Ethical Assignment for Criminal Justice

Question

Ethical Challenges in Criminal Justice

A Writing Assignment

You are chief prosecutor in a rural county. A man takes his 6-year-old daughter to a dude ranch run by a trusted friend. When his daughter goes missing he frantically searches the property. Some kids say that they saw the friend take the girl into the woods. He follows and finds his “trusted” friend assaulting the young girl. In a rage, he picks up a piece of wood lying nearby and strikes the man repeatedly around the head and neck, resulting in his death.

Write an essay answering this question: Would it be legally ethical to dismiss the charges considering the circumstances or would you charge the dad with murder since he used a weapon to kill? As you formulate your answer, bear these facts in mind: First, the legal penalty for child abuse and rape cannot be death; that is, capital punishment is not an option for people who commit such crimes. On the other hand, some state self-defense laws permit people to use deadly force in to protect another person (see, for example, Section 9.32 of the Texas Penal Code here: http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm). Also answer this question: Is it ethical to allow citizens to take the law into their own hands, no matter what the provocation?

Answer 1

In this case, I would have to consider the extraordinary circumstances and the law. The anger of witnessing the friend assaulting his child and the instinct to protect his daughter may play a part in his reaction, but was such a reaction just? A person should never take the law into their own hands. There is no justification for it. However, was the father taking the law into his own hands, or was he protecting his child from a perpetrator? Was his use of force legally justified under the circumstances?

Laws differ from state to state. Most states allow the use of force to stop a crime being committed against another person. In the current case, the father was protecting his child from an immediate and grave threat to a defenseless child. Nonetheless, there must be a distinction between fear and stopping aggressive behavior and revenge-seeking anger after the crime has been stopped. This case does not provide enough information to determine whether the father acted in defense of his child or out of anger and a desire for revenge. Consideration should be given to whether or not the result of death was from a few strikes or many strikes. If the perpetrator died immediately after the first three strikes, or if the father stopped the commission of the crime but continued to strike the perpetrator seeking his death. I would not immediately seek to arrest the father until further investigation is conducted to determine whether the father used reasonable force.