I'm working on a law review article about how criminal behavior is treated in the Star Trek universe, with the sub-topic of the insanity defense.
I know that people getting possessed, being under the influence of strange phenomena, switching bodies, and otherwise not being themselves are staples of sci-fi plots. Can anyone point me to episodes where the characters are like this and commit an act we would consider criminal?
I have a working list going, but I want to make sure I don't miss anything.
To get the general idea of what I have in mind, here's a short excerpt from my working list:
VOY- Blood Fever: Vorik, while under the influence of Pon Farr, assaults B'Elanna.
TNG- The Naked Now: Wesley commandeers the Enterprise while under the influence of the polywater intoxication.
DS9- Dramatis Personae: Kira gets possessed and stages a mutiny. (This one is a gold mine; practically everyone qualifies.)
Thanks!
Man, I want to work on your law review. Then again, I'll be lucky to get on mine.
All right, here's a non-exhaustive list of actions that would have been criminal but for the absence of mens rea. In cases where it is possible, I've added whether charges appeared to be filed, and if so, what their dispositions were.
The Assignment (DS9): Keiko O'Brien is possessed by a Pagh Wraith, forces Miles to do evil things. No charges.
Hard Time (DS9): Miles O'Brien kills a (fake) guy during a (mentally-implanted) twenty-year prison sentence. The whole ordeal is intensely traumatic, particularly since he didn't do anything illegal in the first place. In real life, iirc he assaults and (maybe) batters someone, largely as a result of poor impulse-control stemming from his trauma. No charges, but ordered to continue counseling.
Time's Orphan (DS9): Molly O'Brien is lost in temporal anomaly on an uninhabited planet for a few moments of objective time, but lives a feral existence and grows to adulthood alone; she assaults and batters one or two customers at Quark's after her therapy goes awry. Charges are filed, but Miles breaks her out and sends her back into the past. No charges seem to be filed against
him.
Hey, does anyone see the pattern here?
And speaking of patterns:
Brothers (TNG): A homing program Noonien Soon built into Data takes over Data's mind, and in turn Data takes over the ship, violating about a billion Starfleet regs, falsely imprisoning at least the bridge crew, battering a security officer with a force field, and piloting the
Enterprise to Noonien Soong's home planet. No charges.
Descent (TNG): Data is corrupted by a combination of the deactivation of his ethical subroutines and newfound emotions, both the work of his asshole brother Lore, and he goes on to torture Geordi with Mengele-type mad science experiments. No charges.
I know good and well there are more Data-is-a-liability episodes, but I can't think of them right this second.
Anyway...
Conspiracy (TNG): vast numbers of Starfleet personnel are taken over by "bluegill" parasites, including Commander Remmick, whose head explodes if you fire phasers at it long enough. They do various illegal things while under the influence of the parasites. No charges.
Best of Both Worlds (TNG): Picard is assimilated. His knowledge and personality is turned against the Federation. He helps orchestrate acts of terrorism and attempts genocide. No charges. However, he appears to have lost a great deal of confidence from his superiors, particularly when it comes to Borg-related activity. Punishment without adjudication?
Mind's Eye (TNG): Geordi LaForge is transformed, Manchurian Candidate style, into an assassin by the Romulans. He almost carries out his mission. No charges.
What You Leave Behind (DS9): Skrain Dukat is arguably completely overwhelmed by the personality of the Pagh Wraith which has inhabited/empowered him. Goes insane. He kills Kai Winn, asaults and batters Ben Sisko (perhaps aggravated battery, depending on the law regarding superpowers), attempts the genocide of the Bajoran people, and possibly the galaxy/universe. No charges, but then he does fall into a lake full of lava and/or Pagh Wraiths.
What You Leave Behind (DS9): The Female Changeling orders the genocide of the Cardassian species. She is in intense physical and mental pain due to the Federation plague weapon which is destroying her own species, which have affected her ability to form the requisite mens rea for the
intentional murder of 800 million Cardassians. Charges
definitely filed. She submits to a war crimes tribunal.
The Nth Degree (TNG): Reginald Barclay is mind-somethinged by an alien probe. He develops extreme, superhuman cognitive functions. Using his newly-massive brain, he takes control of the
Enterprise in violation of Starfleet regulations. No charges. I'm at the tail end of my exams right now; let me tell you, I wish some alien probe had blasted me.
Empok Nor (DS9): Elim Garak is exposed to a designer psychoactive chemical specifically calculated to increase the aggression and xenophobia of Cardassians. He kills two Starfleet officers, and attempts to kill Miles O'Brien (that guy doesn't get a break) and Nog. No charges. No civil suits, either, but then that might should be expected in a society with no money.
The Game (TNG): mind-controlling devices are introduced to the
Enterprise crew in the guise of virtual reality gaming. Just about everyone except Wesley Crusher and Ashley Judd are affected, and behave in violation of Starfleet regs. No charges, at least for the mind-controlled crew.
Facets (DS9): Dax's previous host Joran, a murderer, inhabits Ben Sisko's body. Tries to kill Jadzia Dax. No charges.
Field of Fire (DS9): Ezri Dax purposefully invokes Joran in order to help solve a murder mystery on DS9. He tries to force her to kill the murderer, but she resists. No charges here, of course.
A lot of data points.
In only one of these cases was there any formal judicial proceeding, the Female Changeling's. We can assume, but for intervening events, Molly O'Brien and Skrain Dukat would have faced some kind of state-sponsored process (in O'Brien's case, a "Federation magistrate," in Dukat's case, probably the same war crimes tribunal the Female Changeling was compelled to submit to).
Strikingly odd are the
lack of formal proceedings for Data's actions in Descent and Garak's actions in Empok Nor. In both cases, it's possible this happened off-camera, but either way we can be certain that there were no negative consequences for Data or Garak.
These two cases underline the lack of prosecution inherent in the Federation system, or at least in their military. There's a possibility that it may be wagon-circling, but it seems that they prefer more informal systems of social order. Perhaps the evolved sensibility sees no purpose in adjudication when the lack of mens rea is so clear (although I might argue it's not entirely clear in Data's case).
There's actually a law review article I read once, about the mind-boggling informality of Federation law--the waiver of protections we hold sacrosanct, immensely suspect procedural questions that go unanswered and even unasked, and of course your topic, the dismissal of the possibility of punishment when mens rea even seems to be absent.
