Criminal Justice

1- Please create a title for your post by putting it in bold, “header 2” as the first line of your text. This way, everyone can skim the discussion and quickly get an idea of what topics are covered.

2- Lon Fuller’s case of the grudge informers was meant to show the normative consequences of adopting a definition, concept, or descriptive theory of law.

We consider a situation (fairly obviously modeled on Nazi Germany) in which a recognized, continuous legal system falls into the hands of The Purple Shirts (Hitler’s violent youth gangs were known as the Brown Shirts). They pass secret laws, convict people ex post facto, have secret trials without the right to know who or what accusation is being made, and so forth. The Purple Shirts would sometimes simply execute those considered enemies without trial but in open, legal-like executions. Other times they would do it secretly. Some people took advantage of the situation to “report” on their personal enemies. They would secretly accuse them of opposing the Purple Shirt regime and the Purple Shirts would carry out a quick judicial execution on their marital rivals, for example.

Later, after the Purple Shirts were overthrown, the new government is inundated with people who wanted justice not only against the purple shirts but against the “grudge informers” who used the legal framework for killing others.

This question is posed to five “deputies” who argue for different policies based on their legal philosophies. The point is that which legal philosophy we accept has consequences for what we should do about this case.� Hence the “correct” concept of law is a normative issue. The question is not simply which deputy has the right legal philosophy, but which legal philosophy ought we to have considering this case? (What conception justifies the rule of law and which conception would it justify? It reminds us that the issue is not an abstract definition but concrete actions that depend on what we think of as the law.

3- Here is the discussion prompt:

What would you do in the Grudge Informer case? Defend your position. You can adopt one of the justices’ positions or make up your own. Explain why you disagree with the other positions.

ANSWER

Case Law Analysis

The Case of Lon Fuller’s grudge informers

The law is mandated to provide a sense of justice to all the human descents. Any judicial act that fails to grant a justified hearing to any indicted person is considered a judicial misconduct punishable before the law. as such,

I take to analyze the case of Fuller’s grudge informers in identifying a legal policy that ought to justify the rule of law. I conside the policy of natural law that considers morality as a source of law to be an important concept while providing justice to any indicted person. The view that morality and law are two different concepts is unacceptable. Such notions leads to the formation of repugnant judicial procedures. Such judicial systems fail to deal with the actual problem. For instance, the case of Fuller’s grudge informers depicts the use of wrongful constituted laws to maliciously imprison a person, denying them their liberty (Banerjee, 2017). The defendant’s desire to get rid of her husband with the claims that he made derogative remarks against Hitler a serving president was an attempt of malice and punishable before a court of law. The case presents a controversy in judging between a judicial obligation and the judicial interpretation of legal doctrines.

Sending the accused to jail by a military tribunal was a wrongful interpretation of the law. The Nazi’s legal system falling on the hands of the Purple Shirts were known to be secretive in making malicious claims in convicting people ex post facto (Banerjee, 2017). The legal system enacted by the Nazi were therefore insensitive to the demand s of the public and instead were subservient to the Nazi’s authoritative power. As such, this law failed to meet the minimal morality requirement (Lavis, 2018). Instead, the system embraced the positivist view of the law as ‘law is law’ (Lavis, 2018). As such, the lawyers entrusted to provide judicial verdicts while relying on the positivist ideas in giving court decisions. The martial court’s verdict therefore failed to adequately respond to the Nazi’s abuse of judicial orders.

I agree with the court of appeal’s ruling that acquainted the sentencing judge and proving the accuser guilty. The Nazi’s extreme injustice do not constitute any natural law principle. The natural law concepts relies on the precepts that when any statute forcefully contravenes the fundamental principles of morality then such statutes must not be recognized in judging the legal position a person at any particular circumstance (Goswami, 2016).  Relying on the Nazi law was unlawful and ought to have been disregarded. The verdict giving a death sentence to the accused was an issue of fidelity to law. The sentencing judge therefore committed an offense of deprivation of liberty to the defendant. The court of appeal’s decision to prove that the accuser had used the court-martial merely as an instrument in creating a criminal act thereby deeming it an indirect act of perpetration was a justified verdict. The act of instrument therefore brought an illegal act, finding the husband guilty and was a misinterpretation of the applied law. The on the other hand, accused had no legal duty to bring about the result of the verdict as had been merely interpreted by the martial court.

In the case of Lon Fuller’s grudge informers the court of appeal’s decision acquinting the sentencing judge while considering the defendant’s wife guilty for utilizing the Nazi law out of her own choice was a fair and justified judgement.

References

Banerjee, S. (2017). The Relevance of Hart & Fuller Debate Relating to Law & Morality-A         Critical Analysis. International Journal of Law and Legal Jurisprudence Studies, 4(2).

Goswami, L. (2016). 28_Law and Moraltiy-Reflections on the Bearer Bonds Case.

Lavis, S. (2018). The Distorted Jurisprudential Discourse of Nazi Law: Uncovering the ‘Rupture Thesis’ in the Anglo-American Legal Academy. International Journal for the Semiotics         of Law-Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 31(4), 745-770.