Episode Questions- Group Blog

Kaia Sawyer-DeForest, Alyssa Rabon, Nicole Clements

 

In your opinion, was justice done?

            Yes. Nothing the man did was done when he was in his right mind. He was not consciously aware of his actions, asked the police officer to kill him, and stated that he wanted to die. He should not be punished for his actions, but rather sent to a mental institution where he can be in isolation and prevented from harming any more people. Convicting him of a crime would be unjust.

           

Should the killer be punished?

a)     Why or why not?

The killer should not be punished because he was not in his right mind when he committed the crime.  It was not his fault that he was in the mental state that he was in.   Due to unfortunate circumstances, he was in a position where he was not in control of his actions.  His punishment will be dealing with his illness the rest of his life.  He will have to live in the confinements of a mental institution and die slowly from his disease.  This is his punishment.

b)    How would at least 4 of our authors line up with or oppose your responses?

While Bentham would support the killer’s punishment because it is in the best interest of the community and does not fall under any of his criteria (groundless, inefficacious, too expensive/unprofitable, needless) that say punishment is needless, Primoratz would disagree with these views.  Primoratz is against the ideas of Bentham; he believes that utilitarianism does not pay attention to what the offender deserves, it only pays attention to what is best for the society.  Primoratz believes one must justify the punishment given to the offender.  Therefore, because he believes the offender should be punished to the degree he deserves, I think Primoratz would agree that the killer should be sentenced to the death penalty, although not for the same reasons as Bentham.  Primoratz would sentence him to the death penalty because that is what he deserves for his actions, not because it is best for society as a whole.  

Bentham states that one goal of punishment is to appease the victim or others who are angered by the offender’s conduct, however, no punishment ought to be inflicted merely to serve this purpose. I feel like this applies to this episode because it was clear that the people of New York were terrorized and might feel that punishment is necessary. In addition, that the end of the episode, the mother that lost her husband and son was obviously upset in the judges orders to have the man sent to a mental institution rather than stand trial. According to Bentham, though, the right thing has been done because you should not convict someone just to appease the public.

In his book, Scott Turow brought up the fact that a lot of psychologists hold the view that we need to focus on treating criminals versus just locking them away. By doing so, you can make them into contributing members of society once again and won’t waste public funds in keeping them incarcerated. I think it is clear that the killer in this episode needed psychiatric attention. Even though there is no hope of him being cured and returned to society, I think the point of view of the psychologists would agree with our stance that the right thing has been done.

      Richard Cohen, author of the article A Delusional System of Justice, would disagree with punishing the man by giving him the death penalty.  In his article, he describes Gregory Thompson as a “cold-blooded” killer who is being medicated every single day just so he can be deemed sane enough to stand trial.  This is similar to what the court decided in the episode because they said he would receive treatment until he was sane enough to go through trial (which he never will be).  This is almost punishment in and of itself because they will never get to live a life again outside of an insane asylum.  Cohen would say that we are not certain of the man’s mental state during the crimes and that we cannot be certain of his future actions.  Giving him the death penalty would go against the trend society has created in the last few years.

What would you do in a perfect world?

            In a perfect world, I believe that the killer could be treated and cured. He would then be fit to stand trial, but because of his illness, he would not be convicted and could return to being a contributing member of society. He might even start a campaign that would bring about stricter enforcement on life insurance companies.

            In a perfect world, we may be able to reason with the people who disagree with his sentence.  We would have the right words to convince them that even though he is not being sentenced to death, justice is being served.  We would assure them that things will be alright and that the situation was being handled in the right way.

What would you do in the real (vs. imperfect) world?

I think what has to be done in the real world is to send the man to a mental institution where he could not harm anybody else. It prevents others from being hurt, but also doesn’t punish him for his actions.  He would not be punished by jail time or death, but in a way, he would be punished by having to live the rest of his life with his illness and remembering what he did.