The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

I know. I am lame. It took me this long to watch the movie, but I finally did.

I was told that the movie was boring. Was it? No. I liked the movie. Quite a lot actually. For the most part, the movie was like a debate of the 'separation of church and state" issues. Prosecution was arguing based on medicine, the defendants on mysticism. In the movie, the demons are real, making the witch-doctor explanations valid. But it was a court of law, making a decision based on
hocus pocus quite of the question. In that respect, I have no doubts about where I stand. I cannot accept otherwordly explanations being allowed to stand in court. Hopefully I never see a day that a bomoh becomes an expert witness on the stand.

But there was another issue in the movie that I found interesting. I've thought about it a long time ago, but since the movie brought it up, I'll take a look at it.

Should a guilty man who had perfectly good intentions or an alternate explanation to his actions (which cannot be admitted in court) be held responsible for his crimes? The priest had only the best intentions. And his story is as believable as it is real. But none of the jury can write 'not guilty' without insulting the judiciary. A similar case can be found in John Grisham's 'A Time to Kill'. A man whose daughter was brutally raped, attacked the rapists (who were good for nothing scum of society) with a M-16 and killed them. Do we blame him? To let him go would mean being inconsistent, leaving room for future 'abuse' of the system, but many a jury would be tempted to let him get on with his life. Of course in those stories, humanity triumphs and both the convicted people get away.

Question is, can this be allowed to happen? If it happens enough times, we cannot expect people to take the law seriously anymore, now can we? People will start asking 'what justice?'

I still think that the law is the most convenient form of conflict resolution that we have, even if there might be little problems here and there. I don't find 'lawyers go to hell' jokes all that funny. I suppose its a case of 'it might not be perfect, but if we didn't have it, we're all screwed'