Sunday, January 04, 2009
Sunday Reflection: The Law of Medes and Persians
My Sunday School class has been studying the Book of Daniel, and today I slowed us down. We were steaming towards Daniel in the lions' den when I got hung up on the preceding passage (Dan. 6:10-18). There, some informants tell the King that Daniel is praying to God, which the King had outlawed previously. The King resists punishing Daniel (a palace favorite), but the informants insist that the King has no discretion "according to the law of the Medes and Persians" to do anything other than follow the edict and send Daniel to the lions. So, against his own desires, the King sends Daniel to the lions.
I love it when criminal law crops up in the Bible, and this was one of those times. The law barred individualized consideration of a defendant, and the law itself (barring prayer to God) was unjust. This is a familiar theme in criminal law-- the constant push and pull between fairness (treating all the same) and mercy. The law was fair, but not just or merciful.
Today, it is limits on individualized consideration combined with unjust laws that create some of the biggest moral problems in criminal law. You take mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines (limiting individual consideration) and layer them on top of a few unjust laws (ie, the crack-powder ratio in federal sentencing), and you have revived the very dilemma raised in the scriptures, promoted primarily by Christian legislators.
Comments:
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Is this your way of hinting a new book is coming? You have to do it, that one picture is perfect for an about the author section!
You should take that picture and send it to the judge you disagree with on the court of appeals with the caption, "I'm going to destroy you and the ratio!"
You should take that picture and send it to the judge you disagree with on the court of appeals with the caption, "I'm going to destroy you and the ratio!"
I just saw a segment on "60 Minutes" tonight about this prosecutor in Manhattan who is beginning to get convictions, and then sentences, of 15 - 25 years for people convicted of killing someone while driving drunk. She's trying them for a type of murder, not manslaughter or vehicular homicide or whatever it's usually called . . . so there is apparently now debate over whether these sentences are too harsh for the crime.
I tend to think it is too harsh . . . she was using the "deterrent" argument, and I'm dubious that argument works very well . .
I tend to think it is too harsh . . . she was using the "deterrent" argument, and I'm dubious that argument works very well . .
# posted by 
: 10:30 PM
: 10:30 PM
The problem isn't the religion (or lack thereof) of the legislators, but rather than naive idea that a strict, retributivist idea of "justice" is the cure for societal ills. Remember, these are likely the people that would in other respects praise "Sheriff Joe" Arpaio's draconian penal policies because they jive with the "intuitive" folk criminologist definition of punishment.
I'd suggest that they should all go read Foucault, but the last thing I want is for people to start thinking I'm some sort of French sympathizing terrorist.
I'd suggest that they should all go read Foucault, but the last thing I want is for people to start thinking I'm some sort of French sympathizing terrorist.
Hey I had to read Foucault at Beloit! Something about the medicalization of the social body.... blah blah blah..
It is rare that someone ever brings up a book or an author on this blog I am actually familiar with here, so I had to acknowledge this..
As for that 60 minutes thing, I saw that. I doubt charging drunk divers who kill people with first degree murder will be a deterrent, but I do think they deserve it. However there was something about the prosecutor, ms. Rice I think was her name that was a little bit scary. Seriously.
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It is rare that someone ever brings up a book or an author on this blog I am actually familiar with here, so I had to acknowledge this..
As for that 60 minutes thing, I saw that. I doubt charging drunk divers who kill people with first degree murder will be a deterrent, but I do think they deserve it. However there was something about the prosecutor, ms. Rice I think was her name that was a little bit scary. Seriously.
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