#Wanting an eye for an eye trial

But what if there were a Sixth Amendment subsection which read, “Notwithstanding all the rights just enumerated in favor of the accused, crime victims also have the right to confront witnesses, to participate in trial proceedings, to have their own counsel representing them at criminal trials, to participate in both the guilt and sentencing phases of criminal trials, and to exercise a victim veto.” You want to truly put an end to vigilante justice? The above language would probably go a long way toward accomplishing it. No such reciprocal amendment protects victims, and any such amendment might conflict to some degree with those other three. The Fourth, Fifth, and, most especially, Sixth Amendments are completely designed to protect the accused. Our Bill of Rights is set up to address the needs of the accused, but we’ve completely renounced any obligation to worry about victims’ rights. Would you amend the Constitution to protect victims’ rights as well? That might not be consistent with provisions in the Bill of Rights that protect the accused, like the Sixth Amendment’s requirement that a jury be impartial, and that a defendant be allowed to cross-examine anyone who testifies against him. There’s something very powerful in standing before your community and speaking to your loss. What I’m talking about is a much more tearful expression of justice. It gives people an opportunity to express their grief, their loss, to speak to their pain. It’s not as clipped and canned and sanitized. Be a face we can see!Ī Thane Rosenbaum courtroom is a much messier courtroom-it’s emotionally open. It’s not as if they aren’t a part of the process, it’s just that we don’t let them speak to the jury, and they become voiceless. And we already do engage victims as witnesses in the guilt phase. The burden is still on the state and the victim to get the right person. Why isn’t it enough to give victims or their families a chance to speak before a convicted criminal is sentenced, as we sometimes do today? Doesn’t including them in the part of the trial meant to determine guilt risk prejudicing the jury against a defendant who is presumed innocent? I can’t possibly go home and think this is appropriate,” and prevent the bargain from taking place. I also raise the possibility of a victim veto, where if the state enters into a plea bargain that is insufficient in the mind of the victim or the victim’s family, they can say, “Judge, I can’t live with that. Victims should be participating in the prosecution, they should be able to speak-and not just at the sentencing hearing, they should speak during the part of the trial that deals with guilt itself. Victims should be part of the suit, rather than calling it People vs. And it doesn’t let them have the necessary biological, psychological and moral imperative of an emotional release. You are merely a witness on behalf of the state.” It doesn’t allow victims to speak honestly about the harms committed against them. In the United States, our legal system says, “Don’t take anything personally. Your book focuses mainly on changing our legal system, and you write that courts need to provide “permissible, legal pathways” for vengeance. But I think a blood feud is different from vengeance, because vengeance by definition is proportionate.

#Wanting an eye for an eye how to

There’s a fear of revenge run amok, like when we hear of the Hatfields and the McCoys, where there’s been so much tit for tat and doubling down on tit for tat that nobody knows how to stop it. If revenge is natural and right, how did we get to the point where society considers it barbaric and primitive? Criminals and wrongdoers should be made to pay back what is owed. But there is no justice unless people feel avenged.

We’ve been taught that vengeance is an artifact of our primitive past. It’s the moral outrage that comes when people feel they can get away with something. To me, there’s a greater moral outrage in not taking an eye for an eye, or in taking less than an eye for an eye. Using examples from history, mythology, popular culture and recent events-such as the widely-celebrated killing of Osama bin Laden-Rosenbaum asks us to “give revenge a chance.”ĭoesn’t an eye for an eye leave the whole world blind? Won’t we have a more peaceful society if we abstain from seeking vengeance? In fact, he says, we’d all be better off if society makes a place for revenge in our legal system, accepting it as an integral part of justice. But far from condemning vengeance as something we must learn to overcome, Fordham University law professor Thane Rosenbaum argues in his radical new book, Payback: The Case for Revenge, that the desire to get even is an indelible part of our nature, and that it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Most of us are taught from a young age that revenge is wrong, and it’s better to turn the other cheek.