Some questions and thoughts for everyone.
“Daniel” is about the generational consequences of legal decisions, how the law, and its failings, can affect not just the parties to the action, but also their children, and future generations. The fictional children of the Rosenbergs ended up being haunted by their parents’ execution, and were essentially imprisoned by it. Any comments?
Is it frightening to think that the politics of the times can dictate a legal result regardless of what the law actually requires? Or should we want our laws to be placed on hiatus, or be less restrictive, during times of great upheaval and crisis?
In “Angels in America,” when Belize says that “Forgiveness may be where love and justice finally meet,” what does he mean?
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Says:
I believe it means that forgiveness combines justice and love by first acknowledging that there was some harmful action that necessitates a response, be it forgiveness or punishment, and then the decision to move past it and overlook it.
January 30th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Says:
Its both frightening and desirable that the politics of the times can dictate a legal result, reaching far beyond the letter of the law. Frightening where the politics of the times are reprehensible, but desirable in other cases. For example, this morning I read that jury selection has begun for the Enron Trial:
“If we get 12 people who haven’t made up their minds, we like our chances,” Daniel Petrocelli, Skilling’s lead trial lawyer, said after a flurry of failed defense efforts to move the trial elsewhere to escape a potentially hostile jury pool.Michael Ramsey, Lay’s lead lawyer, was less optimistic, calling Houston a “bad venue to try to pick a jury.”
Perhaps desirable is too strong of a word, but I certainly find it acceptable that Lay and Skilling may face a hostile jury, which may convict them even absent a legal showing of conspiracy or fraud.