Relativity, Legal

The Geometry of Law

Modern legal experts (including lawyers, judges, and law professors) have long claimed that law is universal—the same for all cases of the same kind (such as all similar cases of homicide or rape). Although they may recognize that legal officials sometimes make exceptions and even discriminate against some individuals (especially the poor) in some cases, virtually all assume and assert that law is mainly a logical process in which the same rules and evidence produce the same results—whether a case goes to court, for example, and what happens in court. According to the theory of legal relativity, however, law is seldom constant from one technically identical case to another. It varies. It is situational rather than universal. The law of homicide or rape, for instance, is not the same for all homicides or rapes. Different cases have different law, and different people have different law. Similar homicides and rapes commonly have different legal consequences, including different decisions about guilt or innocence and different punishments for those judged guilty. The same applies to all criminal and civil cases. This variation arises from differences in their social location and direction. Only when cases of the same kind have the same social geometry do the rules of law alone determine their fate. Only then is law universal.

Social space is multidimensional, and law varies accordingly. It varies with the social distance between the parties in a case, their social elevation, and the social direction of the complaint, whether it is downward (against a social inferior), upward (against a social superior), or lateral (against a social equal). For example, law increases with relational and cultural distance (such as between strangers and different ethnicities) and at higher elevations (such as between wealthier individuals and organizations). It also increases in a downward direction (such as toward those with less wealth and respectability) and decreases in an upward direction (such as toward those with more wealth and respectability). Moreover, the theory of legal relativity predicts and explains the behavior of law in all societies and times. [Page 1293]Law obeys the same scientific laws—laws of law—throughout the social universe.

Various principles predict and explain the quantity of law a case attracts, such as a call to the police, an arrest, a conviction, and the severity of punishment in a criminal case, or a lawsuit, victory for the complainant, and the amount of compensation in a civil case. Consider Black's principle of relational relativity:Law is a curvilinear function of relational distance. This means that the closest cases (such as those between members of the same household) and the most distant cases (such as those between members of different societies) attract the least law. But within a single society, law is a direct function of relational distance: the more relational distance, the more law. Among otherwise similar cases of homicide, for instance, distant killings are more serious than closer killings. They attract more law—more attention and severity. Stranger killings in modern America therefore lead to longer prison terms and more capital punishment than do family or other intimate killings. A study by Henry Lundsgaarde and another by Samuel Gross and Robert Munro thus show that killings of family members or other close associates are effectively immune to capital punishment. Yet the written law of homicide taught in law schools completely ignores the relational distance between the killer and victim.

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