Body Snatchers and John Stuart Mill in the Dock

A hush came over the courtroom after tiny prosecuting attorney Sue Pine-Coffin made her impassioned case and demanded ten years in jail for the body snatchers Marley Bone and Reggie Theremyson, whom she called ghouls.

Defense attorney, massive Phineas Screwum of the law firm Screwum, Goode, and Harte, rose from his seat, smiled at the defendants, cast a contermptuous glance at Sue, strode to the middle of the room, nodded to judge Nicholas Pipance, and walked up to the jury box.

Ladies and Genbtlemen of the Jury,

My esteemed but misguided opponent has portrayed the defendants as ghouls who deserve to be put in prison as a menace to society. Look at Marley and Reggie over there (they smiled sweetly). Do those boys look like ghouls? Of course they don’t. What is the crime of which they are accused? Body snatching. In their testimony they confessed to the so-called crime, but they also said they acted for the good of society. Yes, that’s right. The bodies that Marley and Reggie dug up were newly buried. What did the defendants do with the bodies? According to their testimony, they turned them over to a surgeon, who is still at large.

Here in the courtroom today is living proof that Marley and Reggie should be given medals as benefactors of society rather than incarcerated as ghouls.

Sitting over there is Penelope Snodgrass, who needed a kidney transplant and would have died had it not been for the kidney that came from the body that the defendants dug up. Stand up Penerlope (murmurs). Thank you. And we mustn’t forget Hubert Herbert, who was waiting in vain for a new heart. Well, he got a fine new one from a young motorcyclist, who slammed into a trailer truck that had stopped on the freeway. You don’t have to get up, Hubert. Go easy on that new heart, haha. And there are many others here who owe their lives to the defendants. Raise your hands (more than a dozen hands shot up). Impressive, isn’t it?

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury,

Has our justice system gone mad? Are we now going to start putting people in prison for saving lives instead of for tsking them? Are we? Some of you agree with me, others seem doubtful.

Do I have to call as witnesses for the defense all of the people sitting here today who wouldn’t be alive had it not been for Marley and Reggie (members of the jury shook their heads)?

Consider this. Instead of ghouls and criminals the defendants are utilitarians. You look puzzled.

A utilitarian is a person who acts for the good of the greatest number.

That is an ethical theory propounded by the great English philosopher John Stuart Mill.

As high-school dropouts, Marley and Reggie have never heard of utilitarianism, but they are living exponents of Mill’s theory. Hats off to them (hear, hear)! You see, the audience agrees with me.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury,

For the good of society, which you see here represented y persons whose lives the actions of Marley and Reggie saved, I ask you to vote for acquittal.

Rather than the defendants, it is Sue Pine-Coffin who should be on trial here for acting to prevent the good of the greatest number from being achieved (hear, hear).

I rest my case.