Debating the quality of Justice

Yesterday, I watched "The buck stops here" on NDTV, anchored by Barkha Dutt. She discussed Jon's verdict and if it was OK or excessive. My opinion is simply this. Rape is a despicable act. Acts involving minors cannot be pardoned. The sentence must be as harsh as possible to act as a deterrent. That is how I started thinking about deterrence and what it means to me. My mind wandered into a spaghetti of vague recollections about the appropriateness of capital punishment or whether it is necessary or not.

Being an engineer by profession and thought, I do tend to rely on hard evidence and trends in the data. So...

Is there anything called absolute truth in the context of criminal jurisprudence. My feeling is that there is none. Justice delivered is simply the vector product of all the evidences produced, arguments placed before the bench and logical conclusions that can be drawn 'beyond a shade of reasonable doubt' and well into a zone of 'certainty'. In fact, several cases are judged based on 'the most likely cause' in face of the circumstantial evidence provided before the bench. Therefore, more than the absolute truth, the process of judgment to my mind deals with the most probable cause - not by chance, but by evidence. Not based on whims and fancies of folks, but based on sound legal arguments and logical reasoning.

From the point of programming paradigm, we come across this methodology in the field of expert systems / artificial intelligence. This falls under the science of mathematical reasoning, predicate calculus and bit of fuzzy logic. Each predicate having a confidence factor associated with it and a conclusion is simply what the inference engine can come to with an associated confidence factor. A confidence factor of 1 means absolute truth and 0 means absolutely false. What falls in between are various shades of grey. By very nature of this process, it is clear there is a finite room for everyone who loses a court case, to opine that justice has not been done. This is not just because we are human beings and we are inclined to believe that our near and dear are flawless; but the very nature of the process that leads us to justice.

Does this mean everyone who has been pronounced guilty is actually innocent ? Should be throw away the justice system completely ? No. Not at all. My argument is just the opposite. The purpose of a justice system is to provide a fair trial, look at the data and arrive at a conclusion. This conclusion is nothing but the judgment the court arrives at. there is little value in debating if this is 'really true' or 'excessive'. The judgment sets the benchmark on what it thinks is appropriate for the case under consideration. If "guilty" really feel aggrieved, they need to go to a higher court and seek a re-trial. There is no real purpose served by debating if judgments are wrong, unjust or biased. Yes, judgments are biased towards the conclusions that be drawn based on evidence. There is no such thing as an unbiased judgment. The term 'bias' is not bad at all. Let us try proving the Pythogoras theorem if our assumptions were not biased to accepting a right angle is 90-degress or that a triangle has 3 sides. If the assumptions / evidence presented are blatantly wrong, then I am certain that there are enough checks and balances in every democratic society to debate and demand a fair consideration.

We live in a nation where 26/11 trial is proceeding ever so slowly, although the public opinion [in my circle of observation] believes that this is a case that needs no trial. We have a set of human rights activists that believe that capital punishment even for 26/11 perpetrators is excessive. These are opinions. At the end of the day, it is the call of judiciary to decide what is appropriate and what is not excessive. To me, things are really as simple as that.

Finally to the issue of deterrence. Does a "59 years in jail" verdict really stop people from messing with minors ? It is not easy to answer this question, without a careful consideration of the 3 critical dimensions.

First, if you plot the level of crimes committed by people, I think it will show a normal distribution. To the left of the curve, we have people that are absolutely sin free and to the extreme right, we have people who are downright hideous. What a verdict like this does is to help move the distribution to the left. If the judgment succeeds in bringing about this change in distribution, I believe that it has provided the desired deterrence. It does not mean that there are no one in the right side of the distribution, it just means that the number of people will become progressive lesser. This is the purpose of the any process involved in delivering justice.

Second, when does this not work at all? If sections of the society believe that they are 'famous' enough to influence the process of justice, then we will come across cases of willful suspension of fear in the letter of the law. Even if you are not famous enough, if you are convinced that you can get by, the principle of deterrence fall flat on its face. If I am convinced that I can get by without a valid driver's license by paying the traffic police a paltry sum of 20 rupees, then red light at the crossing and the traffic policemen are no longer providing the required level of deterrence and force to ensure that people comply with traffic laws. In Dallas, Texas, every time I heard the police siren, my hands froze and body shivered. The sight of a cop giving a ticket to a stranger was enough to push me into a state of compliance. I was sure I could not dare to offer a 10 dollar bill to the cop and say 'adjust maadi'.

Finally, if we need to have a sense of certainty that if the police man or the society takes me to the court of law, the justice will be delivered in a timely fashion. In our country, I am sorry to say, that we are far away from it. The average perception is that court cases typically don't end, unless it is a foreigner who is molested. This certainty of courts not deciding cases in a timely manner - dilutes the confidence of the people in the level of deterrence that an effective and efficient judicial process can deliver.

Therefore, it's not the capital punishment. Its not even the law. Its the commitment of the law enforcement agencies - local police, CBI and judiciary to shore up public confidence that they can bring about a purposeful change in the perception. Not through sloganeering. But through purposeful action taking. We must know, we are being watched. And if we care caught, we will be punished. This certainty in itself can bring about a sea change in our behaviors.

Until, then it will be fashionable for us to call US to be racially biased. And wonder why we cannot deliver justice to our rape victims.