In 1987, Judy Norman was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter for killing her husband, John Norman. Prior to her trial, Judy had been married to John for nearly 25 years. But, as legal scholar George Fletcher explains: “Beginning about five years after the wedding, [John] started drinking and while drunk assaulted [Judy], threw glasses and bottles at her, extinguished cigarettes on her body, and crushed food on her face…[H]e kept up these degrading practices for about 20 years—until [that] day in mid-June 1985 when she shot him in the back of the head [while he was asleep]” (1). I think we can all understand why Judy Norman did what she did. Yet, as Fletcher rightly observes, “…[H]owever tragically Judy Norman’s appeals to the authorities went unheeded, she could not put herself in the position of judge and executioner” (2). And that, in the end, is why a victim’s deliberate use of deadly force can never be a just response to repeated domestic violence—because only then can we preserve that vital institution which makes the achievement of justice possible in the first place: the rule of law.
Thus, the central value in this round must be justice—or giving each their due—and the two questions we must ask ourselves in thinking about which side best achieves it are: first, who best allows in principle for the achievement of justice by all individuals, and not just a select few and, second, who best allows in principle for the achievement of justice in the long term, and not just the short term. Accordingly, the only proper criterion by which the value of justice can be weighed is “the rule of law.” Professor Marci Hamilton aptly defines this concept as “…the ideal under which every citizen is governed by the same law, applied fairly and equally to all…and justice is administered blindly, in the sense that it never stoops to favoritism” (3). Clearly, justice can never be achieved without “the rule of law” insofar as it is “the rule of law” which ensures that each of us has an equal chance to air and right our grievances no matter who we are. As Professor Michael Mullane notes: “It is the rule of law that governs us, that protects each one of us when we stand alone against those who disagree with us, or fear us, or do not like us because we are different. It is the strongbox that keeps all our other values safe” (4).
Yet, when we declare that it is morally justifiable for victims of repeated domestic violence like Judy Norman to deliberately kill their abusers, we eviscerate “the rule of law.” This is because we allow these victims get away with murder—and it is murder that we are talking about here as the resolution’s use of the word “deliberate” makes clear. Indeed, by failing to hold these victims accountable for their actions merely because we sympathize with them, we effectively grant these victims “a license to kill” that serves to place them above the law—something which the value of justice, with its demand for the equal treatment of all individuals, cannot tolerate. And thus “the rule of law” is lost forever in principle when the resolution is affirmed, for how long can it be before the victims of repeated muggings or repeated schoolyard bullying demand the same right to kill their tormentors in the same way Judy Norman killed hers? As Professor Mullane furthers: “…The rule of law only exists because enough of us believe in it…The minute enough of us stop believing, stop insisting that the law protect us all, and that every single one of us is accountable to the law—in that moment, the rule of law will be gone” (5).
By negating the resolution, however, we repudiate the idea that victims like Judy Norman are above the law. We also ensure that the value of justice remains achievable in the long-term by preserving society from the ravages of revenge. Indeed, by allowing victims like Judy Norman to take the law into their own hands and kill their abusers, we only serve in principle to create a world in which these victims can also be “justifiably” killed by anyone they may have possibly wronged in the past. As social critic Rene Girard explains: “Vengeance professes to be an act of reprisal, and every reprisal calls for another reprisal….The multiplication of reprisals instantaneously puts the very existence of a society in jeopardy, and that is why it is universally proscribed” (6). And that is also why we must conclude—as a jury of Ms. Norman’s peers ultimately did—that “the rule of law” is supreme, no matter how badly one has suffered at the hands of another.
Endnotes:
1. George P. Fletcher (Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence, Columbia Law School). With Justice for Some: Victim’s Rights in Criminal Trials. Reading MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995. [p. 133]
2. George P. Fletcher (Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence, Columbia Law School). With Justice for Some: Victim’s Rights in Criminal Trials. Reading MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995. [p. 134]
3. Marci Hamilton (Professor of Public Law, Cardozo School of Law—Yeshiva University). “The Rule of Law: Even As We Try to Export the Ideal of Justice By Law, Not Whim, Some in America Resist That Very Ideal.” The Writ @ FindLaw.Com. Updated 23 Oct. 2003. Accessed 8 Dec. 2006. Online @ writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20031023.html
4. Michael Mullane (Professor of Law, University of Arkansas Law School). “The Rule of Law.” National Public Radio (NPR). Updated 5 June 2006. Accessed 8 December 2006. Online @ www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5442573
5. Michael Mullane (Professor of Law, University of Arkansas Law School). “The Rule of Law.” National Public Radio (NPR). Updated 5 June 2006. Accessed 8 December 2006. Online @ www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5442573
6. Rene Girard (Emeritus Professor of French Language, Literature, & Civilization, Stanford Univ.). Violence and the Sacred. Translated by Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. [p. 14-15]
