No Justice for Vigilantes

As noted yesterday, when discussing One Man Jury (1978), vigilante movies of this ilk are predicated upon the dubious thesis that the justice system is unfairly stacked in favour of the accused, thereby justifying their heroes taking the law into their own hands.  What has always struck me, though, is that none of them seem to have sufficient confidence in this thesis to put it to the test  by having their hero actually indicted for their crimes, but getting off because of a clever lawyer who exploits various legal loopholes and technicalities.  I may, of course. be mistaken: there could be such a film out there that I haven't seen and I'm happy to stand corrected.  But even if this is the case, it remains true that the overwhelming majority of vigilante movies aren't willing to explore this avenue.  Largely, I suspect, because, in some ways it disproves their theory, demonstrating that, despite all of its alleged flaws, the system can still be used to deliver what they would consider to be the right result.  Except of course, that it wouldn't be the right result as far as any rational viewer is concerned.  Sure, we could enjoy the irony in such a situation, but the fact is that justice ultimately requires that those who break the law should be properly held to account.

But that's the crux of the contradiction that lies at the heart of the vigilante movie:  while on the one hand remonstrating against a system that allegedly ensures that the guilty don't get punished, it simultaneously demands that its own law-breaking hero be spared justice.  Because these films, particularly the vigilante cop variety, never want to actually examine their heroes' culpability in the failures of justice that trigger their plots.  More often than not, the 'technicality' that the bad guys get off on is that the investigating detective, the hero of piece, had in some way violated their rights when arresting them, had obtained evidence illegally or generally had simply failed to follow established legal procedures.  It has nothing to do with flaws in the system or its alleged bias toward the accused, it has everything to do with flawed investigations carried out by the hero.  All of which is equally true in real life, where miscarriages of justice are inevitably the result of police and/or prosecutors failing follow up leads implicating other suspects, ignoring evidence and/or witnesses or simply failing to look for additional evidence.  In both fiction and real life, courts can only determine the outcome of cases on the basis of the evidence submitted - if crucial evidence is omitted or ruled inadmissible, then that is the responsibility of the prosecution and its investigators.

Obviously, though, none of that interests the makers of these films who just want to to advance the simplistic idea of a biased justice system that puts criminals back on the streets.  The fundamental basis of the justice system used in most of the English-speaking world is that the accused is innocent until proven guilty, (and therefore entitled to the same rights as every other citizen up to the point that they are convicted), is conveniently ignored.  As is the fact that all the rules and procedures that their heroes happily violate in the name 'justice' are designed to protect, not just the accused, but all of society - believe me, those who loudly decry them would suddenly be grateful for them if they were to find themselves falsely accused of a crime.  The system isn't perfect, but it is just about the best we have right now.  But hey, you are probably thinking, this is all a bit heavy isn't it?  After all, we're only talking about cheap exploitation films here, not real life.  Which, to some extent is true.  But, unfortunately, this sort of stuff isn't just contained to films - they tend to take their cue from the wider media and there are sections of the media, not to mention politicians, who like to advance this same view of the justice system, calling for human rights to be scaled back, (after all, it's only the guilty who hide behind them, right?), trial by jury to be restricted, standards of evidence to be lowered and the right to silence (a cornerstone of the assumption of innocence which underpins the whole system) to be abolished.  The films, in turn, feed this stuff back into the public consciousness and amplify it.  Which is why it is important to counter these false assumptions whenever we encounter them.