Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Equal justice under law

A juror in a recent rape case claimed she does not believe in DNA evidence.[i] Her claim is a tacit defiance that she does not believe in justice. Her presence on the jury seems a tacit statement by the court that the lawyers and judge do not believe in justice. Fortunately, in Louisiana, people who believe in justice are saved from dissident jurors, lawyers, and judges by Louisiana’s unique 10:2 unanimous-majority felony verdicts. Unanimous-majority verdicts provide impartiality or equal justice under law. But some fellow citizens do not believe in justice.

The question, “Do I believe in justice?” is typical of the questions an authentic human being may discover in order to develop individual integrity and thereafter collaborate for civic integrity. Considering a question like that may start with understanding the object: justice. But I do not trust the scholars on the topic. Justice conforms to the-objective-truth, not a human construct.

According to David Miller, “Justice,” 2017, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, justice addresses both civic and civil development of what I call “integrity”. The integrity applies both to the individual and to the institution. Miller surveys the body of scholarly thoughts on justice and related ideas without discovering the-objective-truth as the object of justice. Instead of an arbitrary, authoritarian definition like Justinian’s “the constant and perpetual will to render to each his due,” we offer “conformance with the-objective-truth”; that is, justice does not submit to human constructs.[ii] Under the-objective-truth, the individual may develop personal justice then collaborate to discover justice with other people. Collectively, individual happiness with civic integrity is possible even though not guaranteed. To put this another way, the fellow citizen who does not accept justice must nevertheless suffer the law so that civic integrity is possible. Suffrage comes voluntarily or not. Miller seeks a normative theory in each utilitarianism, contractarianism, and egalitarianism without satisfaction; fellow citizens may consider conformance to the-objective-truth.

Miller focuses on social institutions rather than the civic integrity that fellow humans need in order to provide mutual, comprehensive safety and security: impartiality. Miller’s article describes the variety of civilizations that have been devised to avoid collaboration for civic integrity, and is thus of limited value for our discussion. Nevertheless, examining “major conceptual contrasts: between conservative and ideal justice, between corrective and distributive justice, between procedural and substantive justice, and between comparative and non-comparative justice” is useful in the application of civic integrity.

In his coverage of contractarianism, Miller is dismissive, with ideas leading to “If we were to ask people, in the real world, what principles they would prefer to live under, they are likely to start from a position of quite radical disagreement, given their interests and their beliefs.” The deficiency Miller admitted arises because Miller does not consider the civic and civil agreement that is offered by the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. My paraphrase is: willing people in our states agree on the purpose and goals stated herein and therefore authorize a nation that we limit by the amendable provisions that follow in this constitution. In other words, the framers of the constitution knew they did not know the-objective-truth and therefore provided for discovery. Fellow citizens who by either default or intent reject the preamble’s agreement may find themselves subject to the law. For example, a rapist who does not believe DNA evidence may find himself convicted and sentenced on DNA forensics.

If political regimes promoted the preamble as an individual agreement to equality under the law, development of We the People of the United States might asymptotically approach 99% or the totality it seems to assume. In other words, most citizens might realize that individual safety and security is provided by personal, agreeable behavior, and the basis of agreement is the preamble. Likewise, statutory justice would be developed to comport with the preamble and the-objective-truth rather than oligarchic opinion. Meanwhile, both civic collaborators, those who trust-in and commit-to the preamble’s agreement, and dissidents including both criminals and errant politicians know each other as fellow citizens. Scholarly thinking pales before the-objective-truth, which can only be discovered, and therefore scholars avoid the-objective-truth like the plague.

Miller leaves it to us to find Pericles’ idea of equal justice under law,[iii] from which I derive the civic agreement based on the-objective-truth rather than dominant opinion. Given the knowledge that existed in the minds of the delegates to the 1787 constitutional convention in Philadelphia, I assert that the civic sentiment of individual equality under implied agreement with the purpose and goals stated in the preamble is the basis of U.S. statutory justice. I write implied agreement, because a person who is born in this country is a citizen yet has not the psychological authenticity to adopt a trust and commitment, as in the preamble’s purpose and goals. Under the agreement that is offered in the preamble, the civic people of the U.S. have overcome slavery, even though dissidents remain. 
  
Through the discipline of willing people, the consequences of slavery will eventually be overcome.

But civic integrity is the ultimate goal. The sooner most citizens trust-in and commit-to the preamble, the faster ultimate justice may emerge.[iv]

  
Copyright©2018 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. 



[ii] Miller cites U.S. Amendment XIV.1 to clarify “equal justice under law” by “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
[iii] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_justice_under_law.
[iv] In his first inaugural address, President Abraham Lincoln asked of the Confederate States of America, “Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?”

No comments:

Post a Comment

I want your opinion and intend to respond.