Riggs Debate

I do not understand how the courts were being parental in this case when in fact they were just trying to reach justice. If a court was acting as a parental figure, that means whatever decision the court would make would be just a decision and it doesn't have to be within the constraints of the law. As stated previously no one should be able to profit off of his or her own crime. Once Elmer committed the crime of murder, he should not be able to profit off of that crime which would be inheriting the estate. Letting Elmer inherit the estates would just be telling people that it is ok to murder someone and still profit from it, and that would just lead to more crimes being committed specifically for that reason. Although there is no statue, common law carries just as much influence in cases like this. Common law was meant to ensure that justice was served in instances not covered by a statute or where the statute was vague. Indeed Elmer was convicted of murder, which is a criminal case; he can still face punishment for a civil case. In any event he committed a criminal act specifically in order to benefit from an inheritance that he already knew about. Hence it was a deliberate criminal act and not something that happened by accident or chance. If someone says that the decision was absurd it implies that it cannot be justified or probably that it contradicts a law, for example, an act of double jeopardy, which it clearly does not. The question boils down to whether or not the courts should be allowed to make decisions concerning the distribution of property, which is contrary to the wishes already expressed in a will; the answer rests in the application of common law to this specific circumstance. Because of Mr. Palmer"s unlawful death, we cannot determine whether or not he would have changed the contents of the will sometime in the future. We can speculate that if Elmer did not know he was included in the will, no crime would have been committed and Mr. Palmer would have still been alive. We can also speculate that if Mr. Palmer knew that leaving an inheritance to Elmer would have resulted in his death, he would not have included him in the will, which is a reasonable assumption. Also, the murder of Mr. Palmer was premeditated by Elmer which means that Elmer thought and planned out the murder beforehand rather than if it was something like in the heat of the moment; that makes it even more obvious that Elmer did it just for the reasoning of the will. The judge's decision based on common law is a reasonable interpretation of what Mr. Palmer would have desired. The fact that Mr. Palmer recently got married is important in that it may have caused Elmer to assume that Mr. Palmer would have changed his will in favor of his new wife and he would have been excluded in the long run. You can imply that by giving Elmer the estates, justice was not served for Mr. Palmer"s death. In any case whether criminal or civil, the main purpose is to ensure that justice is served. If Elmer had received the inheritance after committing such a vicious act on the person who was so benevolent to him, it would have been a travesty and justice would have not been served. You also have to understand that when a will is problematic because of unusual circumstances such as this one, the courts have to take matters into their own hands to make sure that the outcome of this dilemma is a justifiable one. If we allow someone like Elmer to inherit the estates left to him by the person whom he murdered, what are we really telling the world? We could be saying that yes it's ok to commit murder and still profit off of it and that does not sound like justice to me. What about Mr. Palmer? How would he feel about this? Mr. Palmer's murder was an intentional wrongful act so how can we allow someone inheritance from a crime such as this?There is a legal maxim that no one should be allowed to profit from his or her own crime, so Elmer is therefore barred from inheriting the estates.