Domestic Violence

Thanks once again to XelnagaCUByo for accepting! I will now present the Con"s case. OBSERVATION: The Con"s burden, as agreed, is to show that, on balance, lethal force against an abuser is not immoral. That is not that same thing as having to show that lethal force is moral. If I show that it is neutral, or at least justifiable (merited according to accepted moral standards), than I submit that I will have met my burden. CONTENTION ONE: There is often little recourse left but lethal force when dealing with abusers. Sub-point A: Government fails to solve. According to Lawyer Casey Westover, "When Congress passed VAWA, violence was the leading cause of injury for women ages fifteen to forty-four. "As many as four million women per year were the victims of domestic abuse," and one woman was raped every six minutes. Because these problems do not fall within the scope of a federal enumerated power, State governments alone had the power to protect women from these most fundamental deprivations of social liberty. Their response was inadequate. State legislatures failed to pass laws adequately protecting women from violent attacks. Although almost every State passed hate crime legislation in the 1980s, few if any included gender as a protected group"Some violent acts against women were not even considered a crime. For example, in a few states it was not illegal for a husband to rape his wife" Even when state legislatures passed laws to protect women from violence, state executive and judicial branches often failed to adequately enforce them. Crimes of violence that primarily affect women were treated less seriously than comparable crimes that primarily affect men. Police sometimes refused to take reports, and prosecutors allowed offenders to plead to less serious charges. State government had failed to protect the social liberty of women in the most basic sense, and the federal government attempted to step in. Morrison, however, held that this was beyond the reach of congressional power." According to Prof. Peter Marguiles, "Survivors also encounter significant barriers to access legal assistance"Many law offices have, however, limited their representation, particularly in the order of protection context, which often is the survivor's first point of contact with the justice system. The 1980 Legal Services Corporation ("LSC") Annual Report states that 0.8% of the caseload handled by the LSC concerned domestic violence. Big city legal services programs, in particular, have been inactive. In New York, few legal services programs perform any domestic violence work. In Miami, the legal services program does none. In Philadelphia, a recent law graduate on a fellowship coordinates that program's domestic violence legal assistance efforts." Sub-point B: Women cannot simply run away. Prof. Leigh Goodmark writes: "Lenore Walker explains, "Battered women who kill their abusers do so as a last resort.""Battered women who kill have frequently tried to leave their abusers but have found that police, clergy, courts, shelters, or other resources were either not available or not helpful in stopping the violence. In addition, battered women are aware of the tenuous nature of the protection available through the legal system. They read newspaper stories and watch television accounts about women who have called the police and obtained orders of protection, only to be killed by their abusers. When "media tragedies' like these hit the news, battered women get the message: the system that fails to protect them from assault at home will not protect them when they leave." Goodmark goes on to observe that most victims of domestic violence are dependent on their abuser for one or more reasons, including financial, social, resource, or other form of dependency. This notion is bolstered by a report authored by the New South Wales Multicultural Health Communication Services, domestic violence "includes interfering with someone"s personal freedom by keeping them away from their family or friends, or withholding money to which they"re entitled. These types of abuse have one thing in common - they"re ways that someone uses to control his partner and sometimes other members of the family. Some people believe this abuse is a private matter"But domestic violence is a crime and families have the right to be protected against it. This ability of abusers to manipulate victims unjustly infringes there freedoms and capabilities. CONTENTION TWO: Despite the lack of imminence, deliberate lethal force as a response to domestic violence is justified. Sub-point A: Lethal force is moral justified as a form of self-defense. According to Prof. Robert Schopp, "The moral justification of self-defense reflects broad underlying principles of public morality. In a liberal society that vests fundamental value in the individual"s right to self-determination and recognizes each sovereign person"s equal standing, any culpable criminal conduct infringes on the victim"s concrete interests and violates her sphere of sovereignty. The aggressor imputes inequality of standing by culpably violating the victim"s protected domain, and in a liberal society any violation of sovereignty constitutes an injury to a fundamental interest. The victim may exercise any force necessary, therefore, to protect her sphere of self-determination against an aggressor whose culpable conduct extends beyond his own protected domain." Sub-point B: Abused children should be permitted the use of lethal force. According to Catherine Ryan, J.D., "battered children who kill their abusive parents in non-confrontational settings do not fit within the framework of traditional self-defense. The danger posed to the child at the moment of the killing will often appear to be neither imminent nor reasonable to the average person; but to the child involved in a long and continued cycle of abuse at the hands of a parent, the constant and ongoing threat of abuse may make the child believe that the killing of his or her parent is indeed necessary to ward off imminent death or great bodily harm." Sub-point C: Lethal force is morally and legally permissible a defense to domestic violence, insofar as domestic violence is a form of kidnapping. Gregory Diamond asserts that, "If the harm a kidnap victim faces is continued vulnerability to serious bodily harm at another's hands, that threat is always imminent, as the victim has no ability to prevent it. It extends in time beyond the moment of abduction itself, continually renewing a state of terror and threat. In most jurisdictions, given an honest and reasonable belief that one must kill one's kidnapper in order to effect one's escape from the threat of serious bodily harm, one is legally justified in doing so"No black letter law says that one can or cannot kill one's kidnapper while he is temporarily incapacitated, but the following scenario suggests that one could: If a woman has been abducted by A and B, who she honestly and reasonably believes intend to murder her, and A falls asleep while B is absent from the room, presumably she may kill the sleeping A as part of a plan of escape if she fears that A may otherwise awaken and prevent her from defending herself against the ambulatory B. This would be so even if A and B had not yet actually begun to move toward committing the murder"If a sleeping A could be killed if doing so is truly necessary to prevent him from waking and foiling an escape from B, one may fairly suspect that a sleeping, yet powerfully threatening, A could be killed if doing so is truly necessary to prevent him from waking and foiling her escape from A himself"Even if a court did not allow a defendant to argue that she was a literal victim of kidnapping, the above analysis might bolster her moral claim to self-defense by use of that metaphor"After a trial court convicted the defendant of kidnapping, an appellate court reversed the conviction. Despite the fact that the battered woman had made no attempt to leave even during those moments when her batterer was not in the room with her, the Connecticut Supreme Court reinstated the conviction. It found that the combination of physical abuse and implicit threats to the victim if she left sufficed to constitute restraint and abduction, and therefore kidnapping. This would seem, therefore, to justify lethal self-defense." Sub-point D: Abuse is always an imminent threat, and therefore poses a grave and constant risk of harm to the victim. According to the Journal of Psychoative Drugs, "abusers become addicted to abusing their victims. They use four characteristics of addiction, which are, (1) loss of control: The abuser is contrite after the abuse, promises not to do it again, but inevitably does so.(2) continuation despite adverse consequences: The victim experiences emotional, sexual, and physical damage and loss of self-esteem"(3) preoccupation or obsession: Abuser is preoccupied with controlling the victim"(4) tolerance"the victim gets desensitized and tolerates increasing levels; the violence escalates in frequency and/or intensity and/or diversity." The Journal concludes by stating that while abusers can learn to control their addiction, this requires years of counseling, during which time the abuser should be isolated while unsupervised. Ultimately, because an abuser is addicted to the abuse, the threat that he could lash out against the victim is ALWAYS present, and may therefore be countered with lethal force. IN SUM: Any one of the various justifications for lethal force is sufficient, I feel, to meet my burden. Thus, I negate that lethal force as a deliberate response to repeated acts of domestic violence is immoral. I await the Pro"s case. Thanks!