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THE LAW IS A ASS for 12/10/2002
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 174
Originally written as installment # 291 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 1515, November 29, 2002 issue
******
THE LAW IS A ASS
Installment # 174
by
BOB INGERSOLL
No it's notlike jumbo shrimp or military intelligence. Legal ethics is an entire discipline, with its own body of laws and governing principles, not an oxymoron. Not that you'd know it from Matt Murdock's behavior, about which I have written rather extensively of late. (Matt seems to have the moron part down; he breaks legal ethics like a china-shop ox.) But Matt isn't the only comic-book attorney who has trouble figuring out what to do under the code of ethics. Based on "Payment in Full," a Bill Finger story from Batman # 11 and reprinted in Batman The Dark Knight ArchivesVolume 3, the problem's older than Matt.
Finger was famous for his human interest stories, which centered more on someone confronting a personal problem than on Batman. "Payment in Full" is one of them. The trouble with the story is, the interest in the humans decreases, when the problem's so easy one of those infinite number of chimps could tackle it while taking a break from recreating the works of Shakespeare. And the interest becomes non-existent when the story gives us a solution that's just wrong.
The story opens with Batman and Robin capturing Joe Dolan, a career criminal facing the death penalty. The human interest lies in District Attorney Lee Benson, a childhood friend of Dolan's. In fact, Dolan saved Benson's life, when they were kids. Benson wonders how can he ask the State to take Dolan's life, when he owes his own life to Benson?
A knotty problem, no?
No. In real life the problem would be about as knotty as penny loafers. Still, let's examine what happened against what should have happened.
Batman lectures Benson and Benson realizes his duty is to prosecute Dolan. Then all ethical problems go by the wayside, when Dolan escapes. Benson figures Dolan might be hiding in one of their old childhood hangouts, so helps Batman track Dolan down. Dolan calls Benson a "double-crossing heel" and shoots him--in the shoulder only, let's not end Benson or the story prematurely. Benson refuses treatment and stays with Batman and Robin to track Dolan. When Dolan falls in the river, Benson risks his own life to save Dolan. Benson figures they're even, the debt is paid in full. Dolan figures he needs to escape and tries to kill Benson again, when Batman stops him.
Benson now recognizes that Dolan is not the same person he was as a kid. Benson has no problem prosecuting this "new" Dolan. Benson wins a conviction, sends Dolan to the chair, and is rewarded for his efforts when his party nominates him for Governor.
Here's how it shouldhave gone.
"I'm sorry, Batman, I can't prosecute Dolan. He once saved my life. It would be a conflict of interests."
"I understand, Lee. We'll get the Governor to appoint a special prosecutor to the case."
See, no angst. No soul-searching. The law actually does provide for such problems and has created mechanisms to solve them.
For the record, Benson had both his original conflict of interests and its mirror image, either of which would have prevented him from prosecuting Dolan. Once Dolan tried to kill Benson--twice--Benson stopped being just the District Attorney any longer. Now he was also the victim in two attempted murders. He couldn't prosecute Dolan, because he'd be a witness against Dolan. And guess what? The Code of Professional Responsibility precludes lawyers from acting as lawyers in cases where they are also witnesses.
Again, Dolan would have to step down and have a special prosecutor appointed. Of course, he wouldn't have been nominated for Governor that way. But that just poses another of those knotty human interest problems: should a man be rewarded for acting unethically?
******
Here's irony. The very next story in Batman The Dark Knight ArchivesVolume 3 is Edward Hamilton's "Bandits in Toyland," which also has a legal aspect to it. The irony is this: in the story Bruce Wayne is sitting on a jury hearing the case of a man accused of theft. As I write these words, I'm doing jury duty myself, so I have a whole new empathy for what Bruce was going through.
Bruce is convinced that the defendant, Tom Willard, was framed. Why? Because he read the lips of two spectators, who said they had framed Willard. Bruce becomes the lone hold-out juror voting for acquittal in a room of angry men.
I should point out, in fairness to the story, that it came out years before Reginald Rose's play Twelve Angry Men, or the movie based on the play, appeared. I point this out, because it also gives me the chance to ask about something that's always bothered me. We have eleven jurors voting guilty and one hold-out voting not guilty; shouldn't it have been Eleven Angry Men?
In the play and movie, the hold-out juror has to convince the other eleven that he's correct. Bruce has a more direct approach: he goes out as Batman, catches the real crooks, and gets them to confess.
All in all a happy ending. But as you can probably guess, I had some problems with the story. First, Bruce violated his oath as a juror. Jurors aren't supposed to do their own investigations. They're supposed to rely on the evidence presented to them and onlythe evidence presented to them. Still, as it wasn't Bruce who did the investigation but Batman, I suppose we can cut him some slack--in a kind of Sybil/Three Faces of Eve sort of way.
My real problem with the story is how Batman resolved the case. He has Robin deliver the proof of Willard's innocence to the police, while Bruce goes back, votes guilty with the rest of the jurors and then, as Willard's wife cries in his arms over the verdict, the new evidence comes in and the judge dismisses the case.
Come on. Would it have hurt Batman, just once, to screw the dramatics and take the evidence clearing Willard to the police? Then they could take it to the District Attorney so he could drop the case. That way Willard wouldn't have to spend another night in jail and neither Willard nor his wife would have to endure the trauma of the guilty verdict--however short-lived it was.
Sure Batman's way was more dramatic, but it seems awfully mean-spirited, doesn't it?
Bob Ingersoll
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