By: Peter A. Lawrence

Professor Rosenbaum has always expressed his disapproval of the duty to rescue, and rightfully so. Our society remains supportive of the idea that when one is in great danger, others should take all measures to help a fellow human in distress. However, the legal system punishes people who fail or exacerbate a situation while attempting to rescue those in distress. The relevance of this debate has arose recently when I review to similar incidents with different outcomes.

US Airways Hudson River Plane Crash Incident: Chesley Sullenberger, a US Airway pilot, who successfully carried out the emergency water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River offshore from Manhattan, New York, on January 15, 2009, thus preventing any loss of life. There were 155 people on the plane. The Pilot was praised, glorified, and lifted to a celebrity stage in our society for his heroic actions in successfully rescuing the passengers. The emergency began when bird-carcases clogged the engine, thus leading to a burn-out.

Turn to foxnews and you will get a heroic attempt turned into a media thrashing.
A similar incident occurs weeks later (almost a month). Icy-sleet and winter conditions doomed a commuter flight on the way from Newark to Buffalo, NY. Like the birds in the Hudson River incident, the plane’s engine failed to make passage under such harsh conditions. However, the pilot in this incident was blamed not just by FOX News, but other media outlets for causing the plane to crash.

“The commuter plane slowed to an unsafe speed as it approached the airport, causing an automatic stall warning, these people said. The pilot pulled back sharply on the plane’s controls and added power instead of following the proper procedure of pushing forward to lower the plane’s nose to regain speed, they said. He held the controls there, locking the airplane into a deadly stall, they added.”

Later they say, but we are in the early stages of the investigation. This makes no sense to me. How can we blame a pilot who reacted aggressively under harsh conditions. There was no ocean within the area to land the plane safely. Immediately we turn on those who fail to rescue because society must find fault with someone. Why must we scold this pilot! She may have failed to follow procedure, but the investigation is at such an early stage that we immediately call the pilot the fault for the accident and fail to account the icy-wintry conditions. I understand society must hold a standard, but placing the reasonable person standard on this pilot is unfair. We fail at what we do sometimes, we’re not perfect as human beings. So why can’t we take into account the circumstances and realize that a reasonable person wouldn’t know how to react in such a situation. Would a reasonable pilot land the plane in the Hudson River? Would a reasonable pilot allow hijackers to overpower him/her without putting up a fight? The reasonable person test fails, and it fails miserably here. This poor woman who did everything she could is no longer seen as a hero or credible pilot, she is dead. Now her memorial is being tarnished but society’s use of the mythical reasonable person standard. I acknowledge her efforts, despite the deviation from procedure. There is no proof that if she complied with procedure, 49 people would have been saved. Society needs to re-think its moral standards, because in many cases we are strongly lacking in that of it.

By: Paul Riley

In his 2006 book, Happiness: A History, Darrin McMahon argues that “[h]appiness, in the Enlightenment view was less an ideal of godlike perfection than a self-evident truth, to be pursued and obtained in the here and now.” Indeed, this was clearly the view of America’s Founding Fathers who stated in the Declaration of Independence that the “pursuit of happiness” was one of man’s “unalienable rights,” along with life and liberty.

This view, McMahon explains, marked a dramatic change from, among others, the views of the Greeks who believed that happiness was not “a subjective state” but a “characterization of an entire life that can be reckoned only at death.” In other words, as McMahon puts it, happiness for the Greeks was less about feeling good than about being good.

The Enlightenment view of happiness persists today, and this is especially so in America where the notions of autonomy and perfectibility permeate culture. Many Americans believe that they have the right to be left alone (autonomy) and that they can achieve perfection (perfectibility). Consequently and perhaps paradoxically, Americans believe that with enough effort and toil they can achieve happiness.

It may (or perhaps not) come as surprise then that in a recent study of the world’s happiest nations, America fell near the middle of the pack. The world’s happiest nation was Denmark; the reason for Danes’ happiness: their low expectations. When one has low expectations, of course, she is pleasantly surprised when things turn out to be not so bad after all.

A culture of low expectations is an anathema idea in America where every parent believes that his or her child is “above average” and that getting one’s child into the right $20,000 a year nursery school is the only permissible first step to the child’s admission one day to Harvard. Striving is the American way but people don’t seem to realize that it is making them miserable. Or maybe they do, and they simply don’t care.

“Those only are happy”, John Stuart Mill said, “who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.” Americans should consider taking Mill’s advice.

By: Eliyahu R. Babad

Seemingly insignificant episodes from childhood can have an enormous impact upon adult life. I recently attended an “Evening with Sydney Lumet” at the 92nd Street Y moderated by Professor Rosenbaum. Lumet’s films often portray significant moral struggles that may have a foundation in his earlier life, particularly one episode that he shared.

While discussing the Depression years in the 1930’s Lumet shared a story from his youth. Lumet and his friends were playing some sort of game involving pennies being thrown against a wall. They saw a policeman coming (I’m assuming they were doing something wrong though he didn’t specify what) and the boys ran away, leaving the pennies on the street. Then they watched as the policeman bent down and picked up the scattered pennies left by the children and then walked away.

Even while representing law and justice, the policeman was caught in a moral dilemma and failed miserably. And this was not even the worst of it. Lumet and his buddies were there to see it all and were forever impacted by this lapse of judgment. Perhaps Lumet’s films are profoundly informed by this episode from his younger days.

By: Valeria Castanaro

During the 92nd St Y Event, “An Evening with Sideny Lumet”, Mr. Lumet made several insightful comments regarding the inspiration behind his vision in portraying the moral situations that unfold in his movies, most of which have to do with some kind of dilemma with the legal system.  I was unaware that prior to directing, Mr. Lumet was an actor, and it was a comment he made while discussing his decision to leave acting for directing that most stuck with me.  He said that he had to give up acting because it was just too hard for him to give so much fo himself to his work.  I think that it is easy for the public to forget that for those professionals for whom acting is truly an art, it is an exhausting profession becuase of the amount of self the actor has to devote to the role.  Every emotion that the character portrays to the audience comes from somewhere inside the actor, from some personal experience.

While Mr. Lumet was discussing this concept, I was reminded of the common analogy that is drawn between litigation attorneys and actors.  There is a common perception among the public that truly great lawyers are really just good actors because they are able to draw the jury into their side by being convincing, etc.  Additionally, I think this perception comes from the notion that the public thinks good lawyers are actors because they are being fake in the courtroom to get the legal result they desire.  This is so far removed from the Mr. Lumet’s concept of the acting profession.  So it stands to reason, if lawyers are truly meant to share the stage with professional actors, shouldn’t they be giving of their personal lives and experiences and devoting a degree of themselves to their work to achieve a moral remedy for their client instead of “acting” in a manner that they think will achieve the desired legal result?  If lawyers are going to be continued to be equated with actors who truly treat their careers and roles as a profession, then I think most lawyers will have to dig a little deeper into who they are to connect with their client and their client’s situation, and that inevitably involves looking beyond the purely legal aspects of any case to considering and understanding the moral ramifications of the client’s situation.  Sure, lawyers as a group would continue to be overworked and perpetually tired – but being “tired” from delving into your humanity and deeper self to better serve your clients will ultimately make you a better person as opposed to being tired from baseless “acting”.

By Nicole

In “Gran Torino,” Walt Kowalski, played by Clint Eastwood, is an
unhappy, tough, and prejudiced Korean War veteran who is disgusted with
the shifting landscape of his Detroit neighborhood from primarily white
“American” families to more recent immigrant Asian families.  After
Thao, the teenage son of the Asian family next door, tries to steal
Walt’s beloved Gran Torino as the result of gang pressure, Thao works
for Walt to regain his family’s honor by making reparations in the form
of physical labor. Walt forms an unlikely and close bond with Thao and
his family.  Throughout the film, the gang tries to force Thao to join
them.  Ultimately, when Thao continues to reject the gang, its members
rape and assault Thao’s sister and drive by the family’s home firing
guns at it.  Ultimately, Walt sacrifices his own life to ensure that the
gang members will be charged with murder and put in prison (he has a
terminal illness so the sacrifice is plausible).

This film raises a number of issues that are discussed in Professor
Thane Rosenbaum’s “The Myth of Moral Justice” and in his course Human
Rights, the Holocaust and the Law.  The film underscores the failure of
the legal system to recognize anything but injury to the physical body
and even then only with tangible, objective evidence.  It also
highlights the limitations of our legal penalties.  Walt, who despite
his gruff demeanor and painfully racist dialogue, has a clear sense of
right and wrong and of honor and respect.  He recognizes that the police
and the law will not be able to take appropriate action to right the
wrongs that have been done to Thao and his family by the local gang, and
he shoulders the burden of protecting them himself.  Although by the end
of the film Thao and his family have been physically harmed, and the law
recognizes their injuries, when the injuries were nothing but verbal
abuse and harassment, the police could do nothing.  Even when the injury
escalates to the physical, the police do not do much to help.  Walt
realizes that in order to exact a strong enough remedy, there needs to
be more injury and clearer evidence; he takes justice into his own hands
in the only plan that he thinks is feasible.

As Walt, unarmed, is being gunned down by the gang, with neighbors
watching (witnesses for a trial) and the police approaching (more
witnesses and evidence), there is a feeling of disappointment and wrong
that it is Walt dying and not the gang members.  Coupled with that is
the knowledge that, while Thao’s family may be safe for some period of
time if the gang members are convicted and put in jail, the legal system
will not be able to provide the family with any sort of spiritual
remedy; it can only lock up the gang members that shot Walt.  No
punishment that our criminal justice system metes out will be sufficient
for men who inflicted so much harm and devastated a family.  There is
some sense that Walt, in life and in death, has given Thao and his
family back a little of the honor and dignity they lost at the hands of
the gang, by doing the right thing and by giving his Gran Torino to Thao
(in lieu of giving it to his own spoiled relatives).  However, the role
of the justice system is alarmingly insufficient and weak.

The film is an example of the failure of our legal system to intervene
until far too much harm and devastation has occurred.  Professor
Rosenbaum accurately highlights the inability of the court to recognize
emotional and spiritual harms.  I would ask, based on this film, why it
is that our system cannot do more to help individuals earlier, before so
much damage is done.  Perhaps the legal system could embrace more of the
moral sphere and takprevention is worth a pound of cure.”

This past week I attended “An Evening with Sidney Lumet” at the 92nd
Street Y.  Throughout the evening, Mr. Lumet discussed some of the
common themes which weave through his great works, including those
relating to moral lapses of judgment.  Mr. Lumet, through many of his
fifty works of cinematic art, told the audience stories of desperate
characters being placed in impossible situations.

While discussing “Dog Day Afternoon,” Mr. Lumet told an interesting
antidote tying these themes into his childhood experiences. At an early
age, Mr. Lumet explained that he learned that there is a moral code not
to squeal and not to rat.  This concept hit me hard.  Having always been
interested in the area of criminal law, I have reflected on this
statement for the past week.  Our American criminal justice system is
centered on this idea that people will rat one another out to save
themselves.  Therefore, although plea bargaining is a legally used
bargaining chip, society perceives it as something which is morally
wrong.

Legally, plea bargaining is a necessary tool.  Without one person giving
a tip or a lead to police officers, many criminal actors would remain
out on the streets committing crimes.  However, because so many people
feel that it is morally wrong, society “bribes” tipsters (through
promises of rewards from police hotlines or reduced sentences) for
ratting out others.  Prior to Mr. Lumet’s talk, I had never questioned
plea bargaining – it is part of the system.  But now, I see the irony -
this legally sanctioned tool may, in many senses, be perceived as
morally wrong.

By: Allegra Leitner

At the Sidney Lumet event on January 28th, Professor Rosenbaum asked Mr. Lumet why, throughout his career as a director, he has been drawn to making films that are centered around the law.  Mr. Lumet responded with, “Because it’s easy!”  He went on to talk about the built in conflict of the legal system and how it provides the ideal “good guy versus bad guy” setting.  His film The Verdict, for example, pits a woman who is brain dead against the hospital that has made her that way and is trying to cover its tracks.  The inherent drama built into the legal system makes it a popular setting for much of our society’s cultural media today.  It is portrayed in film, from Mr. Lumet’s Twelve Angry Men to the more recent Michael Clayton, television dramas like Law and Order and Boston Legal, and even in reality television with shows like Judge Judy.  Many of these films and television shows present the law as containing more than just conflict between the parties to an action, but delve deeper and illustrate the conflict that exists between the moral and the legal spheres.  And perhaps it is this deeper conflict and the idea that what is morally correct may not be legally right that actually draws people – audiences, writers, actors, and directors – to using the legal system as a dramatic setting.

By: Lauren Manduke
One year ago, a 16 year old boy form Ohio shot both his mother and father in the head with a 9mm gun after they banned him from playing the video game, Halo 3.  Daniel Petric, now 17 years old, is awaiting his verdict.  He is charged with aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder and related offenses in the shooting death of his mother and shooting of his father (who survived). If convicted, Petric could be sentenced to life in prison with a parole eligibility date that would be determined based on the offenses. He is not eligible for the death penalty because of his age.

Petric’s attorney argued that Petric was addicted to video games and that Halo 3 and video games of like nature had warped Petric’s sense of reality to the point that Petric could not comprehend that his parents would permanently die.  Petric’s attorney argued that Petric believed that, like the game, that his parents would come back to life.

Video games have infiltrated today’s culture in huge and epic ways.  Everywhere we look there is a new game released that is more realistic than the last.  Gamers assume the persona of the character and, in fact, play the game from that character’s point of view- literally. They see as the character in the game would see.  Games range from the more innocent – go cart driving, to the insanely violent- aliens taking over the world and bloody battles ensuing (think Halo 3).  When I read about Daniel’s attorney’s defense strategy, I instantly thought back to my fiancé’s game that he just got for Christmas, Call of Duty 4.  Now my fiancé is 28 years old and I am 26, and as I watched him play the game I was shocked at the graphic nature of the game and how realistic everything looked.  One of the most shocking scenes in Call of Duty 4 is the nuclear explosion at Chernobyl.  The gamer is playing as a soldier in a helicopter that has been deployed to Chernobyl to look into nuclear readings that are higher than normal. As the helicopter is flying just above Chernobyl, the reactor goes off and the helicopter goes crashing down.  A couple of moments later, the screen goes black (re: the character has been knocked unconscious). Shortly thereafter, however, the black fades out slowly and all you see around you is ruins.  The only sound is that of labored breathing and the remote control literally pulsates as to re-create the characters injured and sporadic heart beat.  The character labors around the crash site for a moment more before the controller stops beating and again the screen goes black (re: your game character has now died in the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl).  The amazing and wonderful part happens 2 minutes later when you see the dead body of the soldier get up and appear magically in Germany where a new mission awaits him.  Is it so crazy now that a 16 year old could possibly be confused about the permanence of death?

It is cases such as that of Daniel Petric that magnify the extent that culture and the legal system crash into each other and highlight the short fallings of the legal system at large.  Daniel Petric clearly has some major issues within his perception of reality.  The legal systems only solution for him is to sentence him to life in a prison cell while video games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 will continued to be played by thousands of children throughout the country.  If I as a 26 year old adult found myself being sucked into the violence of Call of Duty 4 how can society possibly argue that a 16 year old is any more accountable?

By: Ian Millican

The popular television series “24″ examines the disconnect between law
and justice, albeit in a very skewed, arguably neoconservative manner.
Keefer Sutherland plays Jack Bauer, the show’s Christ-like superhero,
who in each season sacrifices himself to save the United States from an
imminent terrorist attack.  Each episode of a season represents one
“real time” hour of a day.  There are twenty-four episodes in each
season.

Throughout the series, Bauer’s wife is murdered, he becomes addicted to
heroine while infiltrating a Mexican drug cartel, he fakes his own death
and forsakes everything and everyone he knows and holds close, and he is
detained and tortured by the Chinese government, to name a few
sacrifices he’s made in the line of duty.  I think he even dies for a
few minutes in one episode.  For six seasons, Bauer has successfully
saved the United States from catastrophe.

Nevertheless, the seventh season, which began this week, starts with
Bauer being held criminally liable by a senate committee for laws he has
broken protecting the U.S.  During a grilling by a pompous senator, the
FBI interrupts and asks Bauer to help diffuse another threat, which
inevitably requires the same methods under scrutiny at the hearing.

To be sure, he breaks many laws.  Much of the action in 24 can be boiled
down to Bauer’s finding and torturing terrorists or suspected
terrorists.  Bauer is very good at torture and no matter how bad a dude
is, Bauer always breaks him and saves the day.

The point, at least what I apprehend as the point 24’s writers attempt
to make, is this: Bauer does break laws and protocol, and sure,
sometimes tortures a few people here and there, but to keep the U.S.
safe from terrorist attacks, his actions are necessary.  Furthermore, it
is an injustice for this savior of the U.S., despite having broken our
laws, to be indicted by the same bureaucrats and politicians who don’t
have the brass to save the day themselves and in many circumstances
place impediments before Bauer in accomplishing that task.

A lot of this question is probably intellectually disingenuous in the
first place.  Regarding the issue of torture, 24 focuses only on the
well-known ticking time bomb hypothetical.  Additionally, many scholars
and practitioners alike argue that torture is not a reliable method for
retrieving valuable or sensitive information.  Thus, Bauer’s infallible
methods that always get the right answer are too unrealistic to actually
examine the issue of torture in a ticking time bomb situation.  24 runs
on the famously neoconservative Fox network, which seems to account for
this.

By: Steven Penaro

When asked what a person’s greatest fear is most Americans will tell you that it is a fear of public speaking.  When asked why that is their greatest fear, most people will tell you that they don’t want to be embarrassed or feel humiliated in front of their peers.  If embarrassment and humiliation has such a profound affect on the psyches of individuals, why is this not a remedy used in American courts?  I realize that some legal punishments play off this notion.  For example, registered sex offenders are often required to alert the people in their neighborhood that they have committed a sexual offense.  Why not incorporate this logic into frauds on Wall Street, professional scam artists, or corrupt government officials?  Imagine getting a message from a new neighbor saying that he has defrauded the public out of millions of dollars.  If that were a punishment, do you think these criminals would think twice about committing an unlawful and immoral act?