Rethinking Justice: The Moral Imperative of Victim Rights
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Plea bargains, with their bargain-basement rationales, epitomize the degree to which our legal system has too little respect for victims and even less regard for the moral imperative that justice must be done. What is paramount under the talionic principle seems to be optional under our laws. A justice system that recognized the duty it owed to victims would not rely so heavily on this method of resolution, which casually distorts the truth and trivializes the remedy.
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By definition, plea bargains are breaches of the social contract, because they enable states to leave unfulfilled their obligation to punish on behalf of their citizens. These are the very same citizens who, through the force of law, have been deprived of their ancient right to personally enact revenge. The justice system can’t have it both ways: outlawing personal vengeance while at the same time devaluing legal punishment. The public places its faith in the state, but it is unworthy of that faith unless it can fully accept its role as proxy – the revenge denied to victims must be undertaken by the government, because states have assumed the task of punishment to be theirs alone. And yes, in cases of premeditated murder deemed “the worst of the worst’, a penalty of death is what the wrongdoer deserves, what the victim is owed, and what the state should not hesitate in carrying out.
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Other nations around the world allow for revenge – whether in the form of individual relief or under color of law. Of course, what many of these nations have in common is that they are located in regions of the world where law enforcement is otherwise weak, so the state deputizes its citizens to settle their own scores. And it works. And other nations, including Cambodia and Iran, better incorporate vengeance within their legal systems. (Iran’s and Cambodia’s human-rights records are a different matter entirely). There is a more honest and humane recognition of the personal investment that victims have in seeing justice done. Indeed, in some cases they become full participants. Instead of being shunted aside and marginalized, their need for vengeance is seen as natural and healthy rather than pathological and sickening.
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And in cases where the legal system fails to properly punish the wrongdoer, victims who choose to become avengers are treated as common criminals. They are punished with little appreciation for why they broke the law. It should never be forgotten, however, that avengers are not deliberate murderers. They are otherwise law-abiding citizens who came before the law in good faith expecting justice to be done. Instead they found themselves with no choice other than to eventually take justice into their own hands.
