MovieChat Forums > Sleepwalking (2008) Discussion > Is the law 'an ass' as Dickens said .......

Is the law 'an ass' as Dickens said .... Lawyer's opinions?

posted 15 years ago by bruce-129
4 replies | jump to latest

It has been a long while since I saw this movie, but I get an occasional comment to my comment made here and think about this movie - mostly in relation to the justification of James murdering his father.

I'm no lawyer, but I think James would be convicted in a court of law of murder, and probably spend the rest of his life in prison, or at least a long time.

First, in theory anyway, James and niece could have left any time. Or they could they have. They were being kept prisoner in a sense, mostly by having no alternative place to go, and by being on the wrong side of the law. They were being enslaved and abused.

We hear of the Stockholm syndrone where prisoners get so beat down and scared that they submit totally to their captors even to their own detriment. The holocaust is another example.

So, would does the law really say on a situation like this?

I think an argument could be made, cold-hearted for sure, that the father was economically productive. Surely the two kids could not run a farm, so the father was producing the most goods for society, he was benefiting society and the economy the most and his murder hurt the community. The two were not socially productive, in crime or social services those two would cost the community money. Is there a good for the father to use them productively? At what point does the use for productivity become slavery? Is it because there is no way to leave, or because they are being physically threatened or harmed?

Then, what is someone allowed to do to stand up for their rights and honor, or someone else's.

Should James be tried or given a medal for killing his abusive father? Maybe his father was economically producing farm products for the community, but he was not producting citizens that could take it over after his death. Was the productivity of the father significant, or did he use it to justify abuse because he was a sadistic mean old bastard who is evil?

I know in the heat of the moment I would want that guy dead, but what is society supposed to do? In reality how much violence do we really have in the world, and is it sectioned off to those we cannot see or do not care about, a little like James? Do we all sell these people out every day to have the deceivingly productive and peaceful world that we live in and get products to make us happy in every day? What should we be doing?

If we gave each person the right to dignity and freedom, would we still be able to sustain the economic world as we know it, or would it all fall apart and eventually revert right back to being run by the sadists?

[–] dlerh 15 years ago

Really?

Sometimes I think I'm just obtuse, but then sometimes I think the emperor is stark raving nekked, and folks like you are edumacated beyond your intelligence.

I'm neither a lawyer nor the son of a lawyer, but I did watch a Law and Order marathon once: Wouldn't the "self-defense" argument break down after the fifth time he hit the old guy's lifeless body with the shovel? I feel like if I were on that jury, I'd feel really bad for the poor guy but still cast my vote for murder. Don't the years of abuse really work against James? If he had hit a stranger in the back with a shovel once or twice because the old guy was beating his neice, he might have a case, but once you beat your abusive father's corpse like that, it's hard to say you were just thinking of someone elses safety.

Maybe someone with a degree can explain it all to me, but all that other mumbo jumbo about productive members of society offends my core sense of justice. Do we believe in the basic sanctity of life, or should we revert to old-school weregild payments?

[–] bruce-129 15 years ago

> I feel like if I were on that jury, I'd feel really bad for the poor
> guy but still cast my vote for murder.

OK, fine, but I wish you'd leave the BS "edumacated" crap out of it, or
if you mean something by it try to say it in a clear way instead of
acting like an ass or like you are trying to insult with sarcasm.

I wrote the post because I think there is a serious difference here in
people that I thought it might be interesting to discuss. Try discussing
anything on IMDB or the Internet in general and one always gets this kind
of raw nerve stuff that feeds on itself positively and ruins the discussion.

The sarcastic someone with a degree is another crap statement too.

There is no always someone with a degree that can explain things, it is in
the human heart where things play out.

I have gone back on forth on this. I would not call it murder, because it
is not for gain. There was a self-defense element, and there was a part
that he, assuming the character was a real person, could not help.

I would have trouble letting him go to because he is "stupid" and not able
to control himself. But that is what being the victim of someone like that
does to people.

No one knows how people are made, so we can hypothesize that James and sister
are defectives genetic screwups, that the father had to control using brutal
means in order to shepherd into productivity for society, or we can say that
they were made that way by something, or the lack of something.

Maybe I would call it manslaughter. There is a good saying that goes something
like the only way to beat a murder wrap if you did the killing is to show that
they victime needed killing. Show in this case means to get through to the
jury.

The movie tells a story no trial will ever tell, and when we see the movie
we can assume for the sake of fiction that it is all true, after all, we see
the whole thing. In a trial, it is a fiction cobbled together out of a subset
of the evidence - a performance. I am not sure what I would think listening to
Jame's public defender in court making a plea were I on the jury?

I tend to hope that given this story I would let him off easy, with manslaughter
maybe.

[–] PurpleNiobe 15 years ago

I think James is in a tough spot.

If he had hit his father once or twice and merely knocked him out, that would’ve been one thing. Then he could’ve stolen his father’s money and he and Tara could’ve hit the road again. He couldn’t have been too concerned about becoming a fugitive since he was basically on the run for taking Tara any way.

But by beating his father to death, I would think his lawyers would now have the extra task of convincing the jury that he attacked his father out of emotional anguish after years of being abused and not just because he was angry.

I think the bruises on him and Tara might help his case. I think Joleen testifying as to how much of a ruthless bastard their father was might help also. But the thing he has going against him is the trial would be in his father’s town. He probably has friends and people who knew him who might know him great stand up guy because how the dad treated his friends is completely different from how he treated his family.

It might be hard for them to see James as a victim and they might just see him as “Farmer Reedy’s loser, lying, fugitive son. Mr. Reedy graciously allowed his son and granddaughter to stay with him and only asked that they pull their own weight and the thanks he got was to be beaten to death”.

James really put himself in a crappy situation. Why did he go to his dad’s house again?

When the hurly-burly's done. When the battle's lost and won.

[–] bruce-129 15 years ago

Because people who have been abused are in shell shock and do not understand what happened to them and try to replay it to see if they can get and understanding of it ... my opinion. They are disoriented enough as it is so they seek the familiar and the comforting. The world has a long way to go before we understand the nature of human beings and the misery we have inflicted on billions of people by our false ideas of the world - again my opinion.

This is why I like this movie, in fact the more I think about the more I like it. I started out really disliking it.

Those in Jame's position cannot understand what they are doing, and those outside Jame's position cannot ... and most do not want to understand because it complicated the way the look at the world and probably would turn out to be a burden, it is easier to externalize it.