Too Much Weight is Attributed to Chance in the Field of Involuntary Manslaughter - Assignment Example

Running Head: Too Much Weight “Too Much Weight is Attributed to Chance in the Field of Involuntary Manslaughter.” Every action has a reaction and the intensity of the reaction is in proportion to the intensity of the action. Over this, no disagreement between the scientists and the spiritualists! Normally, these two contending and opposing forces remain at loggerheads over issues. Strange incidents happen at the most unsuspected moments. Indiscretion of seconds proves to be a matter of life long regret. Action of one individual causes anxiety, restlessness to friends, relatives and the society. Is voluntary manslaughter really voluntary? The spontaneous reaction of one individual, in that black moment, sets in motion many related to the cause of jurisprudence in a democratic set up i.e., Police Officers, Prosecutors, Defence Lawyers and Judges & of course, the Media. Then you see parties to the case hover in the courtroom. Arguments and counter arguments continue. Some one is desperately trying to suppress the truth, within the framework of law. You seek somehow, that precious freedom! Liberation from the clutches of law! In a wintry morning, we visited the ward of the combustible younger generation in a famous Jail, to see our friend, charged with manslaughter. The ward housed about 100 such inmates. Were they criminals? If you were not told in advance about the place of visit, you would guess that it was a college campus! Youngsters in colourful T-shirts, fashionable trousers, casuals and jackets! They practiced dances that day, as part of the reformation and rehabilitation program initiated by a Non-Governmental Organization. They put the steps again and again to achieve perfection, which they were bound to! For, the secret of success lies in unstoppable efforts! We were surprised to observe variety of growing talents! The boys were in the in the process of learning how to convert defeats into victories, so that they could utilize their stay in the Jail to fine-tune the personality! From one such cluster of youngsters, we heard a resolution, “After release from the prison, we shall form a dance-troupe.” While taking leave after an hour of observation of their activities, I told them, “My dear brothers, I am very glad to be with you here to watch your multitalented activities! Thanks and good wishes to you all! I would never like to see you here again!” Is too much weight attributed to chance in the field of involuntary manslaughter? Before the visit to the Jail, you would have remained on the other side of the fence, but not now. In most such cases, the offender needs to be pitied rather than condemned. The ill-boding incident happened within seconds and brought with it the never-ending suffering! The impossible to forget episode that would haunt you through out life! Chance is a chancy word. This word has the intrinsic strength to change the course of your life, for better or worse. The scholar who scored 60% marks in his graduation is eligible to become the District Collector! His friend who scored 59% must attain the satisfaction to remain as Head Clerk. So is the case with the manslaughter and chance! You did not have the slightest inkling that the juice that you offered to your friend with lots of affection was contaminated and resulted in his instant death, and you are behind the bars! You need to have the fine sense of anticipation. You need to act with diligence, to avoid deep troubles! Who doesn’t know such platitudes? Yet, accidents do happen and upon happening, you call them accidents! From the transcendental point of view, call them not accidents, just incidents. But justice is blind. The most spiritual judge has to give the judgment in accordance with the provisions of law, on the basis of evidence tendered before him. Most of the drunken drivers return home safely to enter into never-ending arguments with their spouses. But the one that knocks down a pedestrian is charged with manslaughter and has to go through the legal motions and serve his term in the prison. You may regret your momentary madness times without number, but how it will mitigate your exclusive suffering! DIVINITY vs. HUMANITY: The problem and field of involuntary manslaughter is like the battlefield. To win the war, the General and the Statesman have to view the overall situation from several angles. A muffled drum spoils the symphony of the best orchestra. Involuntary manslaughter has to be viewed from many angles. Viewed from the legal angle, Faith Healing is the greatest obstacle as well as the greatest culprit. With an individual of faith, all reasoning goes to the drain, all sensibility evaporates. You hate the shadow of the medical practitioner. You wait for the winged angels from the celestial world to mitigate the unbearable suffering of your two year old kid. Such is the itched impression of faith on your mind, you become stone-hearted. You are the wise, free parent but that entire freedom, means something if your child lives to see yet another day! Is faith that important to you that you deny the light of life to your dear offspring? How can your legal system give religious immunity to faith-healing parents? Is not your kindness in the garb of faith most cruel? Such extreme beliefs need to be tackled ruthlessly, legally! For the prosecutors, it is like the double edged sword! They need to care for parent’s freedom and the children must be protected from the cruel mess of faith. The lisping child that does not know how to pronounce the words like religion and faith, must be operated upon by a qualified surgeon for its bulging tumour! It is the duty of the State and the Judiciary, faith or no faith, religion or no religion! Review of the laws relating to involuntary manslaughter, thus became a simmering issue of top priority with the Press, legal luminaries and with the Powerful Chairs (politicians.) Your deliberate neglect can not be concealed or condoned by the civilized society. “In South Dakota, one woman led a grass-roots fight that resulted in the nation’s first law eliminating religious immunity for faith-healing parents.” “In Pennsylvania, despite laws that offer some immunities to faith-healing believers, prosecutors have won case after case against parents whose children died after being denied medical care. Prosecutors there frequently intervene in an attempt to save lives, as they did in the disturbing case of Patrick Foster,” according to Larabee (1998). Sometimes, human madness crosses all limits. Faith Assembly members made an unofficial verbal agreement among themselves to keep any type of sickness secret with a view to treat it as per the Faith encyclopaedia! Deaths did not matter for them, it was considered as the faith death, the divine ordained one! When the news of such deaths spread in the community by word of mouth, when the loving neighbours spoke, the stories began to hit the headlines in the local newspapers. Convictions were secured by the prosecutors for conspiracy and child neglect, both felonies! THE WORM TURNS The real danger to the society is not from the wrong-thinking people, but from those right-thinking people, who act and support the wrong ways! All types of involuntary manslaughters can not be put under one roof and even punishment meted out to them. The hit and run accident by an individual that resulted in the death of the anonymous, can not be put on par with the death of the child of a faith healer, after intense suffering to that tender soul, for good two years. With faith healers, the curtain of faith is so thick and dark; it seems that they have a piece of wooden block in place of the mind. You have lost the inner strength for critical examination. Such an individual should not be charged with involuntary manslaughter but voluntary manslaughter! You are killing your child everyday, rather every moment! You are digging its grave with the spade of faith! Except for the hard-core criminals (their number is very less), the first-time offender charged with involuntary manslaughter, is an intensely shattered personality within the four walls of the prison. If you come into regular contact with hard core criminals, and such opportunities are ample, it is disservice to the unfortunate you. For, your psyche needs constant care. In all probability, you would assimilate the wrong guidelines, for your future life, once released from the prison. You have to start and rebuild life from the scratch, that too amidst the society that is not likely to assimilate you in the mainstream of life easily and willingly. Whether guilty or not guilty, the prison-stamp shall remain forever on your forehead. How to obliterate it? The Law Commission (LAW COM No 237) Legislating the Criminal Code INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER Item 11 of the Sixth Programme of Law Reform: Criminal Law INTRODUCTION 1.1 This report is concerned with the criminal liability of those who kill when they do not intend to cause death or serious injury. There are two conflicting schools of thought about the way in which the law should deal with such people. Some argue that society should always punish a person who causes terrible consequences to occur. Professor Hart puts the opposite view in these terms: All civilised penal systems make liability to punishment for at any rate serious crime dependent not merely on the fact that the person to be punished has done the outward act of a crime, but on his having done it in a certain state or frame of mind or will. So, the frame of mind is significant under the law. This leaves ample scope for arguments and counter arguments and the judiciary has to take the legal view, of a situation which is not justice- friendly. What provoked the killer? Was he aware of the consequences of his action? Whether the unintentional killing is blameworthy or not? The most crucial part of the whole episode is the dilemma of the judge while pronouncing the sentence The study, the painstaking research, the scholarly approach, the human concern in consistent with the legal principles—all these could not break much ice to secure then type of justice for which the society at large was waiting for. The Law Commission 2006 (Law Com No.304) was the outcome of the intense necessity for Law Reforms on Homicide. It was laid before Parliament by the Secretary of State of Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor pursuant to section 3(2) of the Law Commissions Act 1965. The modern materialistic civilization has opened up new avenues in the field of involuntary manslaughter, sadly though. Just peruse the listing of the various types of homicides of the era, the judges will be called upon to decide. Felony Murder, Serial Killer, Human Sacrifice, Lynching, Lust Murder, Proxy Murder, Ritual Murder, Honour killing, vehicular homicide, negligent homicide, child murder, mass murder etc. The concerns before the Law Commission 2006, more or less the same as that of 1996. The punishment needs to match the gravity of the crime - this is the crucial element in the theory of retribution. The question then, is how to measure the depth of the crime? No accurate answer can be provided to this question. As many involuntary manslaughters, so many minds! What was transpiring in the mind of the offender, when the crime was committed? This is the crucial question! The laws of the land should be such that they should not promote involuntary manslaughter. The main culprit in this area is the faith healer again! The Director of public prosecutions, Ken Mac Donald QC, has said that law should be changed to allow for various degrees of murder. “There should be degrees of homicide, not just murder or manslaughter, but three or four degrees…if we are talking about a serious homicide, killing with an intention to kill, that should attract a mandatory life sentence,” Mr. Mac Donald told The Times, according to Slapper (2006). Elaborating the involuntary manslaughter issue, Slapper (2006) writes, “The Law Commission’s proposal to reclassify homicide offences is sensibly conceived, cogently made and based on a substantial body of evidence. A society should be as rational and scientific as possible in its law of homicide. In fact, a society’s degree of civilization and sophistication can be judged by the quality of is murder laws. First, people who want to commit murder do not make up their minds whether to proceed or not by first going to an official website or booklet.” CASE LAWS: 1.On February 20, 2003 100 people perished in a night club fire, in West Warwick, Rhode Island.(article by Marilyn A.Dyrud) 2.Federal Judge Richard P.Matsch has ruled that all jurors in Okhama City bombing trial of Terry L Nichols must be willing to consider sentencing him to death if they convict him.(article by J.O.Thomas) THE FIELD OF INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER IS NOT LEVEL IN ALL CASES: Not all involuntary manslaughters are committed in the mind first. Accidents for example! And for those offences committed in the mind first, you do not know that you are thick in the process of committing manslaughter. Faith death is the case in point. Whether the victim’s death is intended or not, is the issue to be decided and punishment meted out accordingly. The Law Commission needs to do lots of exercises for detailed classification of involuntary manslaughter and the element of chance. As for faith healing, scientific approach seems to be the only answer. The mushroom growth of faith healers needs to be curbed. It has assumed the scale of a fast-growing industry. Idiotic ideas should not be protected in the cushion of freedom. That which is not practical, can not be spiritual either. Genuine spirituality is not chance or hypothesis. It stands the test of proof. Faith-healing has become an industry for exploitation of the gullible. The wise saying goes, “To err is human, to pardon is divine.” Why then the hesitation to give the second chance to an individual charged with involuntary manslaughter? You had your worst period in life, you underwent the prison term as per the demands of the laws of the land. You have to live with the permanent load of repentance throughout your life, because the dead victim is not going to resurrect from the grave. Understand this position, give some love and care! When you say ‘Hallow’ to him, may you emit warm vibrations to protect his psyche from further suffering and damage! Here is your weighty chance to help him recoup the original mental strength and encourage him to play the normal games in the level field of life! References Larabee, Mark (1998, November 28). The battle over faith healing. The Oregonian. Slapper, Gary (December 30, 2006). A society can be judged by its murder laws. Retrieved December 31, 2006, from www.politics.co.uk. The Law Commission Report 1996 The Law Commission Report 2006 Marilyn A Dyrud. Article by Marilyn A.Dyrud. Commnication Department, Oregon Institute of Technology. J.O.Thomas,(January 1,2007) Bomb Trial. Lawyers Focus on Death Penalty. The New York Times, Electronic Edition. Read More