The Lotus Eaters

Criminal Justice in the Timocratic Republic of Balboa: Barbarism at the Bar, Bianca Meister, from University of Starvation Cove Law Review, Spring, AC 488

Largely the product of people untrained in the nuances of the law, the saving graces, the implicit mercies, and the law's civilizing influences, criminal justice in the Central Columbian nation of Balboa is itself the greatest crime in the country. Indeed, it is a blight upon the Family of Man and an insult to the evolution of the law on two planets over more than four millennia . . .

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In reviewing the Balboan Code of Criminal Justice one is struck immediately by its almost unremitting harshness. The least penalty for anything we in the more enlightened parts of the world would think of as a common law felony is death by hanging. The maximum punishments increase in severity from there. Counterfeiters are hanged, arsonists are burned, rapists impaled, premeditated murderers and traitors are crucified. Even the lightest of felonies, robbery and burglary, or lesser forms of non-justifiable homicide, for example, receive the rope as their reward. And conspiracy law carries this unremitting bloodthirstiness and sadism over to group crimes as well . . .

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In the case of crimes against the person, as opposed to against the state, executions are in preference carried out by either the victims or the victims' nearest kin. They may be, and often are, delegated to the state to perform on behalf of the aggrieved. The law, such as it is, requires that executions be public, and performed in a prominent and accessible spot. This, too, seems to drive the choice of state as executioner.

One of the few instances of mercy permissible within the code is that the victim, if alive, may choose a lesser penalty, for example, hanging for rape, rather than impalement. Even there, hangings come in several varieties and it is the rare criminal who receives the more merciful long drop as opposed to the slow strangle . . .

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The philosophy, if such it may be called, behind this ultra draconian code is nowhere made explicit within that code. Instead, one must delve into the legislative history. This makes it plain that, for example, Balboa—rather, the dictatorship of those who have sold themselves to state's military—believes that deadly force is authorized to any potential immediate victim, or a third party acting in their behalf, to deter or prevent any of the common law felonies. This value judgment being made, they further hold that what the victim, or someone acting on the victim's behalf, may do to prevent a crime, the state may do or permit to deter or avenge.

Also express, within the legislative history, is the value judgment that man has no natural rights, but rather only those rights which arise within the social compact. Logically enough, given that Balboa does not require but only permits its residents to take on the "burdens" of citizenship, the state also holds that anyone may voluntarily withdraw from the social compact, thereby giving up all rights and losing all protections. Committing a common law felony is considered to be such a renunciation of rights and duties. That this is simply barbaric bothers the Balboan timocrats not a whit . . .

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The crime of rape is a peculiarity, as, admittedly, it is around the planet. It is almost always a case of conflicting stories and ambiguous evidence, even when the evidence is clear that intercourse took place. Moreover, because of the tendency to put the victim on trial, more enlightened polities have shielded the victims from having their past sexual conduct introduced at trial, thus somewhat reducing the probability of genuine proof beyond a reasonable doubt being presented at trial. They have, correspondingly, reduced the penalties inflicted. Of course, this was done in goodly part to prevent the murder of the victims of rape.

Balboa is having none of that. They've made the value judgment that it is better that one girl be raped and murdered, and her murderer be put to death, than that ten girls be raped, and better that the victim be put on trial than that an innocent man be put to death.

And they insist upon death. Complete pardon by the victim is not permitted, as the culprit represents not merely an enemy of the people, but a renouncer of the social compact, a threat, and an educational example to be made for the public . . .

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Besides sparing themselves the expense of caring for many convicted criminals humanely, the effect of Balboa's extraordinary liberality with regards to the death penalty, and limited right to appeal, is that somewhat more money is available (from an admittedly small pot) for the rehabilitation of those convicted of lesser crimes. By and large, so it must be admitted, this rehabilitation seems to work somewhat better than rehabilitation does in most states.

There seem to be three factors at work here. One is that prison sentences in Balboa tend to be comparatively short but, as with everything else in the penal system, comparatively harsh. Rather than, for example, awarding twenty years for larceny, Balboa is more likely to give six to eight, but of penal servitude—hard labor under the sun and under the lash—rather than mere imprisonment. This leaves less time, less energy, and less inclination for incarcerated criminals to treat their incarcerations as post-graduate courses in effective criminal behavior. A second factor is that with so many criminals put to death, there are virtually none left in prison to teach that post-graduate course. Thirdly, while completely ignoring the needs of criminals for psychiatric treatment, Balboa does, in approximately the last third of a criminal sentence, teach at least some of them job skills more useful than making license plates . . .

There are persistent rumors that incarcerated prisoners are used for biological warfare experimentation . . .

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In any given month, somewhere in the Republic of Balboa, a man or a woman is hanged, or burned, or impaled, or crucified. Some months it is more than one. And the world seems impotent to put a stop to it. Economic sanctions do not work, as the Balboa Transitway and the InterColumbian Highway allow the government there to retaliate, tit for tat. Military measures, given the large, well equipped, well led, and well trained legions of Balboa, are impossible. All that remains are diplomatic efforts and the disapproval of the enlightened peoples of the world, and at both of these the Balboans sneer.

Moreover, such unremitting brutality has the effect of making the entire people of the nation harsh and inhuman. For example, when the convicted felon, Neron Leonardo de Lingero, was crucified, in the spring of AC 475, a crowd estimated at over one hundred thousand turned out to jeer. Worse, Mr. de Lingero had been convicted without the testimony of a single eyewitness, nor even a body . . .

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