10 October 20XX+1
My Dear Lucilius:
A saying that I do not think I ever recall being explicitly spelled out in any book but underlying so many of them that I read in history and philosophy is that you can tell the nature of a state or nation by its system of justice.
That is, if you can understand or even recall it.
The details of the immediate future were set out yesterday with relative ease. I asked for (may I say “decreed” now, as I am acting in a legal capacity) a day to review the structure that needed to be in place, then the trial would start the following day. By that time I would have figured out the nature of the trial.
The accused needed to be held until trial, of course. This in itself created a bit of a stir, as one sided wanted him clapped in handcuffs while the other wanted him free on promise to appear. I struck a compromise, having him stay – uncuffed in the now empty post office. It seems that Young Xerxes had arranged a guard of sorts by cleverly having one representative from each “side” be on watch together. Perhaps not ideal, but it was likely for a short time only.
Today, then, was the structuring of the trial.
It is an odd thing, Lucilius: in all of my books I have few on the former justice system as it existed a little over a year ago: a smattering of American history and one on state legislative procedures. The rest of my works which have any sort of relation to legal systems are the histories and speeches and writings of the Greco-Roman era – which while interesting, do not provide a great deal of idea of structure as the writers assumed that the readers knew the structure. Helpful I guess, although how to declaim in the Athenian Assembly was not really what I was hoping for.
Which leaves me to my memory, which seems to be a spotty guide at best.
There is no “corpus of law” here now, no decisions with precedent – the older records remain locked away in courthouses or on dead servers. Kentucky City, being the county seat and relatively close, could be a touch point for law – if I could get there and back and again and know exactly what I was looking for in the law books.
At best I can come up with a structure of the accuser and the accused, an advocate for each, the calling of witnesses, a bailiff or two to manage the court, and a note taker. I had Young Xerxes carry word to each side of their need for an advocate. The bailiffs...I asked Young Xerxes to find one or two of the men that had gone to McAdams. There was no sense in him carrying the whole load.
Beyond that basic structure, Lucilius, I only trust to common sense, common decency, and what I believe to be the point of The Great Lawgiver in His book.
None of this comforts me that right decision will be reached – but at least, perhaps, we can avoid some level of vigilante justice borne of passion and anger and no other alternative.
Your Obedient Servant, Seneca
First time commenter here but I've been a reader for a couple of years. Your story here makes it clear that in this little society which has been reduced to its core a killing wounds the entire people. It made me think that in our world the social wounds of violence are no less real, just diffuse and hidden.
ReplyDeleteKevin - Thank you so much for your willingness to read and making a comment!
DeleteI had not even intentionally thought of what you wrote, but as I read it I realized it underlines a great deal of what I believe.
We have (as a species) almost always had violence as daily part of our lives. The difference for us now (or at least in the "Modern World") is that our violence is often just entertainment in books or movies or games. We have lost the impact that violence creates - earlier times may have been harder that way, but at least they saw the impacts of that violence. We watch people die on the screen and cheer or even laugh.
Every death that we read of or hear about, even the ones that are very public, do impact a small community - in this case of family and friends and coworkers and social groups, but there is an impact long after the fanfare has died. I have not experienced it, but I can only imagine the impact that a violent death would have.
In other words, violence is impacting small communities all the time. It is just that most of us are never exposed to it.
One positive result is that the rush to instant justice was negated, time for the blood thirst to abate a bit. Seneca might try to visit that county seat, if it's not too dangerous, to look for written tomes holding info that the survivors might need in the future. Seneca has a big load to carry right now though with the "trial" coming up.
ReplyDeleteNylon12, the instant rush was negated. In my book, that is the biggest "win" here. If you can stop the rush of passion, you have already started down a different road.
DeleteMany bad decisions that could not be undone have arisen from such things.
In theory (to traveling) yes, although I do wonder if given the needs it will happen. Perhaps a least a record can be placed there.
I can't resist, but had the world not fallen apart, there would have been an excellent chance that the killer would have been pardoned by one of the two recent presidents.
ReplyDeleteThere has been rather a rash of such things of late.
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