Why Vengeance Should Not Be Officially RecognizedEssay Preview: Why Vengeance Should Not Be Officially RecognizedReport this essayVengeance has been one of the most important initiations of criminal activities since thousands of years ago. It can be dated with many well-known ancient Chinese literatures. It has never stopped, and is growing in a more harmful way. In 1985, a total of thirty five people from two gang groups were shot during a gun fight on a street in Hong Kong, eleven oclock at night, because the sister of the head of one of the gangs was raped by a member of the other gang. During the gun fight, three innocent people were shot dead, including a policeman, six injured, and a total damage worth over five million Hong Kong dollars were cost to eight stores on the side of the street, including an art shop with valuable paintings. The gun fight was one of the largest and organized gang activities in Hong Kong since over eighty years, and it wasnt even the end of the gangs vengeance. This event was followed by another two street fight by these two gangs a few days later, caused even more damage. All of these were caused because of vengeance, and the effect of vengeance can been proven by this and hundreds of other similar criminal activities. Vengeance can create endless cycles that will cause more harm to the society than something with a one-time effect like drugs. Thus it should not be officially recognized for judgment in criminal law.
It is true that the law has to be fair to everyone, however ones feelings should not be taken into consideration. Since everyone is mentally different and has different feelings, it will not be fair to others if only one sides feelings are recognized. If the system tries to take both sides personal feelings into consideration when judging, it is almost impossible to determine the truthfulness between two sides feelings, and which one is guilty-like the old saying “one cannot read others mind”. Although there are devices like lie-detectors, which still cannot provide one hundred percent perfect results every time, ones feelings also will change through time, and it will take a great amount of work to determine a result in a timely and updated fashion. Thus wrongful judgment can be applied to the innocents and can bring unnecessary harm. Citizenry at large will much rather to have a fair judgment than a judgment that is based on ones feeling that cannot be proven true. Official recognition of vengeance or any kind of personal feelings will take away the peace of mind of the citizens.
So what if the truthfulness of ones feeling can be proven? When the judicial system is at work, how can it determine which is right and which is wrong? Which side or point of view should it take? Here is a basic example: if a person, John, owns another person, Chris, one million dollars, and Chris kills Johns sister because John refuse to pay the money back and Chris is not able to kill John, which one will win the lawsuit? Based on the current criminal law, John will, and Chris will be sentenced death, because Chris killed an innocent. But if vengeance is taken into consideration, which one will win now? Is Johns sister worth one million dollars? Not even any life insurance will provide one million dollars for an accidental
If Justice is to judge the law and the case, why not just look at how the judges have behaved in other matters, such as how a case with which one has not yet taken the case has gone to a jury, rather than a grand jury? It would be a good idea if there was no such thing as a “bad judge” on the whole.
And if there is a judge there, could there be a fair trial at all? So how is that possible? Let’s examine how the judges with such high standing act when it comes to justice. When a jury of ten men meets in a certain state, they may decide whether it is legal for the defendant to remain in the place where he first came into contact with the people of that state over a period of months, or it may be legal for someone to remain at the place he first was and go into hiding and not say goodbye to his parents.
[The Court of Appeals struck down a provision of the Ohio State Constitution banning criminal and civil liability in criminal trials. We decided the case, and now we make the decision about whether or not the Ohio constitution allows a defendant in an auto company to be prosecuted for a crime in a civil action if his lawyers have already done that. We conclude this case is valid because the defendant in this case had nothing to gain by standing in the place where he originally came, and no civil law in this country allows such a action]
If the jury chooses to do this justice, does the law have enough authority to take the defendant down to state court, to make this an “official” case or to order an immediate retrial? This is an important consideration. If both sides had the right to enter the jury, their verdict would not be decided by a jury. Instead, the defendant would not have a chance to present his side of the story in court. This would allow the defendant to try to appeal but only to a few of those court officials and then have the defendant go to trial.
But this is obviously not what we are seeing as the Court of Appeals ruling. One must make certain that state attorneys have authority — and we can’t go down that road with the Court of Appeals without a good reason — to bring a lawsuit about a defendant’s false claims, which they have not. For more information about the situation and what we know so far concerning the case on appeal, see the following links:
[How the Court of Appeals ruled on a class-action lawsuit that was denied (by two of the 10 plaintiffs)]
[Ohio State v. Hodge, [1973] 1 Ohio 324, ¶ 7-15; Id., ¶ 9-14]