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The legal trend, these days, is to speak of "victims' rights." In fact, there is a bill almost every legislative session dealing with victims' rights. In the 2000
state legislative session, there were, among others, bills dealing with victim representation at an execution, and a proposed constitutional amendment to allow a "victim
counselor" to be present throughout a criminal trial (an amendment to the constitutional exclusionary rule). The victim's viewpoint is, then, the timely focal point of
the novel Just Revenge by well-known trial attorney Alan Dershowitz.
A strong impetus behind victims' rights is the philosophical premise that having agreed to a "social contract," we, as individuals, expect the contract to be
enforced. That is to say, if I agree to temper my behavior in order to promote coexistence with others, I expect others to do the same. If others don't, I expect society to
enforce the breach of contract, and when society does so, I want to be a part of it so that my own participation in the original contract is reinforced and I can feel that
justice has been served. When society fosters the punishment for the breach, we think of that as just retribution. When an individual authors a punishment, we think of that as
revenge, and as a society, discourage it. This novel asks: Can there be individual, unlawful action that is nevertheless "just" to remedy a breach when society has
not acted?
Putting meat to these philosophical bones, imagine a breach of the social contract, i.e. a crime, in which society has not acted to bring the criminal to justice. Imagine that
crime, now, as the Holocaust, and you have the basis for Just Revenge. What if a Holocaust survivor, who personally witnessed the deaths of his entire family, and who was, in
fact, shot himself, comes face to face with the killer fifty years later? And what if this killer has never been brought to justice by society and is, in fact, living a full
and happy life surrounded by his successful progeny? And what if, further, this killer, having finally been found, has a terminal illness and will die before the law is able
to seek recompense? Under these circumstances, is the individual right to pursue the justice himself that the social contract demands, but society has abjured?
Dershowitz's Holocaust victim does pursue his own justice (in an extremely creative way) leading to the trial of the victim for the murder of the Holocaust killer. This is the
gist of the novel, and it is worth reading not because it is great literature (although the murder plot is riveting), but because it asks a question worth our attention. The
Holocaust presents a powerful case for the concept of "just revenge," but in reality, can revenge ever really be more than enacted hatred, powerlessness and
hopelessness? And being so evoked from the blackest of passions, can vengeance ever provide the satisfaction that one is supposed to feel in the vindication of the social
contract? We are led to ask, though it may be "just" in the sense of the social contract, is it satisfying in a moral sense? Or does vengeance simply nourish the
darker passions, feeding rather than ameliorating their intensity? Does revenge "even the score" and allow the victim to get on with life feeling that all is well?
Dershowitz suggests not, explaining through his alter ago defense attorney in his closing argument about the defendant: "He tasted vengeance, and its after-flavor was
bitter. Indeed, that's how you tell a good person from a bad one: a bad one enjoys revenge; a good one engages in retribution though it brings him no pleasure." I'm not
sure I care for this description; I find it a bit too simplistic. The terms "good" and "bad" are too self-righteous for my taste, but perhaps Dershowitz
employs them for the jury.
Before anyone suggests that Dershowitz's tale might have been different had he ever experienced life from the victim's shoes, you must read the dedication to the novel:
"Dedicated to the members of my family who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. My great-grandfather, Avraham Mordecai Ringel - after who I am named - had
four sons. My maternal grandfather, Naftuli, came to America before the war. His brother Yakov - whose family is pictured on the front cover at a wedding on the eve of the
Holocaust - tried desperately to follow him, but was excluded by the Jewish quota and was killed, along with all his children and grandchildren, except for one son (bottom
left of cover photo) who immigrated to Palestine. Another brother, Anshel, was murdered, along with his four daughters. Another brother, Nussen, fled the Nazis and made it to
Siberia, where he survived the war, though two if his grandchildren were killed and four died of starvation and disease. May the Ringel family and their millions of fellow
victims never be forgotten."
The outcome of the trial in Just Revenge, and subsequent events, keeps the novel from becoming just another one dimensional take on the subject of revenge. It is truly as much
about the "Just" as it is about the "Revenge," and asks us all, ultimately, to consider whether there are forms of JUSTICE that are inimical to the law.
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