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THE LAW IS A ASS for 12/26/2000
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 75
Originally written as installment # 64 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 618, September 20, 1985 issue
This time of year--what with the Thanksgiving feast, the Christmas Eve feast, the Christmas feast and the just plain overeating I do on New Year's Day--I'm a glutton. So it only stands to reason that this week's column should showcase me also being a glutton for punishment.
Comic-book dialects are not my favorite things to write. They're contrived, often forced and they drive my poor spell checker absolutely crazy. So why, did I decide to do virtually a whole column written in comic-book dialect?
As the saying goes, seemed like a good idea at the time.
******
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment # 75
by
Bob Ingersoll
"But Ah don't unnerstan', Mr. Ingersoll; why am Ah a-sittin' here on muh horse all tied up with a noose around muh neck?"
"Because they're going to execute you, Kid, that's why."
"Execute me? Fer whut? Ah didn't do nuthin'."
"No, I suppose not. I mean, what's five murders among friends?"
"Five murders? Whut kinda danged foolishness are yew talkin' 'bout anyway? Ah ain't never murdered nobody. Th' Rawhide Kid only shoots people in self-defense or to right a wrong. After all Ah'm a good guy. Ah wear a white hat an' everythin'."
"Okay, I'll try to explain it to you one more time. But let me know if I go too fast for you. Or if I use a word you don't understand; like ones that end with the letter G.
"You had a four part mini-series about how you took this young kid named Jeff Packard under your wing, right?"
"Yup. Ah called him 'Understudy.' "
"Now what was the subplot that ran through all four issues?"
"Me 'n' Understudy wuz runnin' from th' Pinkerton agents whut wuz after him fer murder."
"Very good. And why were the Pinkerton Agents after Packard for murder?"
"Cuz he killed some snake of a foreman frum a meat-packin' plant in Chicago, whut took advantage a his little sister. The rainy promised he'd git her outta the slaughterhouse, if'n she'd go tuh bed with him. And after she did, he didn't keep his promise. So that Understudy went after th' snake with a meat cleaver and chopped him up real purty."
"Kid, I read Upton Sinclair, too. I know all about the turn-of-the-century Chicago meat packing industry. I feel sorry for what happened to Packard's sister, too. Although, from a story-telling point-of-view, her story would probably have been more effective and affecting if we had actually seen what had happened to her in flashbacks, rather than have Understudy tell us about it. "Still, it's my column, I can afford to be magnanimous, so I feel sorry about what happened to his sister too. But that doesn't mean that Packard had the right to play Friday the Thirteenth - Part VIII on the foreman."
"Play whut?"
"Sorry, topical humor. All I mean is that he didn't have the right to kill the foreman."
"Sure he did. It's th' 'Code a th' West'."
"But he wasn't in the west. He was in Chicago. Not only was Chicago was civilized by then, relatively speaking, but Chicago ain't the west. Have you checked a map recently? Chicago's east of the Mississippi.
"So, okay, if we knock out that ridiculous 'Code of the West' crap and look at the events from a dispassionate frame of reference, what are we left with? Packard killed a man. He went after him in cold blood and with premeditation. Not to mention with a meat cleaver. That's first degree murder in my book.
"So the meat-packing plant hired Pinkerton detectives, duly authorized law-enforcement officers, to apprehend Packard and bring him back to Chicago for trial. Right?"
"Yup."
"Well, were they doing anything wrong?"
Ah reckon not. They wuz doin' their job, ah guess. Ah mean, mebbe Understudy shouldn'ta run away. Mebbe he shoulda stayed for his trial an' fought."
"So, if they weren't doing anything wrong how do you explain what you did to them?"
"Yuh mean when Ah went out lookin' fer 'em an' killed 'em after they had killed Understudy?"
"Right.?"
"But Ah had to avenge Understudy, didn't Ah? Them Pinkertons killed him."
"Yes, they did, but only after he went out and started shooting at them. He shot first, they returned fire. Shooting back after someone is shooting at you is self-defense. It's something you should be pretty familiar with. You only claim it every time you killed a man.
"Maybe the Pinkertons overreacted, but the simple fact of the matter is, they were acting within the law, when they killed Packard. They didn't do anything wrong. But you went out and killed them anyway, because you had to avenge your friend's lawful death
"What you're advocating is that it is okay to murder police officers who kill a man that's resisting a lawful arrest. Is that the kind of role model you want to be? I thought you were supposed to be a good guy.
"You killed the Pinkertons in cold blood. And that's murder. So that's why you're being executed, Kid."
"Well, yew kin still save me, Mr. Ingersoll. Take muh gun, it never misses. Shoot the rope an' save me."
It was against my better judgement, but I did it. Heck, I'd always wanted to try that trick, ever since I had seen the Lone Ranger do it, back when I was six. So, I didn't bother aiming--it was a good guy's gun, who needs to aim?--and I shot the rope.
I did shoot the rope, too. But the trick didn't work out quite right. The bullet bounced off the and broke a window in the Town Hall. Last time I saw the Rawhide Kid, he was dangling about six feet off the ground.
Oh well.
******
"I desire to know, Mr. Ingersoll, if you're writing about heroes that kill, then why haven't you written about me?"
The Beyonder? Here in my basement? That's all I need. I've got friends who boycott anything The Beyonder appears in. Now they won't read my column.
"And why did Captain America say I hadn't committed a major crime in Avengers # 261? Didn't I commit murder, when I turned a building into gold, so that it collapsed under its own weight and killed a man?"
"Well... No. If I had done it, it would be a homicide, but when you did it, it wasn't."
"But why not. I desire to know."
"Because you didn't have a mens rea."
"What is this 'Mens Room' you talked about. I desire...
"To know. I know.
"Mens rea means criminal mind. Under the law it isn't enough that someone does something which is against the law, he must have also intended to break the law, that is, have acted with a criminal intent, a mens rea."
"And where does one get this criminal mind? Is it a Blue Light Special at K-Mart?"
"Criminal intent is generally found in one of two ways. Well, actually it's three ways, but I won't talk about mala prohibita right now. It have nothing to do with why you didn't commit any crimes and if I blow all my topics now, I won't have anything to write about next week.
"Anyway, as I was saying, there are two ways to find criminal intent. If the person knows what he is doing is against the law, and does it anyway, then he has criminal intent. Or if the person can reasonably foresee that a criminal act is the likely and foreseeable result of what he's doing, and he does it anyway, then his failure to forebear from actions which will result in an illegality, also manifest criminal intent.
"For example, if I were to suddenly turn an occupied skyscraper into gold, so that it collapsed under its own weight and killed a man, I'd be guilty of some form of homicide. I could foresee that the building's collapse was not only the most likely result of my transmutation, it would be the only result. And, I could also foresee that when the building collapsed, someone in the building would probably be killed.
"Thus, because I could foresee the illegal result, a death and didn't forebear from turning the building into gold, my recklessness would constitute a criminal intent. I'd be guilty of a homicide."
"But that is exactly what I did. So why aren't I guilty? I desire to know about crime and jails."
"Because you have to foresee the probable results of your actions. In Secret Wars, that wouldn't have been a problem. You seemed like some supremely powerful macho kind of guy who, other than wanting to understand desire, knew what was going on. Now, in Secret Wars II, you wander around aimlessly trying to learn the human condition. You ask for instructions on how to go to the bathroom, fall in love with dinks like the Dazzler, let little girls put time bombs in your pants, and say such meaningful things as, 'What a marvelous collection of devices! How do they work? What do they do? May I flip some switches?' " You're no longer the omnipotent opponent and antagonist, you're little more than the comedy relief. Let's face it, with that kind of personality and understanding, you couldn't even foresee gas in a Mexican restaurant.
"You may be the most powerful being in your universe or ours, but now that Marvel has given you the mentality of a melting ice cube. I don't think you could ever have a mens rea. To be honest, I'm kind of doubtful about the mens part entirely.
BOB INGERSOLL
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