Well, Person B is free to waste his money on trivial lawsuits if he likes (though he may be liable for Person A’s defense costs if the lawsuit turns out to have been trivial). My only point is that if Person B takes summary justice, there is nothing inherently bad or wrong or criminal about that and should not be “prohibited” or otherwise sanctioned… but Person B had better be able to justify his actions in court when Person A’s family or friends take him to court for murder. In the modern legal order, summary justice is only justifiable “in the heat of the moment” that is, while actively defending oneself from an ongoing threat. However, I think this leads to clearly absurd consequences.
Let’s say John Crook (lets use names instead of "Person X/Person Z… too confusing) breaks into my house when I’m not home. I walk through the door just as he’s about to plunge a knife into my wife. Fortunately, I’m armed, so I draw and shoot, killing John Crook. Now, let’s say I pulled into my driveway 10 seconds later and walk through the door to find John Crook pulling the knife out of my wife’s dead, stabbed body. The very same action (shooting him) is now illegal because it would be “revenge.” But how is revenge any more wrong than defense?? John Crook certainly deserves to die irrespective of whether my wife has been stabbed or not. The evidence I need to defend my actions is right there… the knife with John Crook’s fingerprints, John Crook’s presence in my house, my dead, stabbed wife, and so on. If John Crook’s mother than sues me for murdering her son, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Sure, there’s not CCTV footage of the incident but the evidence that I committed justifiable homicide meets any reasonable standard of evidence. I think the modern idea that any sort of retaliation or revenge is inherently criminal is a by-product of the State’s monopolization of retaliation and punishment.
It’s no different today and this is as it ought to be. If you can’t prove your case, then retaliation cannot be justifiable. You can know with certainty that someone committed a crime (perhaps they left a clue to taunt you with something only you could know but could never present as evidence to others) yet not be able to justify retaliating against them. In this situation, you may not lawfully retaliate.
Well, outlawry is reserved for only those crimes or offenses that are so extreme that no lawful form of restitution/punishment can be identified. If you dent someone’s car, you can pay a certain dollar amount to have it fixed and maybe something else on top for the trouble. But if you kill someone, what restitution can be made, you can’t bring the person back to life… what form of lawful punishment will satisfy the victim’s relatives demand for retaliation?? I don’t think there is any appropriate punishment so the only just answer is outlawry. After this, the victim’s relatives are no longer shackled by the legal consequences of anything that happens to you since there aren’t any.
Most disputes are resolved by the parties themselves, even in a Statist order. Every time you bump into someone walking down the sidewalk and say “excuse me” you’ve just smoothed over a potential dispute without any recourse to an “established legal system”. People work out almost all their disputes without going to court. So why should a dispute that is so thorny as to require a third-party be any different? It’s still just a dispute between two people and the purpose of the third-party is to help them resolve their dispute between themselves, not to impose a decision on them. State courts make “judgments” and “decrees” after putting people through “trials.” This is very religious terminology when you think about it. Have you ever read the Revelation of St. John? Most of the imagery of modern Western court systems comes straight from that book.
Rev. 20:11-15
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
This is very much the feeling that modern courts try to evoke in those who are forced to appear before them.
Duels were once an accepted and ordinary part of the system of dispute resolution. Let’s say I bump into you on the sidewalk. We’re both tough, young testosteronal jocks. I refuse to say “excuse me” and you get all up in my face about it. Next thing you know, we decide to settle it through a boxing match. So be it. Whoever loses the match was in the wrong and has to pay up. It’s up to the parties to the dispute to decide how they want to resolve their dispute. So long as both parties freely assent to a particular method of dispute-resolution, what business is it of anyone else’s?
Clayton -