Law and Justice

Mahadevan_ramesh@hotmail.com




It has been more than a week since Saddam Hussain was killed and put away. Video footage of his last moments was an assault on one’s senses and sensibilities. It was probably just another day’s work in the office for the executioners, but as somebody said, it was they who looked like terrorists, while the ex-dictator seemed like a dignified martyr waiting to be enshrined. President Bush called the hanging a ‘milestone in Iraq’s democracy’ – either he is lying or he doesn’t know the first thing about democracy or milestones.

In that fleeting moment when the noose went around Saddam’s neck, some primeval feeling inside me erupted – and proclaimed yet again that there is something absolutely abhorrent about death penalty – especially in this evolved and enlightened stage of human civilization. It is amazing that the same human being who dissects stem cells in order to prop up life can sink into a moral abyss and sniff out the lives of people, based on his own self-justified formulation of legal order.

Put these criminals and murderers away for life, please. But don’t lower your moral barometer and become equal to the sick criminals. The idea of retributive justice is to reform the criminals, not criminalize ordinary populace. (Any opposing viewpoints? Please send them)

Public opinion in India was overwhelmingly against the manner in which Saddam was tried and killed. As a nation, India seems against death penalty. There are already social outfits which routinely protest executions. I think it is only a matter of time before India outlaws death penalty, to join some of the more humane nations in the world. Call me a wimp. Call me Kumbayah-singing-naïve. But to hell with death penalty.

Indian foreign minister has expressed his ‘disappointment’ over Saddam Hussain’s execution. I certainly hope that he has the same sense of leniency when it comes to sparing the life of Afsal who stands to be executed in the Parliament attack case.

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There is a rash of high profile murder cases prosecuted in India recently. Maybe the lifting of legal impunity against Members of Parliament has something to do with it. Well known names like Manu Sharma and Shibu Soren are now behind bars – for murder, no less.

By the way, it is claimed that more than one hundred out of the present five hundred odd MPs in India have criminal cases against them. (Out of the remaining MPs, over a hundred must be ex-Bollywood stars.) On the flip side, Tihar jail looks like a veritable Country Club with all kinds of celebrities. We are probably the ultimate crossover society.

Mr. Shibu Soren’s case is interesting. He is in jail for killing his personal assistant. Mr. Sashi Nath Jha. It is alleged that Mr. Soren was given a bribe to support the erstwhile Narasimha Rao government and Mr. Jha came to know about it and demanded a cut in it. Later it is said that he started blackmailing Mr. Soren, which in turn resulted in his gruesome murder. A typical dirt-on-dirt crime.

Mr. Jha’s daughter came on TV and said that they should have hanged Mr. Soren, to achieve a closure. Again, although I empathize with a woman who lost her father in this manner, I do not share her enthusiasm for death sentence. Who knows? Maybe one day in prison, Mr. Soren will come up with the sordid details of the bribe he was given to support the Rao government and name names. Maybe he would express remorse at the killing. THAT might bring about a closure to the whole episode.

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I also think there is a ‘dumbing down’ of crime and criminals – especially in India. Most crime in India are the old Feudal-era variety and very few of the criminals have adapted the modern, high tech way of committing crime. Our best and the brightest don’t even seem to consider crime as a career. For all our IT savvy, we cannot boast of a single internet-destroying virus that originated in India or any modern computer crime worthy of a Hollywood movie. My family poojari, (whose first cell phone fell into the sacred fire) had his latest cell phone stolen and the police found it in a matter of hours because the idiot who stole it didn’t realize that he was leaving a trail of clues behind. ATMs, Cell phones, video cameras, modern computerized banking, RF-id etc. seem to have completely crippled the crime industry.

What kind of superpower will we be, if we don’t have the world’s most sophisticated cyber-criminals? Right?


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Being an engineer/scientist/professor, I hardly come across people from orthogonal professions such as Lawyers. My first encounter with a lawyer was way back when I had just arrived in the USA. A friend’s wife introduced herself to me in a party thus “I am a lawyer and I work for the IRS”. Then she let go a little self-mocking laugh and continued “No wonder people avoid me in parties.” I laughed dumbly, not knowing what she meant.

Later, I obtained a lawyer’s services when I was processing my Green Card in Pittsburgh. Through the entire proceeding, I had never physically met him, although he would consult (and charge) on the phone. I finally got to see him on the day of my visa interview at the INS. It was a short walk from his office to the INS and on the way I kept giving him stock tips, suggestions on vacation spots, my ranking of Indian restaurants in town and so on. As we stepped into the INS office he told me (and here I am paraphrasing) that I talked too much and that I should not open my mouth unless he instructed!!! “Don’t volunteer information, for heaven’s sake!” he begged me.

Too bad the INS officer missed out on Oracle stock’s huge run-up those days.

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When I was in Denver, a friend called me up one day and told me about this Sri Lankan asylum seeker who was in jail in Denver and who only spoke Tamil. Could I be his interpreter?

So, off I went to the jail with my friend. At the entrance I was joined by a lawyer – who was actually volunteering his services for free for this case. This was a private jail and one of the eight or so Immigration jails in the country. It seems that if you are illegal in the USA and somehow managed to step on the US soil, and then have the misfortune of getting caught, you have a whole slew of ‘rights, than if an immigration guy catches you in an airport or at the border. This Sri Lankan guy was nabbed at the airport.

After a rather long wait – during which the lawyer made several trips to the prison administrator’s office to request that we be let in – we were finally led toward the visitor’s room.

First we were given an elaborate body search – my first ever. (Those were the pre 9/11 days, of course. These days I get a similar search in every airport. In fact, during my last trip via Japan, a female security personnel in Narita gave me such a sensuous and intense body search that we might as well have had sex) Then we were taken to a room with three stools and guards all around. The Sri Lankan was brought in. I thought that he might be glad to see a guy who could talk his language. (He didn’t have even the bare minimum of English language skills) But the guy was pretty indifferent and barely answered our questions. From what I gathered, he was attacked by both the army and the LTTE and so he escaped from Sri Lanka.

Although I gave up soon, the lawyer kept pressing him on for details. After nearly an hour, the guards came in abruptly and asked us to leave. Later, I had lunch with the lawyer (and he didn’t charge me for this ‘service’) where he enthralled me with various immigration stories.

“I have seen people from all countries” he said somewhat exaggeratingly. “Except New Zealond.”

I never saw him or the Sri Lankan guy again – apparently, the Sri Lankan guy did not want anyone to represent or help him. But his ‘girl friend’ and her brother kept phoning me up every once in a while from Toronto to get their family-to-be, out of jail.

After nearly a year and a half, the girl friend phoned me up to tell me that he was deported to her town in Canada. End of story.

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While I was in the heat of the battle at my company, just before a new product launch, I got an official letter calling me for Jury duty. Even though I consider trial by jury to be archaic and anachronistic, I had no choice but to go. There, a huge congregation of fifty of us, potential jurors, was seated and I was counting on the laws of probability to bail me out. But, you guessed it. I was selected as a member of the jury of six and had to spend that entire day at court.

It was an interesting mix of people in the jury. Boulder County, which is where I used to reside, is one of the most educated counties in the country and perhaps that is why three of the six of us happened to be Ph. Ds. There was a VP of Sun Microsystems and the basketball Head Coach of the University of Colorado, Mr. Riccardo Patton was another juror. (quite an interesting man and he talked more than me!!) The lone remaining juror was a student.

This was my very first visit to a court in session – my opportunity to observe the judge, lawyers, witnesses and the dynamics between them. Every once in a while, the lawyers would have a ‘side-bar’ discussion with the judge - in whispers, so that we, the jury, could not hear.

At one point, the defense lawyer was cross-examining the plaintiff’s mother, who was a witness. She put on quite a show, crying and play-acting for the jury.

“Mrs. Brown, you have lived in the Boulder County for the past five years, right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Before that you used to live in Lafayette County for three years, right?”

“Yes, sir”

“So, let’s see. You have lived in Colorado for eight years – five years at your present residence and before your demotion at work, you were in Lafayette County…..”

As soon as he mentioned ‘demotion on the job’, the Prosecutor jumped and raised objection. The judge agreed and told us, the jurors, to expunge the defense lawyer’s comment. But, heck, the damage was already done. We had already put a negative mark against the woman. The lawyer was brilliant and every bit like those emotional movie lawyers, making dramatic statements and gesticulating animatedly.

“Look at my client there, members of the jury” he beseeched us “Could he have committed a crime?”

The accused was looking so silly that I barely resisted laughing. At any rate, it took us less than a minute to arrive at a unanimous ‘not guilty’ judgment to acquit the accused. That spared us nearly four hours to chit-chat and get to know each other.

So, what was the case about?

John Silly and Mary Silly married as teenagers and split a couple of years later with a child as a by-product. John had the custody of the kid on the weekends and Mary, the rest of the time. (The kid was about three years old at the time of the trial) The child-exchange took place in a parking lot of a shopping center. One Sunday, John had to go somewhere early in the afternoon and so, wanted to drop off the child earlier than usual. So, he called his ex-wife on the phone. Since she did not answer, he rang her up several times more – seven times to be precise. This was seen on the caller ID of her phone and so Mary and her mommie dearest decided to file a harassment case against John and wanted him ‘restrained’.

No wonder Mary and the public prosecutor lost their case. Such a case wouldn’t even be taken up in these days of pervasive cell phone use.



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