Curious Case of Mr. Dee
I wrote a paper for my legal studies class about how the ancient Chinese magistrate, Judge Dee, would fare as a person living in 2011 California.
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Your honor, on behalf of the defendant, Mr. Dee, I would like to proclaim my client not guilty and free of responsibility from all accusations made against his recent conduct, including accounts of fraud, invasion of privacy, tampering with evidence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, for reasons that pertain to his mental condition. If you would kindly allow me five minutes to explain before this jury why my client should be absolved of all accusations, I will show why there is no need to press any further with the case.
To begin with, Mr. Dee has had a clean record with no history of misconduct. While he may behave in ways that others may find “eccentric in nature”, I can assure you that Mr. Dee is an upright and moral man. At home, his parents describe him to be a “pious and respectable child” while his wife describes him as a “loving and devoted husband”. His children have looked up to him as a strict yet benevolent father, and his sibling are equally generous with their praise of him. At the high school where he works as a history teacher, the principal has spoken highly of his loyalty, and several of students have also spoken out against his accusations.
In one particularly memorable interview, one of his former students commented, and I quote: “I used to sell cocaine by the restrooms to the ninth graders. And one day, as Mr. Dee stepped out the stalls and caught me red-handed, he took me out for a coffee chat at a nearby diner. No one ever treated me with such generosity, and I was so touched by our conversation that I decided to change my ways and study hard. I started out high school as a drug dealer and gang member with a 2.0 GPA. It has been two years since my chat with Mr. Dee, and I just received my acceptance letter to UC Berkeley, the number one public university in the world.” Of all of the clients we have worked with, none have been described more positively than this man before you.
In addition to his upright character, Mr. Dee is also has shown serious signs of mental illness that can account for his aberrant behavior concerning this case. Upon finding out that one of his students has been murdered, Mr. Dee reported having several dreams that have recurred and disrupted his sleep for the follow two days. He claims that the spirits have spoken to him, and that he is now charged with the responsibility of discovering the truth to the murder. Based on literature in Psychology, this is a classic instance of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in which Mr. Dee has suffered a traumatic experience that has altered his state of being. His relationship with this student has been so strong, and this incident has caused so much distress, that Mr. Dee has been mentally derailed by the experience.
Since the dreams, Mr. Dee’s mental condition continued to worsen. At around July of last year, this deteriorating mental condition hit rock bottom when the detectives working on this case came back reporting no conclusive results. Throughout the entire time as the case was in process, Mr. Dee was aloof and kept to himself as he spent many hours locked in his room reading a series of history books. Upon hearing the news from the detective, he signed up for his first acting class with the Drama department where he practiced the role of the federal agent with the rest of the students preparing for the school play. This new obsession with acting can be seen as a coping mechanism, as Mr. Dee was reduced to a state where he had to play out his mental fantasy of solving the crime himself.
In December, Mr. Dee began to display his first signs of insanity as he took his role of the federal agent outside of class and began a series of visits to people he suspected were tied to the case. One visit that had greater legal implications was his visit to the coroner, where he asked to see the body of the murdered student. The coroner, duped by his convincing act, complied with his request but did not expect Mr. Dee to actually touch the body. This episode, in which the prosecution has accused of as tampering with evidence, was actually Mr. Dee playing out a simple but powerful subconscious need to be affirmed of the death of the student. It represents a way for Mr. Dee to move past the “denial” stage of the death, and it is unfortunate that this need overtook his ability to reason.
And yet, for some strange reason, Mr. Dee’s unstable mental behavior seemed to have a method behind its madness. By early August, Mr. Dee was able to find his way to the house of the plaintiff in the guise of a federal agent. In the manner which he interrogated others he visited, Mr. Dee spoke harshly to the person now confirmed to be the murderer of the case. After receiving several denials by the murderer, Mr. Dee entered into his room without permission, opened a cavity in the ground, and extracted a bottle of poison. Mr. Dee threatened to expose how exactly the murderer poisoned the student out of his jealousy of a love-triangle incident, and his directness consequently caused the plaintiff to go into a panic attack that has put him in the hospital.
That same plaintiff, the one who murdered the student, is the person currently pressing charges against Mr. Dee on multiple accounts, including fraud, invasion of property, tampering with evidence, and intentional infliction of mental distress. While Mr. Dee has indeed acted in ways that were legally questionable, he has contributed tremendously to solving a murder case. His situation needs to be understood as coming from a place of desperation, accompanied by incredible pain and anguish. How much suffering it must have taken to bring a respectable member of this community—a loving son, husband, father, and teacher— to the point of mental instability?
Your honor, distinguished members of the jury—Mr. Dee has already been hurt once by the death of his student. Must we hurt him again by pressing legal charges brought forth by a murderer towards an admirable man made mentally unstable by trauma? Please. Let us have mercy for Mr. Dee. Such a man deserves our compassion, not severity.
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