http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/23/the-murder-of-yeardley-love-and-trial-of-george-huguely-v-a-timeline/
A friend of mine, and also a current law student, engaged in a dialogue discussing the case. I wanted to share our thoughts on the blog. Enjoy:
1. After the conviction and 26 year recommended sentence, do you feel
justice was served? Why or why not?
Answer:
To answer the question of whether justice was served, one has to first
define what justice is. I'm not a philosopher or an academic, so I
apologize for the likely simplicity of my approach and response.
There are three approaches to justice in regards to punishment -
utilitarianism, retributivism, and restorative justice. Each approach
has a variety of rationals for its own existence and critiques of the
other approaches. Instead of determining which approach is most
correct, I'll answer your question the best that I can according to
each school of thought.
Utilitarians believe that justice requires a maximization of utility
for all parties in question - the guilty, the victim, and society
generally. Because punishment takes away from the utility of the
guilty party, it must maximize the overall good for the other parties
to the degree that the guilty party's lost utility is balanced.
Punishing the guilty party can maximize utility in three ways - to
keep the guilty party from causing further harm to the victim, the
victim's family, or any others in order to maximize their utility; to
rehabilitate the guilty party and thus maximize his or her utility by
making them into a better person; and to deter others from doing that
which the guilty party did in order to maximize everyone's utility.
In regards to this case, keeping George Huguely behind bars for 26
years certainly keeps him from doing further harm to Yeardley Love or
her family. Personally, and based primarily on the reaction that
Huguely had to hearing the tape of his interrogation with the police
when he found out that Love was dead, I find it highly unlikely that
Huguely will do anything like this ever again to Love's family or
anyone else. Whether serving 26 years in prison will rehabilitate him
and make him a better person, I do not know. I struggle with the idea
that spending that much time away from society can make anyone a
better person, so I sort of doubt that Huguely's utility or his
ability to contribute positively to society once he leaves prison will
increase. I do think that this case has already made a positive
impact on college campuses because it has lead to further awareness of
domestic abuse and alcohol abuse, particularly within relationships,
which will hopefully deter this type of behavior in the future.
Because I think that a) Huguely isn't going to do anything like this
ever again, b) being thrown in prison for 26 years probably won't
rehabilitate him to the degree that he will maximize his own utility
or that of societies, and c) the case has already made a positive
impact in regards to domestic abuse, it seems that from a utilitarian
perspective the sentence might actually be too long to maximize
utility.
Retributivists argue that the utility of the guilty party should be
eliminated from the calculus of overall welfare and that justice
should emphasize retribution, or pay back. Thus, the guilty party
deserves to be punished and the punishment should be proportional to
the crime. Because Huguely was responsible for Love's death, from a
retributivist perspective, a 26 year sentence is too light. Instead,
retributivists might argue that Huguely should be in jail for life.
Finally, the school of restorative justice focuses on the needs of the
victims and desires that the guilty party take responsibility for his
or her actions. Because Love is dead, the remaining victims are her
family members and Love's friends. I have no way of knowing what the
Love family thinks about the sentence, but based on the smile on
Love's mother's face after the sentencing, one might conclude that she
was pleased with the outcome. Whether Huguely has taken
responsibility for his action might never be known by the public.
Based solely on Love's mother's reaction, those who believe in
restorative justice would probably say the sentence was just.
So, was justice served? It depends on who you ask. Utilitarians
would probably say that the sentence was too harsh, retributivists
would probably argue that the sentence wasn't harsh enough, and those
from the restorative camp would probably say that the sentence was
just right. I can't stress enough that I'm not an expert in this and
that learned individuals who identify with each approach might have a
different outcome, but I've attempted to answer the question as they
might the best that I can.
Answer:
Full disclosure: I attended the University of Virginia, where this
tragedy occurred from 2001-2005 and later worked on the Corner, a
string of restaurants and stores, from 2007-2009. Both George Huguely
and Yeardley Love were customers of mine so this case carried with it
some personal undertones. I did not know them well enough to explain
any of this tragedy, but I felt compelled to discuss it with a fellow
University of Virginia alum and friend.
I think you are exactly right that justice can be defined differently
by your mode of thought. Currently, with media outlets determining
coverage based on their feelings towards certain matters, it's hard
for viewers to not feel nudged one way or the other. I don't
necessarily think that happened in this case because the trial was not
telecast, but a more recent example is definitely the Casey Anthony
trial that occurred last summer.
In terms of whether I thought justice was served, I am going to answer
slightly differently. There are so many factors that must be
considered in sending someone to jail for the rest of their lives. I
am not going to be able to touch on all of them, however, I do believe
that the jury did what they believed to be right within the confines
of Virginia law. I believe a lot of times, that most of the general
populace almost have an "eye-for-an-eye" mentality when it comes to
cases like this. When you have a large male collegiate athlete
attacking a significantly smaller female victim, all kinds of issues
get brought up. Was this case about the impact of binge drinking in
colleges, and the assaults that occur from such binging? Partly, but
that topic will only be discussed when the community as a whole
rallies around this tragedy and makes wholesale changes. It is most
likely not going to happen because not everyone is going to agree on
what caused this. Everyone is going to blame George Huguely only, and
there is nothing out there to dismiss this claim.
The community that lives around Charlottesville is in many ways a
throwback. There is a bubble that exists around that city and
university that is hard to explain. The combined energy of so many
young people combines with a feeling of history and tradition that I
have never felt anywhere else. During my time in Charlottesville, I
cannot think of another episode so tragic as this one. One student
harming another in this way was not something that ever happened and I
believe that the community is shocked, angry, and still in a bit of
shock. I doubt the University community feels justice is served
because the only one to blame here is George Huguely. And they would
be right in feeling that way. Unfortunately, locking someone up and
throwing away the key is not how our criminal justice system works.
I tend to shy toward the retributivist model of punishment. However,
calculating the life of someone is an impossible task and one that
cannot be done by those that are left behind. What is the goal behind
retributivism? To punish the criminal for his actions in proportion to
that action. Bad actions deserve bad punishment. This mode of thought
also depends on how you view our system of jails and whether Huguely
will be "rehabilitated" when he spends the next 26 years in jail. If
the prosecution had been able to show any type of intent with Huguely
going over to Love's apartment, he would be in jail for the rest of
his life and we would not likely be having this discussion. But for
the recommended sentence to be 26 years out of a possible 60, this is
when discussion of the reasoning of the court needs to happen to
explain why, from the outside, it looks like Huguely got off easy.
So was justice done? Like a law student would answer: it depends. It
depends on many things, but most notably, it depends on how you view
punishment and what our goals are in punishing those who commit
crimes. I don't think we'll ever really know if justice was done until
George Huguely gets out of jail. If he has been rehabilitated and is
able to return to society and be a productive individual, then perhaps
justice has been done. But in a tragic case like this it is impossible
to judge. Yeardley Love is no longer here and her family and friends
must cope with that for the rest of their lives.
Next question:
What did you think of the lawyers in this case? Did they or did they
not perform well and why?
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