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Join us each Tuesday as Bob Ingersoll analyzes how the law
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THE LAW IS A ASS for 10/29/2002
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 168
Originally written as installment # 150 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 781, November 4, 1988 issue
One hundred fifty columns.
Five-plus years.
Where did the time go? I probably shouldn't ask. One of these days, I may find out.
******
THE LAW IS A ASS
Installment # 168
by
BOB INGERSOLL
The August 26, 1983 issue of The Comics Buyer's Guide, # 510, came out a little over five years ago. It contained among other features, an installment of Don Thompson's "Comics Guide," an installment of Lawrence Watt-Evans's "Rayguns, Elves, & Skin-Tight Suits," an installment of Elizabeth Slaughter's "The Bitter Half," "Oh So?," and the one hundredth installment of cat yronwode's "Fit to Print." It also saw the debut of three new features: "The New Outbursts of Everett True" by Tony Isabella, Greg Dudgett, and Gary Dumm, "Cosmic Trips" by Rick Norwood, and "The Law Is a Ass" by some hack named Bob Ingersoll.
Has it really been five years?
Five years. That's longer than the runs of Battlestar Galactica, Partners in Crime, Hell Town, Easy Street, Blacke's Magic, Logan's Run, and any post-M*A*S*H* show staring McLean Steveson combined. Hopefully it's been more memorable, too.
My thoughts turned to such nostalgia, because the installment you're presently reading is the one hundred fiftieth installment of "The Law Is a Ass" written by me for Comics Buyer's Guide. One hundred fifty columns in five years. Let's see: that about thirty installments each year, or an installment once every one point seven three weeks. Not bad for something Tony Isabella had to twist my arm to get me to write in the first place and which I figured could go about a year or two, before I ran out of ideas.
Guess what? I didn't. Of course, I've had a little help from various comic creators; early on, I think I did a year each on The Vigilante and "The Trial of the Flash." (Ah, for the good old days, when I didn't have to look so hard for column topics.)
Today, just for a one hundred fiftieth change of pace, let's give the comic creators a rest. Instead, let's talk about a TV show. With apologies to Charles A. Wagner, let's dissect "The Mysterious Cube," episode 95 of TV's The Adventures of Superman.
I warn you up front: this is not one of the better episodes of the show.
Metropolis gangster, Paul Barton, disappeared almost seven years ago. In fact, tomorrow at noon will mark, to the minute, the seventh anniversary of his disappearance. At the same time that Barton disappeared, a mysterious cube which no one can penetrate appeared in the back yard of Barton's brother, Steve.
Coincidence? Lieutenant Henderson doesn't think so. He suspects, and quite correctly I might add, that Paul Barton, who is guilty of every crime known to man including murder, is hiding in the cube waiting for seven years to pass.
Why? So Barton could miss I Married Joan, Lash of the West, You're In the Picture, and the other kinescoped classics that they forget to tell you about, when they call the 50's "The Golden Age of Television?" No, although that would be an excellent reason, Barton is trying to avoid prosecution for his crimes.
Don't jump ahead. Barton isn't waiting for the statute of limitations on his crimes to expire. In the first place, there is no statute of limitations on murder. In the second place, the statute of limitations stops running while a criminal is in hiding to avoid prosecution. After all, why should we reward criminals who happen to be good at playing Hide and Seek?
Barton's plan is more subtle. No more correct from a legal point of view, just more subtle. He's been waiting for the seven-year presumption of death to come into play. After he's been missing for seven years, his brother can declare him legally dead, then he'll be free from prosecution forever, because you can't prosecute a dead man.
I seem to remember that when I first saw this particular episode back in 1957, I thought Barton's idea was neat. Forgive me, I was five years old. I was young. I was impressionable. I was stupid. Now I'm thirty-six. I've been to law school. I've practiced law for over seven years. I know better. I'm still stupid; but I do know better.
Barton's plan had as much chance of success as trying to balance the budget by simultaneously cutting taxes and increasing defense spending. I'll tell you why later. First I want to finish detailing the plot. After all, I don't want anyone to suffer unnecessary anxiety over whether Superman foiled Barton's dastardly scheme.
Inspector Henderson enlists Superman's aid to get Barton out of the cube, before noon tomorrow, so that Barton can't be declared dead and escape prosecution. Why Henderson waited until the last day instead of having Superman crack the cube four years ago is never adequately explained. In fact, it's never explained at all. It, like how the final two minutes of a football game can last a half-hour, is one of life's little mysteries.
Superman tries to see through and break through the cube. He fails. The frustrated Superman demands that Steve tell him what the cube is made out of. Steve doesn't know, and, unfortunately, the scientist who developed the cube died seven years ago. Well, isn't that conveeeenient? Not only does Steve Barton not have to tell Superman what this impossible cube is made out of, but the writers of the episode don't have to tell the viewers either.
Steve gloats to Superman that his brother is alive inside the cube and is waiting to be declared legally dead, so that he can come out a free man. Superman vows to get Paul out of the cube, before noon tomorrow.
Superman goes to his old friend, Professor Lacerne for advice. In the previous week's episode, Lacerne suggested that Superman could be in two places at once by mentally pushing his superdense molecules so far apart that he would divide in two. This time, Lacerne suggests that Superman concentrate on vibrating his molecules faster than the molecules of the cube so he can become more nebulous than this story and walk though the cube. Why can't any of my friends ever suggest worthwhile ideas like these? All I ever get is, "Lose weight."
Meanwhile, Steve Barton decides to get some insurance. No, he doesn't buy a piece of the rock; he gets and ties up Lois and Jimmy, the hostage twins--the only people with more knot and rope experience than a Boy Scout a merit badge. When Superman returns, Steve warns him that Lois and Jimmy will die, if Superman interferes. Superman stops, which is what makes Superman Superman. After ninety-four straight episodes of Lois and Jimmy being used as hostages, you'd think Superman would finally let the bad guys kill Lois and Jimmy. You would have. I would have. I guess Superman realized he had another nine episodes to go; episodes that would have only five minutes of plot without Lois and Jimmy being held hostage by someone.
Steve orders Superman to leave. Then in classic bad guy fashion, Steve tells Superman exactly what Superman needs to win: brother Paul has a clock synchronized by radio with the Naval Observatory clock in Arlington; he'll leave his cube at five minutes after twelve and not one minute earlier.
The next day, when his clock shows 12:05, Paul Barton leaves the cube. Inspector Henderson immediately arrests him. Barton protests that he has been declared legally dead, so is immune from the law. Superman, who had already snuck in and rescued Lois and Jimmy, reveals that it is not really 12:05 but 11:55. At Superman's request, the Naval Observatory speeded up its signals, so that Barton's clock gained ten minutes. Barton came out ten minutes before he could be declared legally dead.
As a final kicker, Superman reveals that he could have walked through the cube any time he wanted. He just used an alternate plan, because Lois and Jimmy were in danger. Superman doesn't reveal why he didn't just walk through the cube and get Barton, after he had secretly rescued Lois and Jimmy. Henderson doesn't reveal why he didn't ask for Superman's help years earlier. Paul Barton doesn't reveal why, after seven years of the functional equivalent of solitary confinement, he didn't wait an extra day just to be safe, or why, for that matter, he thought that seven years of the functional equivalent of solitary confinement was preferable to prison. And, of course, the writers don't reveal why they came up with this jumbled mess in the first place. No one ever said life was perfect.
So ends the plot--I hope you weren't too anxious from the suspense. Now, I'll explain why Barton's plan to have himself declared legally dead wouldn't work. I'll start slow, just in case you have to recover from the excitement.
The presumption of death after a seven year absence does exist in American law. It started as a common law presumption, but has since become a statutory one in most states. It's a statutory presumption in New York state, and seeing as we all know what city Metropolis really is, coy names aside, New York law is the law I'll analyze.
Under New York law, when a person has been absent and not heard from for the requisite time--which happens to be five years in New York, not seven--and there is no satisfactory explanation for his absence, the law can, after the appropriate petition has been made, presume the man to be dead. The presumption applies in any actions involving the property rights or contract rights of such person. In other words, if a man has been missing for five or so years and his wife wants to collect on his insurance policy, because she could only stretch that last pay check so far; the statutory presumption of death allows the courts to declare the man dead so his wife can collect on the policy.
You may have noticed that the presumption deals only with property and contract rights. It says nothing about, and does not apply to, a presumption of death for escaping criminal liability. In fact, the law subtlely prevents a fugitive from justice from using the presumption of death to escape prosecution. It's all in that phrase: no satisfactory explanation for the absence.
In 1933, in the case of Steven v. Metropolitian Life, which can be found 151 Misc 676 or 273 N.Y.S. 638 just in case some of you want to seek it out because you have nothing better to do on a Saturday that read a fifty-five year old case, a New York court ruled the presumption of death did not apply to a fugitive from justice. The court set aside a presumption of death for a man who had disappeared ten years earlier after embezzling money from his company and fleeing from an arrest warrant. The court ruled there was a satisfactory explanation for the man's absence--he was hiding, because he didn't want to get caught, prosecuted, and sent to jail came immediately to the court's mind--so the presumption did not apply. The same reasoning would work for Paul Barton; a court should find a satisfactory explanation for his absence and not declare him dead.
As I said, this case was decided in 1933, well before the Superman TV show was filmed. With a little research (and I do mean a little--I rushed into the library fifteen minutes before it closed and found the case) the writers could have read the case and determined that Paul Barton would not be declared dead.
Of course, the writers didn't even have to do this research. All they had to do was reread their own script, and they would have realized that the presumption couldn't work. Steve Barton told Superman that his brother was still alive and in the cube, remember? Did the writers think that Superman wouldn't drop into the courtroom, if only for a minute or two, to tell the judge Barton was still alive?
Well, maybe they didn't think that. After all, they are TV writers; the same breed that thinks a nun can fly when stiff winds push up on the stiff wings of her hat, instead of just pushing her hat off her hair. Or that Hawaiian tourists take a lifetime supply of fresh clothes on a three-hour tour. Or that Petticoat Junction was funny. Or...
You know I could go on like that for hours, but Don and Maggie have asked me to keep my columns shorter.
Bob Ingersoll
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