Turpitude

by Posted on

Moral corruption or vile nature.

Moral cor­rup­tion or vile nature.

In 1953, bio­chemist Alex B. Novikof­f’s tenure was revoked and he was dis­missed from his posi­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ver­mont on the grounds that his invo­ca­tion of Fifth Amend­ment rights when being ques­tioned about his youth­ful asso­ci­a­tion with the Com­mu­nist Par­ty con­sti­tut­ed “moral turpitude.”

Published by splicer

2 Replies to “Turpitude”

  2. The L&O vio­la­tions were far
    The L&O vio­la­tions were far less extreme, but I still believe that only in the most exi­gent of cir­cum­stances should the law enforce­ment peo­ple vio­late ANY law. (Includ­ing state troop­ers rou­tine­ly speed­ing.) Our nation DOES sup­port “a greater harm” defense where­by you can vio­late a law if by doing so you avoid a greater harm. An exam­ple: enter­ing a field post­ed with No Tres­pass­ing signs to save a child being gored by a bull. 

    I think if you shoot an inno­cent woman in the leg to coerce her hus­band you had bet­ter be pre­pared for some exten­sive crim­i­nal and civ­il lit­i­ga­tion. You would cer­tain­ly be sus­pend­ed until the offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion was over, and would def­i­nite­ly not be avail­able for next week’s episode.

    I think the greater harm defense would be a valid defense for the use of LSD to pre­vent the nuclear dev­as­ta­tion of a city — unless that city was Wash­ing­ton, DC, of course.

    The greater harm defense is also a reverse defense. You have to prove your inno­cence by con­vinc­ing the court that you were actu­al­ly pre­vent­ing a greater harm. Wacko the­o­ries about pow­er lines attract­ing alien UFO’s won’t cut it. Well, they might out there, but not in most of the country.

    Dad