions."

Dinah pulled up one leg, fidgeting and thinking. "So... Ooo. Yeah. I mean, what if you wanted to do those things, but it was just your inhibitions were gone? Crap, I'm trying to remember what's legal insanity... Understand the consequences, and understand it was wrong?" She looked thoughtful. "Having an uncontrollable impulse, or no inhibitions, isn't either. Hmm."

"Granddad's been killed on two different weekends," he said. "We didn't know it wouldn't stick. Could he try to bring charges against the Winchesters?"

Dinah's eyes blinked wide. "Wow. I don't know. I mean, you'd think yes, wouldn't you?" She tilted her head. "At least, if charges were brought while one of the Winchesters was still all crazy, and your grandpa was still dead." She sat there, feeling her brain try to sprain, then admitted, "I have no idea how it works once your grandfather is alive again."

"Attempted murder?" Ben said, smiling a little. "Since he got better?"

Dinah giggled. "Maybe? And then, I guess... I don't know, mitigating circumstance of temporary insanity?" She shook her head. "Maybe we're lucky there's no courthouse or judge on the island."

"But at the time they totally meant it," Ben pointed out. "I don't know if 'the spell wore off' is legally acceptable."

"I don't either. Not when it's the Island doing it." Dinah tilted her head, and frowned. "Different if it was someone else casting a spell or a potion or mind control whammy. Then you have an... intention to point to. With the island being weird, the intention's there, but it's all--" She made a couple hand gestures usually translated as "Ker-flooie."

Ben frowned. "But if it's a spell that went wrong, it's a different thing than one cast with malevolent intent, or one that is fine at home and would freak people out on the island." He shrugged. "Stuff Jedi do all the time at home shiver people out here."

Dinah blinked. "Like what?" Use big light swords?

"Granddad did twenty minutes on why the mind trick doesn't go over well here," Ben said with a shrug.

"What, messing with someone's head?" Dinah said, experiencing that sense of creep that Ben had talked about. "Yeah. Lots of reasons for that. And-- it's okay back home, for you guys?"

"Of course," Ben said, like that should be obvious. "We're Jedi. The mindtrick has stopped more negotiations than I can count from escalating into violence."

Dinah reminded herself not to be judgey, and asked, "Okay, I'm not clear on what, exactly, that is. The 'mind trick', I mean. Are you changing someone's mind? Or is it something else?"

"Depends on the situation," Ben said easily. "Making someone think they heard something they didn't, let us somewhere we're not supposed to be, release prisoners they shouldn't be holding anyway..."

"Ummm...." Okay, wielded by someone like Ben, that didn't sound terrible but Dinah could *really* see how it could be abused. Or Ben, if someone mislead him or lied to him, and it worked. Then something else occurred to her, and she asked, "Does it wear off?"

"Does what wear off?" Ben replied.

"The mind trick." She could see problems there if it did... and possible problems if it didn't, too, though. "I mean, if you change someone's perceptions, does it go back to what it was when you leave? Or does it, I dunno. Build up?"

Edited 2010-01-20 01:58 (UTC)

Ben shrugged. "They don't remember we did it, if that's what you mean."

Which wasn't entirely what she'd meant, but was also unsettling, along with Ben's matter-of-fact acceptance of the concept. Dinah was just about ready to let the whole thing go as way too disturbing. She did ask though, probably sounding a little plaintive, "Just in the line of duty, right?"

"Sure," Ben said with a nod.

It wasn't like he was never not being a Jedi.

Dinah relaxed again, and smiled, relieved. All her other ideas about the subject were way too contradictory and complicated to discuss right now, she thought. "Cool."

Concepts of Justice and The Law [Period 4, Class #3, Jan 19]

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