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Thesis: Sanders in his “Doing Time in the Thirteenth Chair” expresses that justice cannot be achieved by means of a mere discussion of existing evidence and questions the procedures which usually take place during the trial, while Alexie in his “Capital Punishment” points out that jurors can be guided by prejudices convicting people of crimes they have never committed; the issues raised in these works make it impossible to present a universal definition of justice.
It has always been difficult to work out a universal definition of justice. The notion of justice has been disturbing people throughout the centuries for justice cannot be unanimously recognized. It is often the case that what seems to be justice for one person is injustice for another, and it is impossible to treat somebody fairly without treating other people unfairly. In each case somebody gets hurt and claims that he/she has been treated unjustly. Even ancient philosophers wrangled over this issue; Copleston states that Socrates pointed out the following,
But if we can once attain to a universal definition of justice, which expresses the innermost nature of justice and holds good for all men, then we have something sure to go upon, and we can judge not only individual actions, but also the moral codes of different States, in so far as they embody or recede from the universal definition of justice. (Copleston 105)
Numerous writers and poets have also dedicated their works to finding the most appropriate definition of universal justice with each of them trying to take into account the versatility of this notion. Thus, Scott Russell Sanders’ essay “Doing Time in the Thirteenth Chair” is based on his own experience of being a juror and facing cases of injustice; he keeps to the point that justice cannot be established on the basis of testimonies alone and that jurors cannot be entrusted with carrying out a verdict. Another writer, Sherman Alexie, in his poem “Capital Punishment” presents a story of a cook making meal for a convict. The poem states that justice in court system always leads to someone being treated unjustly for the jurors often have biased attitudes towards defendants and often convict innocent people. Sanders in his “Doing Time in the Thirteenth Chair” expresses that justice cannot be achieved by means of a mere discussion of existing evidence and questions the procedures which usually take place during the trial, while Alexie in his “Capital Punishment” points out that jurors can be guided by prejudices convicting people of crimes they have never committed; the issues raised in these works make it impossible to present a universal definition of justice.
What should be mentioned above all is that both the authors question the role of jurors in proceedings and their ability to carry out just verdicts. Sanders notes that the jurors cannot be entrusted with passing the judgment, since they are often appointed randomly, “And so the lawyers cull through the potential jurors, testing and chucking them like two men picking over apples in the supermarket”(Sanders 135). The jurors are believed to be dependent on the opinion of the judge and vice versa because they all believe the prosecutor who can accuse a person of a crime and make the jurors believe that it is really so. For instance, Sanders describes a case when the prosecutor tried to prove the falseness of the witness’s testimony: “And haven’t you been found on three occasions to be mentally incompetent to stand trial? … And haven’t you spent most of the past year in and out of mental institutions?” (Sanders 143) Quite supportive of the opinion that the trial may be biased is the speaker of the “Capital Punishment” by Sherman Alexie. He asserts that the justice system is biased against those people who are not white, convicting dark skinned people of the most different crimes; this can be traced in the lines, “It’s mostly the dark ones/ who are forced to sit in the chair/ especially when white people die.”(Purdy and Ruppert 419) In the time when the poem was written the society had biased attitudes towards white people this is why it was especially difficult to make up a universal definition of justice. Judging by these facts, it will not be possible to present the universal definition of justice unless one will be able to achieve the perfection of the system of justice. Nevertheless, this is not the only reason why such a definition cannot be worked out.
There cannot be a definition of universal justice until people are accused of crimes basing only on the testimonies of others. Scott Russell Sanders believes that the procedures which take place in the course of any trial are extremely biased. He notes that the testimonies can sometimes not be trusted to because the jurors never know for sure if they are true or false. The accused person may always blame other people for the crime to save him/herself: “In this new guise he gave information that led to several arrests and some prison terms, including one for his cousin and two or three for other buddies.” (Sanders 141) The author’s opinion can be reliable because Sanders himself was a juror and knows how such people are selected. He knows from his own experience that jurors are unaware if the testimonies are indeed given by veracious and competent witnesses. A similar point can be observed in Alexie’s “Capital Punishment”. The speaker of the poem keeps to the idea that, once a person has been convicted, the jurors will never change the verdict for an opposite because the person will be tried according to the very same testimonies; the following lines of his “Capital Punishment” express this idea, “I once heard a story/ about a black man who was electrocuted/ in that chair and lived to tell about it/ before the court decided to sit him back down/ an hour later and kill him all over again.” (Purdy and Ruppert 419) This could be a sign that the person was innocent and it could have made the judge look the case over once again. These lines prove that even during subsequent trials, if such take place, the person is tried according to the same testimonies, regardless of their being true or false. Therefore, universal justice, as well as its definition, will not exist until there is a way to obtain only veracious testimonies. This, however, is still not ending then list of the reasons why the definition of universal justice cannot be presented.
It is impossible to present a universal definition of justice since the judges, being unable to switch their places with defendants, will never understand how much important their verdict is. For instance, Sanders in his “Doing Time in the Thirteenth Chair” during one of the trials compares himself with the defendant. He refers to him as to “double image” (Sanders 151); it helps to realize the whole sadness and confusion which usually can be felt during proceedings. If jurors and defendants could switch their places, the jurors would understand how important it is to carry out only just verdicts. Alexie also supports this idea. The responsibility for just verdicts can be felt in the lines, “If any of us/ stood for days on top of a barren hill/ during an electrical storm/ then lightning would eventually strike us/ and we’d have no idea for which of our sins/we were reduced to headlines and ash”(Purdy and Ruppert 422). These lines show that sometimes people are accused of crimes unjustly and bear punishment undeservedly; they symbolize the feelings of an innocent person who has been executed for the crime he/she never committed. The jurors are responsible for the verdicts they carry out, since they determine the future of the defendant.
In sum, it has been proved that it is impossible to present a definition of universal justice. The works by Scott Russell Sanders and Sherman Alexie exemplify that injustice often takes place during the trials. Thus, it is impossible to define universal justice because the jurors can have biased attitudes towards the defendants; the testimonies of the witnesses cannot be trusted to because one never knows whether they are veracious; lastly, the jurors cannot be sure whether they carry out a just verdict or punish the defendant undeservedly because they are unaware of what it is like to be a defendant. All these issues complicate our notions of justice and make it impossible to present a definition of universal justice.
Works Cited
Copleston, Frederick C. A history of philosophy. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003.
Purdy, John and Ruppert, James. Nothing But the Truth: An Anthology of Native American Literature. Prentice Hall, 2001.
Sanders, Scott R. The Paradise of Bombs. University of Georgia Press, 1987.
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