Do species characteristics matter durin trials?
- Thread starter Yevetha
- Start date
In one of Diane Duane's novel's there was a Enterprise crewmember whose race possessed no cultural concept of time. So, where were you on the morning of the 17th, woud be a meaningless question to such a race.
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A being who kills someone during the course of a duel over a woman, and was charged with murder, and recieved a all Vulcan jury.
Would such a jury understand the problem?
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Would a being from a society that practiced total community property, understand thieft.
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A being who kills someone during the course of a duel over a woman, and was charged with murder, and recieved a all Vulcan jury.
Would such a jury understand the problem?
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Would a being from a society that practiced total community property, understand thieft.
Well, if the Federation is, well, a federation, then that presumably means that its various Member States retain their own systems of law and judiciaries within the larger Federation legal system. So exactly what one could be charged with would depend upon where one is.
Say, for instance, you're a Human Federation citizen living on Vulcan. If you wind up in a koon-ut-kal-if-fee (fight to the death) with your best friend St'Even because the girl he's pon farring over invoked Vulcan law to force you to fight on her behalf -- i.e., the Kirk/Spock situation in "Amok Time" -- and end up killing him in the fight, you probably wouldn't be charged with murder. On Vulcan, such a killing would be legal because of their species' biological and cultural traits. Federation law would probably justify it by arguing that anyone who consents to participate in a koon-ut-kal-if-fee fight to the death has consented to their own potential homicide, and that therefore consensual homicide is legal if the local Member State's legal system allows for it.
That's just one example of Federation Member States potentially having differing legal traditions based upon biological and cultural history, of course. One could imagine others -- perhaps on Risa, there is no prohibition against adults and teenagers who have gone through puberty having sex, for instance, and thus the age of consent is much lower and applies universally rather than only applying to other teenagers, as is often the case in contemporary America. Perhaps on Bajor, the Bajoran religion is the established church, and there's no prohibition against mixing church and state in the UFP for Member worlds. Etc.
He was a scientist, and studied things such as stars and other astronomical phenomena.
That makes sense. Though it would also have to also depend on what species one is. Some local rules should apply to everyone but rules that are based on a certain biological trait shouldn't really apply to members of other species that don't posses that trait or posses a trait that is different. Member States' laws probably contain specific provisions that deal with this.
And what if you're a member of Starfleet and serving on a Starfleet ship? I wonder what would happen if a Vulcan Starfleet member killed another Vulcan Starfleet member because of pon farr (or alternatively, if one of them wasn't a Vulcan). Especially if it's an extremely touchy situation like a junior officer killing the CO, or something like that. I wonder how Starfleet's UCMJ deals with that. I guess Vulcan law itself should have a rule about something like that, since the situation could no doubt also happen in a Vulcan only situation on Vulcan itself.
Well, one thing is for sure. Lots of nuances and complexities for Federation legal experts to debate about...
When Work killed (dueled) his girlfriend's murderer, the Empire had no problem with it. And in Worf's meeting with Picard, Picard didn't indicate that Worf had broken any civil law with his actions. It wasn't even clear that Worf had violated any Starfleet regulations. Picard only indicated his own displeasure.
If the majority of Federation membership possessed a cultural tradition of dueling and forms of legal personal justice, and brought these tradition into the Federation at the time they join, how could the Federation have a Federation civil law against dueling?
Which of the Federation council repersentatives would have voted such a legal measure into existence?
If the majority of Federation membership possessed a cultural tradition of dueling and forms of legal personal justice, and brought these tradition into the Federation at the time they join, how could the Federation have a Federation civil law against dueling?
Which of the Federation council repersentatives would have voted such a legal measure into existence?
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