The courts should punish the guilty according to the nature of the crime.

The courts should punish the guilty according to the nature of the crime.

12:50-1:20

From the beginnings of human civilization, there has been the eternal question of how to handle or punish criminals accordingly? In Ancient Mesopotamia, there were many strict rules in place to maintain order in society and to those who broke the laws would be punished according to the Code of Hammurabi. This Code of Hammurabi enforced the idea of eye for an eye law that implied that a crime should be punished with severing a body part or confiscating a possession that was responsible for the crime. However, laws such as this are only practical in today’s drastically changing society for certain situations but for other cases another approach must be taken.

First consider when courts must consider the nature of the crime and punish the guilty accordingly. In the days after the most horrific terrorist attack on American soil, 9-11, many people were angered and frustrated to bring the terrorists responsible for killing innocent family members and citizens to justice. Although, many terrorists perished in the attacks, other officials from Al Qaeda and the Taliban were brought to justice for direct involvement with the crime. For example, Osama Bin Laden was recently killed in Pakistan during an army raid for finding insurgents and top Al Qaeda criminals. The death and murder of Osama Bin Laden was considered a way to bring justice to those who perished on 9-11. Another example, is the actions of Saddam Hussein and Chemical Ali in Iraq. Both men were accused by an international court of law and the United States of committing genocide of thousands of Kurds and minorities in Iraq over the past few decades. Both Chemical Ali and Saddam Hussein were brought to justice and sentenced to death for their crime after being informed of their accusations. Likewise, in 1993 Timothy McVeigh, was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombings and pleaded guilty to multiple counts of manslaughter thus was sentenced to death by lethal injection. All these example show that a crime must be punished without exception due to the cold nature of the criminals.

On the other hand, consider when courts must consider the nature of the crime as well as the circumstances that led to the crime to punish the guilty. In recent decades, the US court system has offered a chance for criminals to seek the insanity plea as a way to admit their crime. This involves cases where a defendant is deemed to be clinically insane and not appreciate or understand the wrongness and nature of his crime. While the court may deem a defendant "not guilty" due to his mental condition, the dangerous person will be confined to a psychiatric hospital for an indefinite period of time. For example, in the San Francisco bridge case that involved the drowning of 3 boys by Lashuan Harris who admitted to tossing her sons down the Golden Gate Bridge but had not mental recall of doing so. She was defended by an attorney that she was not clinically sane at the crime scene. She was issued a lighter sentence due to this plea and was issued a mandatory psychiatric evaluation for mental illness. Harris was not allowed to be out in public and not released from the psychiatric treatment unless she could prove that she is mentally sane. As a result, this shows that circumstances were taken into consideration before punishment.

All in all, it is circumstantial to punish the guilty depending on the nature of the crime. If a criminal intentionally commits a crime and knows it is wrong then they have no excuse and must be punished accordingly. However, if a person who is insane, such as Harris must be given a second chance to correct her actions to be a contributor to society. In a system that offers innocent before proven guilty, multiple view points must be considered.