Legality Vs. Morality

Thane Rosenbaum, in his book The Myths of Moral Justice, touches upon the fact that our legal system frequently finds the right thing to do legally, but not always morally. I found this interesting because to the extent of my knowledge, our laws are written by people who are using their morality as a guide to their lawmaking. It is agitating, although understandable, how a legal system based on morals, does not always find the most moral solution.

"Courts of law are there to administer justice, to efficiently streamline cases, to ensure the availability of a forum that offers the chance at some relief. It's the possibility of justice that it guarantees, not the quality of that justice, nor the certainty that, in the end, justice will make sense, feel right, and resolve matters in a way that leaves the parties better off and reconciled to move on with their lives" (Rosenbaum 16). This statement is painfully true, as well as captivating. There are so many cases in history in which, if the punishment was based on morals, justice would have been clearly served, but was not because of the restrictions inherent in human lawmaking. Rosenbaum implies with an utter truth, that lawyers are nothing more than professional "loophole" locaters and exploiters. There have been so many cases in which it has been obvious that the defendant is guilty of the crime with which they were charged, but because of some legal "loophole" they could not be prosecuted for it (i.e. illegal search, double jeopardy etc.)

In circumstances such as these it is hard to expect morality to prevail when the sentence, or "right thing to do", is inappropriate because the events within the courtroom have made it so. One argument could be that, morality is subjective, and if we let people do what they think is right all the time the world could very easily turn into chaos; clearly stated laws and sentences help to prevent this. There has to be some objective form of justice, I agree, because this allows the legal system to keep everyone on the same "playing field".

Rosenbaum really caught my attention when he implied that winning a competition and the American justice system are analogous. He really put my view of legal justice in perspective when he said "Winning, after all, is a contest of skill and luck, story-spinning and manipulation, and not a referendum on truth. Justice, as defined by a legal resolution, may be done, but sometimes not at all served. . ." (Rosenbaum 22). This shocked me because he is absolutely right. In a court case the accused and the victim never have a direct hand in working toward justice. The case is decided by whether or not the defense attorney or the representative of the state presents a more convincing case. In most cases (with the exception of murder trials) both the victim and defendant are questioned in front of a jury, but very seldom does the jury base their decision on whether or not the victim or the defendant told a better rendition of the story. This methodology can fail to serve justice because, lawyers dissociate the story from those involved, and they act as smoke screens to both what actually happened, and what is right and wrong. They do this by twisting facts about the story so it puts those they represent in a better light, and they manipulate the law and juries to increase the chances of an outcome in their favor. Even the jury selection process allows the defense and prosecution to choose people that would best suite their case (they go for the most sympathetic, even though juries are supposed to be unbiased). With all of the manipulation being done in and out of the court room, it could bring a case to the point where the entire jury can think a defendant is guilty as sin, but simply cannot convict because of the way the law has been written and interpreted.

This scares me a great deal. I have always thought that being put on trial for something I was not guilty of would work out because the "system" works. However, since the law is so easily manipulated, I have begun to wonder whether or not I am willing to rely on "the system" to protect me. The "system" relies on evidence and full knowledge of the story about the crime at hand. However, our legal system controls what evidence is permissible in a court room and how much of the story can be told. There are times when a defense attorney will object saying that certain evidence or testimony is inflammatory and a jury should never see it because it could cause them to lean toward the side of the state. What is really shocking to me is that in a court of law this is a reasonable thing to say. I wonder how is it possible that physical evidence that is true to the crime at hand is impermissible because it could sway a jury to rightfully convict a guilty man. The legal system could very well prevent the jury from reaching the correct decision as to guilt. This methodology, I'm sure, has put innocent men in prison as well as set guilty men free. Rosenbaum shows me this when he talks about the O.J. Simpson trial. "The O.J. Simpson trial was a horrifying example of this phenomenon [the legal system undermines its legitimacy as an arbiter of truth] for the Goldman and Brown families" (Rosenbaum 21). The evidence against O.J. Simpson was overwhelming, it is my fair guess that there was not a person in the room who thought he was innocent; his own lawyers did not put him on the stand to testify! The jury, however, was able to say that Simpson was not guilty.

If morality was more involved in the American court system and the interpretation of the law was a little looser I think the system would work much better. A more loose interpretation of the law would allow it to hold stronger against attorney manipulation because then a lawyer could not just utilize the wording in the law to manipulate it in a way that allows their client to be found not guilty. Also a more loose interpretation of the law would allow uncensored recounts of the crime and would allow evidence in that would give a jury the ability to use their morality to decide as to whether or not the defendant is guilty. Rosenbaum has shown me that even though the laws are drawn up based on the morality of legislators they are not enforced or interpreted with morality in mind, and this is where there is a great divide between the right thing to do legally and the right thing to do morally.

Works Cited

Rosenbaum, Thane. The Myth of Moral Justice. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.