For all of you criminal law professors who are looking for a draconian homicide statute for your
next exam, here’s a bit from the real thing — Drakon’s law on homicide (ca. 621 BC) (a portion dealing with involuntary homicide), which Solon (pictured) reformed thereafter.
Even if a man not intentionally kills another, he is exiled. The basileis [chieftains of a kind] are to adjudge responsible for homicide either the actual killer or the planner; and the Ephetai [judges as to, inter alia, involuntary homicide] are to judge the case. If there is a father or brother or sons, pardon is to be agreed to by all, or the one who opposes is to prevail; but if none of these survives, by those up to the degree of first cousin once removed, if all are willing to agree to a pardon; the one who opposes is to prevail; but if not one of these survives, and if he killed unintentionally and if the fifty-one, the Ephetai, decide he killed unintentionally, let ten phratry [a type of organized kinship group] members admit him to the country and let the fifty-one choose these by rank. And let also those who killed previously be bound by this law. A proclamation is to be made against the killer in the agora by the victim’s relatives as far as the degree of cousin’s son . . . .
Posted by Marc DeGirolami on May 15, 2012 at 09:30 AM
Comments
The provision allowing for pardon if all male relatives agree reminds me of some of the literature on the lex talionis (“eye for an eye” and such) that suggested that the provisions were not really meant to be read literally, but as a means of providing the injured party with a greater negotiating position for the inevitable settlement. Being able to say, “Well I guess we could always just take your arm…” put a lot of pressure on the responsible individual to agree to whatever the victim(s) demanded.
Posted by: Charles Paul Hoffman | May 15, 2012 12:14:31 PM