Bentham's Claim and Proposal

According to Bentham’s claim regarding “a case unmeet for punishment,” ultimately I believe that the case of Dudley and Stephens does fit the criteria.  First, Bentham considers whether a case is groundless, or there is not a harmful action to prevent.  In the case of Dudley and Stephens, while they murdered Parker and resorted to cannibalism, two illegal actions, without Parker’s consent, their actions were out of desperation.  I do not think that their actions were intended to be evil, and because of this punishment would be groundless.  Considering the second qualification, when a punishment would be ineffective, the Dudley and Stephens case also fits.  The men were starving and would have most likely died within the next few days if they had not eaten.  Therefore, they sacrificed the man they believed to be dying the fastest, in order to keep three alive.  Without killing Parker, four men would have most likely died, and as I said before, I don’t think the actions had evil intent, so they probably weren’t planning to kill again.  Therefore, any punishment would be ineffective in preventing this act or another harmful act.  In regard to the qualification that it would be unprofitable, sentencing the men to death would cause more harm than good and sacrificing Parker to save their lives would be a complete waste.  The case of Dudley and Stephens also fits the final criteria, that punishment is needless.  The men were probably not planning on committing murder or cannibalism in the future because their actions were out of desperation.  Therefore, punishment would not be preventing nor correcting future actions.

I believe that Stephens and Dudley should not be punished.  The men acted out of desperation, with good intentions.  While they didn’t draw straws and may not have been totally just in their methods, they did what they had to to stay alive.  They did not have evil intentions and acted in a sensible way, killing the weakest man.  While their actions were wrong, the men were not considering this at the time.  They simply wanted to stay alive.  And according to Bentham’s criteria, punishment would not prevent or correct any future instances of this kind.  And for these reasons, I do believe Bentham’s claims regarding punishment are just a good way to determine whether punishment is needed or fitting.

For my final paper I would like to examine the supposed CSI Effect.  This concept regarding the influence of crime shows and court shows, like CSI, on actual juries and court cases, has been debated and researched a lot in recent years.  I would like to look into studies that have been done, and discuss the arguments about whether this theory exists or not.  With this, I will compare what the public generally believes about the courtroom (mostly through interviews during jury selection) and what the actual courtroom is like.  Through this I will explore the media’s impact on juries how the general public perceive the justice system and discuss the different opinions of the CSI Effect.