Cultural Relativism: Ed Hope And Andrew Wilson

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Crime was rampant and violent on Chicago’s Southside in 1982. January and February in particular included a mini-crime spree perpetrated by two friends, Ed Hope and Andrew Wilson. In their effort to obtain as many guns as they could, they committed a series of crimes that ended in four deaths. It was unclear at the time that the crimes were related, and an innocent man, Alton Logan, was convicted of one of the murders. He spent the next 26 years in prison. Andrew Wilson confessed to his attorneys that he was the one that committed the crimes and not Alton Logan. But both Hope and Wilson refused to repeat what they had told their attorneys, and the American Bar Association Module Rules had their attorneys in a bind. According to the American …show more content…

How could the attorneys live with that on their conscious? What could they do? If they were to reveal that information, wouldn’t they be breaking the law themselves? Did they make the right decision? According to a cultural relativist, “right” and “wrong” are culture-specific. Cultural relativism deals with morality and "relative truth." What does that mean? Well, it can mean that what is true for one person is not true for another person and that is what an attorney counts on when attempting to defend a guilty client. Cultural relativism is widely accepted in modern anthropology. Cultural relativists believe that all cultures are worthy in their own right and are of equal value. Diversity of cultures, even those with conflicting moral beliefs, is not to be considered in terms of right and wrong or good and bad. Today’s anthropologist considers all cultures to be equally legitimate expressions of human existence, to be studied from a purely neutral perspective. Perhaps, the most important part of culture is its ethical aspect. Thus, your culture inculcates inside you various factors which you cherish as part of your ethical …show more content…

The attorneys in this case are having the same dilemma. Allowing the innocent man to suffer in the jail is an unethical action. But on the other hand disclosing the true identity of the culprit is an unethical action as these are the people who trust you with their information. The profession of an attorney requires an ethical standard which involves complete secrecy on the information supplied to them by the client. Thus, according to a cultural relativist, the analysis of this case must be done while taking into consideration the culture that these attorneys belong to. In addition to that, the culture they have experienced in their working life, and in there law schools has caused them not to follow the seeming-right path. The attorney works aggressively to defend the guilty client, not because he or she wants to get the client off, but because they believe in the concept of justice and the fact that our society is one that believes in innocence until proven guilty. So cultural relativism in relation to criminal justice in linked morally and culturally to doing the right thing based on our principles of law and not necessarily on the fact that the client may well be

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