Faculty Scholarship Repository
A Service of the Ross-Blakley Law Library
| Book Chapter |
| Worst of the Worst: Which, If Any Circle of Hell: Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment 405 |
| Michael Berch |
|
Screening Justice--The Cinema of Law: Significant Films of Law, Order, and Social Justice Rennard Strickland, et al. eds., W.S. Hein 2005 |
| Library Access |
|
Abstract: This article considers the movie version of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and American death penalty jurisprudence. Instead of focusing on “legally obsessed†themes, the movie focuses on a more enduring and humane principle – the futility of attempting to separate the “worst of the worst†that has been forged as the shibboleth to justify the death penalty. The nature of the human soul is much too complex and does not lend itself to a litmus test for meaningfully judging the measure of man – whether fit to live or to die. It is foolish to legislate those factors that must be considered by the sentencing body in determining whether the perpetrator of the crime is the worst of the worst. But that is what the Supreme Court of the United States requires in its death penalty jurisprudence. Crime and Punishment reveals the futility and hypocrisy of the attempt.Using the themes developed in Crime and Punishment, this article examines what would happen if Raskolnikov’s crime occurred in Arizona, a state having the death penalty, typical with the majority of states in every respect save one: the judge rather than the jury rules on the penalty phase. Assuming Raskolnikov pleads guilty to one count each of first degree murder and felony murder, the judge must determine the appropriate sentence to be meted out pursuant to the Arizona death penalty statute. The parties stipulate that the film contains the evidence proffered on aggravating and mitigating circumstances. This article offers the hypothetical judge’s opinion. (from introduction, edited) Keywords: death penalty, criminal law, sentencing |
| 334 |
| Total Views |