Friday, November 28, 2003
Law in Battlestar Galactica
I just finished watching the episode "Murder On the Rising Star" where Starbuck is wrongly accused of murder. Starbuck faces an interesting dilemma. He is urged to plead self defense. By admitting his guilt in this manner, he would receive a much lighter sentence.
This situation is very similar to the legal system we have today in the United States. Criminal defendants are routinely offered plea bargains, and if they insist on a trial and lose, they suffer a much more severe penalty.
The justice system assumes that the defendant is always guilty. Theoretically, a defendant who believes he is innocent is not allowed to accept a plea bargain. He has to testify under oath that the facts presented are correct, so he'd be commiting perjury by agreeing to a plea bargain for a crime he didn't commit.
Cassiopeia urges Starbuck to plead self defense even if he's guilty because the evidence against him is so overwhelming. But Starbuck refuses, and is almost sentenced to life in the prison barge but for good luck on the part of Boomer and Apollo.
Although there are some similarities, there are also some major differences between the criminal justice system on the Galactica and what we have here in the U.S. Starbuck is not entitled to a trial by a jury of his peers, but rather there seems to be a "tribunal" composed of Commander Adama and two other high ranking officers. Furthermore, Starbuck is not granted a reasonable amount of time for his "protector" to investigate his case. He only has 10 centars (is that days?) for his defense team to figure out their defense. Even though Apollo and Boomer have some very promising leads, they are not granted a sufficient amount of time to complete their investigation. And the implication is that once Starbuck is convicted by the tribunal, that's the end of it, even if evidence of his innocence is later discovered.
Clearly, the justice system aboard the fleet is lacking in the basic protections that we take for granted in the United States. This is unusual considering that the message of Battlestar Galactica is supposed to be about freedom. The humans are supposed to represent the United States, and the Cylons are supposed to represent the former Soviet Union. President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" a few years after Battlestar Galactica was aired on TV.
Despite the harsh justice system with lack of due process at criminal trials, there is no death penalty. Even Baltar, who deserves execution more than anyone I can think of, is given a nice private cell aboard the prison barge.