Seems to me that a better lawyer, or a lawyer with better writers, could have "double-tracked" the summation arguing simultaneously that Oliver wasn't the Green Arrow and didn't deserve to go to jail even if he was. (Stating it much more artfully than I just did, of course.)
Spoilers Arrow - Season 6
- Thread starter dahj
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I appreciate his argument, of needing to protect Felicity and his son. But, then she was more than willing to be a participant in his spree.
It would be to much for CW to really enter in the debate about whether killing bad people is ok because they are “bad” people. But, I also think about the Judge in this week’s episode. Yes, he was excepting money, but Diggle’s action directly led to his killing. Legally responsible? Perhaps not. Morally? Yeah. And they sorta shrugged it off. Did the judge meet the hurdle of being bad enough to die without a trial?
In my view, Diggle is certainly morally responsible for the judge's death. Diggle's actions made Diaz think that the judge had betrayed him thus leading Diaz to kill him. Diggle had to know that. In terms of whether the judge was bad enough to deserve it, we don't really know. Was he coerced or blackmailed by Diaz or was he a corrupt judge to begin with who was happy to take Diaz' money? If the judge was basically a good guy who took some bribes from Diaz because he was coerced, then Diggle basically had an innocent man killed as "collateral damage". No doubt that Team Arrow has blood on their hands. I do think this show is rather cavalier with death. It seems to just shrug off any moral debate.
What about all the enemy soldiers Diggle gunned down in the teaser just to rescue Chance? He's more directly responsible for those deaths than the judge's.
Yes, but soldiers are enemy combatants. Killing soldiers of an opposing force is not murder in the legal sense. Impersonating a civilian in a way that directly gets them murdered is completely different. Civilians are not enemy combatants. Also, in the case of the soldiers, the deaths happened as a direct result of combat whereas the judge was murdered because of Diggle's deception.
And in the legal sense, Diaz is responsible for the judge's death. I thought you were speaking of Diggle's moral culpability.
I was. And now that you make me think about it, I guess soldiers would be morally responsible for killing other soldiers since they are committing the act of ending a life. Funny how our society does not really think about it. We just take it for granted that killing other soldiers is "ok" because it's wartime. I did not flinch at Diggle killing the soldiers because I just saw it as a military operation but the judge's death did bother me.
"Here is better than home, eh, sir? I mean, at home if you kill someone they arrest you, here they'll give you a gun and show you what to do, sir. I mean, I killed fifteen of those buggers. Now, at home they'd hang me, here they'll give me a fucking medal, sir."
- Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Part III: Fighting Each Other
Except it's not like he was just ordered to go on a mission. He went in specifically to get Christopher Chance so he could help Oliver. So he instigated the conflict. Okay, on general principles, rescuing Chance from people who might plan to kill him could be a good thing, but come on, it's the Human Target, he could've probably freed himself. And rather than going in all paratrooper and stuff, Diggle could've found a more covert, surgical way to free him. Heck, Barry still owes him a pretty huge debt for, y'know, wiping his daughter from existence and turning her into a son. He could've zoomed in and out in a half-second without anyone getting hurt.
I do think he’s morally culpable. His actions put the judge on the road to death. Duffle even commented that Diaz doesn’t forgive.
Diggle knew what was going to happen.
Edited to add: if Diggle had turned the judge over to Argus or something, saying “for his protection until he can be prosecuted” that would’ve made Diggle feel heroic to me.
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That's basicly what I said, yes.
Except, then Ollie's release would be rescinded since it wasn't the actual judge who did it.
Wouldn't a retrial be more likely? The whole trial would've been tainted by a judge on the take, and a jury that also might've been under Diaz's thumb.
And shouldn't heroes do the right thing, regardless of the consequences to themselves? Is Ollie's freedom more valuable than the life of a judge who may have only been taking bribes? Is Ollie's freedom more valuable than the life of a judge who may have been doing Diaz's bidding because Diaz threatened his life or loved ones?
But as Oliver put it - nobody knows who Ricardo Diaz is.
At the moment, yes.
In my version, Diggle has kidnapped the Judge, replaced him with Cross. The judge would be held by Argus until Diaz is brought to justice--at which point, he would be public knowledge, as more than half of the city's officials would also be brought down.
Then, a retrial would be ordered. And then Ollie is cleared, blah blah blah.... This way Diggle's hands would be clean.
I think my biggest niggle, this shrugging the "heroes" are doing around all of their collateral damage they cause.
Obviously the writers could have made the jury open-minded and gone with a jury nullification argument. But just going by the way the story was written for the jury to come back THAT FAST with a guilty verdict with no physical evidence of Oliver being the Green Arrow, and the prosecution having one witness saying he was while the defense had TWO witnesses saying he wasn't (including one who repelled into the court room as the Green Arrow and incriminated himself).
It's pretty obvious the writers were showing the jury was completely in the pocket of Diaz.
Yeah, that was clear. That's what made it (theoretically) morally acceptable for Team Arrow to use trickery to win -- because it wasn't a fair trial to begin with.
Yep.
Exactly. But, then, I have a hard time with them shrugging off the judge's death.
I just rewatched the episode and realized a problem. After Ollie confessed to Jean Loring that he was the Green Arrow, Loring had him on the stand and asked, "But you're not the Green Arrow?" to which he replied "No, I am not." So she knowingly suborned perjury, which is not something a lawyer should do even if she knows her client is guilty. Indeed, I think that was part of the defense case, so if she knew he was guilty, she shouldn't have called him as a witness in the first place, so that she wouldn't have to place him or herself in that position.
Wow. Two lairs blown up in the same night? It's starting to get (or already has been) implausible just how successful Diaz has been at taking everything away from Team Arrow, especially given what an unnuanced berserker he's turned out to be.
And where did Ollie get his costume and gear after the bunker was taken? Did he have a spare at home?
And where did Ollie get his costume and gear after the bunker was taken? Did he have a spare at home?
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