Infant Carcasses and Judicial Precedent
Precedent is a required competent for our legal system to function. Unlike hyper-legal ramifications of a business-to-business contract, precedent is needed so law can control a society. Legal precedent is based on a concept termed: stare decisis, or stand by what was decided. How the court viewed the law before is how they will interpret the same law in the future. We have to use precedent in our legal system because we don’t want to, “âÂ?¦reinvent the wheel, every time we want to drive our car”. That’s definitely not saying that the judiciary is taking the easy way out, but rather asserting that law is a foundations of common principles and we cannot constantly re-evaluate the whole system with the millions of cases that are pending before the court. Precedent is entrenched into the minds that practice law and live by the law, simply put: The entire American population. Though being ascribed this notion does not, however, guarantee that it is used fairly, or more important to our discussion, justly.
The concept of precedent can be undermined when lawyers use it to produce synthetic results of case. Their use of both strict and loose precedent often forces a judge to make a political decision rather than a legal one. The judge’s personal political ideology is introduced into the public court. Recalling the essay by Llewellyn, he saw two views of precedent. The strict view, which forced one to keep within the specifics of case and the loose one, were the essence of the precedent is critical and the case details are not. The idea that both sides argue the same precedent differently de-values its foundation. I will attempt to use a hyper-legal, extreme example to illustrate this idea. I am not advocating either side, I am merely constructing an argument within theory.
A man and hospital are being sued by the state. The hospital would sell the man infant corpses that were unclaimed by the mothers or those fetuses that were not alive. He would purchase these to feed his pack of 200 guard dogs he kept to protect his palace. The state called upon the court to uphold the precedent that selling human beings is illegal as well as immoral. The defense agreed with that and reasoned dead human beings were outside the definition set by the court in the case the precedent was created in. In the previous case, the definition of human was: “A living, breathing Homo sapiens sapiens.” The defense further argued that since the first two conditions (living, breathing) must be met before the third is operational within the case, dead babies are outside of this precedent and the man is not guilty of anything except nourishing his dogs. The defense chose the word “nourishing”, because they called upon their own court precedent. In another previous case the court ruled: “Deliberate malnutrition of personally owned animals is illegal”. With no other food available, within the mans geographic region, he had no choice but to be guided by the courts principles and feed his dogs the illegal purchased infant carcasses. “Based on this courts precedent, how could this man ever be guilty?” asked the defense.
That question is as de-humanizing and repugnant as one can get, but that is not the point here, the question is this: “Can this be used as a valid legal argument?” Without discussing the minute details, yes. When following how the precedents were presented and argued, yes. Critical to the answer is examining how the defense used precedent to create this synthetic, horrible world of law. They strictly used the same decision the state is using and grossly (no pun intended) used a loose version of another one. It is within these quandaries of law that human morals and attitudes can become second choice to the logically, rigid, and ultimately legal structure that has precedent within it’s roots.
When precedent is used as a legal tool needed to render judgment it becomes de-valued. Precedent is more important and cannot be compared with legal weapons such as physical evidence and eyewitnesses. The power held within precedent is easily picked up and argued to render an outcome. It must not be brought down to this level. When this happens its usefulness is traded off for a politically based verdict, or opinion of the court. How can a judge produce a verdict, for the case above, if he or she reasoned off of precedent based arguments alone? Simply answered: A disaster. Political pressure from all sides would force the judge not to make a purely legal decision, but rather force personal views into the opinion resulting in a political statement. The judge’s particular persuasion on legal issues is brought into the court and can influence decisions. The court, on a daily basis, argues from not a legal base, but rather a political one. What would those affected by court policy prefer? Who is affected by court policy: The entire American population. They would probably not choose the cold, legal view of the case, or world for that matter. Do the American people want to live in a strictly legal world; were the court runs their life? I’d think not.
Precedent is needed for law to work. Precedent is mixed with political issues within court cases. The public rejects harsh legal outlook on life, so they prefer politically based decisions. Precedent is a politically perpetual machine.
