Was There a Duty to Treat Frankenstein’s Creature in Son of Frankenstein?

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October 20, 2019

In the film Son of Frankenstein, Igor took Dr. Wolf von Frankenstein to find a comatose Creature in the crypt where Frankenstein’s ancestors had been buried. Did Dr. Frankenstein have a duty to treat the comatose Creature?

There is a duty for hospitals to provide emergency care to those present at the hospital. 42 U.S.C.S. § 1395dd(a). If an emergency medical condition exists, the hospital must either treat the medical condition to stabilize the emergency or transfer the patient to another medical facility. 42 U.S.C.S. § 1395dd(b)(1)(A) and (B). However, in the Creature’s case, he had been in a coma for an extended period of time after being struck by lightning. The test to determine whether there is a medical emergency under “Good Samaritan” laws is “whether the undisputed facts establish the existence of an exigency of so pressing a character that some kind of action must be taken.” Bryant v. Bakshandeh 226 Cal. App. 3d 1241 (Cal. App. 2d Dist. Jan. 15, 1991). Under the facts of a Creature given life by reanimated body parts being in a coma, there arguably is not a situation requiring immediate action to be taken. Moreover, a crypt under a laboratory is not an emergency room, so it is doubtful such a legal duty would apply.

Dr. Frankenstein did not have a duty to treat the Creature, but did he create a duty? The test is whether a physician had rendered professional services that had been accepted by another for medical or surgical treatment. See, Hanrahan v. Good Samaritan Hosp. Med. Ctr., 2013 NY Slip Op 33418(U), ¶ 3 (Sup. Ct.). This is a factual issue for a jury. Quirk v. Zuckerman, 765 N.Y.S.2d 440, 442-43 (Sup. Ct. 2003) citing Wienk-Evans v North Shore Univ. Hosp. at Glen Cove, 702 N.Y.S.2d 917 [2000].

The Creature was in a coma and could not personally consent. There was no apparent power of attorney giving Igor the right to seek medical care on the Creature’s behalf. Such acceptance would have to be implied, because few individuals would want to refuse medical care in order to stay in a coma. Given the actions taken by Dr. Frankenstein, he did create a doctor-patient relationship with the Creature. This raises the issue that once the Doctor learned the Creature was a danger to others, did Dr. Frankenstein have a duty to tell Inspector Krogh of the danger? While there is an exception for psychotherapists to warn of a patient’s specific threats to law enforcement, Dr. Frankenstein is not a psychotherapist. Cal Civ Code § 43.92. Dr. Frankenstein would have a duty of confidentiality to the Creature for his medical treatment, but not to Igor. If Dr. Frankenstein suspected Igor was nefariously using the Creature to cause harm, reporting Igor’s conduct does not violate the doctor-patient privilege. Moreover, suspecting Igor was using the Creature should be reported to law enforcement.

Godzilla and The Refugees Created by Kaiju Destruction

By

Nikhil Shah

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October 14, 2019

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Have you ever watched the old Godzilla movies where he utterly destroys Japan and wonder what would happen to the people fleeing from his terror? If those individuals in Japan applied for refugee status in the United States, would they receive status here?

Under U.S. law, a “refugee” is a person who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country because of a “well-founded fear of persecution” due to race, membership in a particular social group, political opinion, religion, or national origin. This definition is based on the United Nations 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocols relating to the Status of Refugees, which the United States became a party to in 1968. Congress also passed the Refugee Act of 1980 which incorporated the Convention’s definition into U.S. law and provides the legal basis for today’s U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). Persons who are outside the United States must apply for refugee status pursuant to Immigration and Nationality Act § 207. Applicants for refugee status abroad must meet the same legal test as applicants for asylum in the U.S.

Persecution is defined as a threat to life or freedom and encompasses a variety of forms of adverse treatment, including non-life-threatening violence and physical abuse or non-physical forms of harm.[1] Other serious violations of human rights can also constitute persecution, such as genocide, slavery, torture and other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, prolonged detention, rape and other severe forms of sexual violence.[2] The courts have stated that an official reviewing a refugee claim must look at the cumulative effects of the harm in determining if the person was subject to persecution.[3] The conduct of Godzilla in breathing atomic fire on people and deliberating destroying their residences or offices would definitely fall under the definition of persecution.

For refugee status, the law requires that persecution be inflicted by either the government or by a private party that the government is unable or unwilling to control (a non-state actor.). Most cases at the Ninth Circuit and the Board of Immigration Appeals have dealt with non-state actors in the context of private individuals including law enforcement in the country who subject religious minorities, women or the LGBT community to persecution.[4] In the case of Godzilla, in most movies the government is unable to neutralize the threat of Godzilla. In the original Godzilla and GMK (Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorrah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack) resulted in the government of Japan successfully neutralizing him. However, in most other movies, Godzilla may temporarily retreat after defeat from Mecha Godzilla or another Kaiju like Mothra only to resurface in Japan a while later and wreak destruction again. In those cases, it is apparent that the government of Japan will be unable to stop him.

So now we must address the second prong of the refugee test and ask why is it that Godzilla is attacking the people of Japan? Is it because of their race or nationality? In the movie GMK, the plot revolves around Godzilla attacking the people of Japan specifically for the crimes the Japanese government committed during World War II. In other movies it is alluded that he may target them as they block his path to an energy source or their government does something to disturb him and he takes revenge on them as a result. However, a claim based on racial persecution or nationality must be specific.

Would his victims in Japan be able to argue that they belong to a social group instead? Social group is defined as a group that share a “common, immutable characteristic.” Immutable characteristic is defined as “one that the members of the group either cannot change, or should not be required to change because it is fundamental to their individual identities or consciences.”[5] The Ninth Circuit adopted the “social visibility” requirement but has since refined the standard. In the case of Henriquez-Rivas v. Holder, 707 F.3d 1081 (9th Circ. 2013), the court clarified that “social visibility” does not require “on-sight visibility” but rather relies on the perception of others, primarily the persecutor’s perception, stating that the key is “whether the social groups are understood by others to constitute social groups. Some examples of social group in the Ninth Circuit include 1. People who testified against criminal gangs 2. LGBT community 3. Gender 4. families who have violated a state’s coercive population control policy 5. Former member of the police or military 6. People who oppose Female Genital Mutilation. However, the courts have been consistent in declining social group classifications to broad categories like children or individuals who belong to a certain age. The general claim that Godzilla’s victims fear him would not suffice as a social group as it would be considered too broad.

Asylum and refugee law do allow for the persecutor to target the person for mixed motives rather than just one motive. A persecutor may have a legitimate motive, such as enforcement of a legitimate state policy, or personal motives like revenge or extortion. For example, a person seeking refugee status could be persecuted on account of her race and because of a personal land dispute between her family and the persecutor (a reason not protected in the statute). In those cases, the applicant “must establish” that one of the five enumerated grounds “was or will be at least one central reason for persecuting the applicant. The Ninth Circuit Court in Parussimova v. Mukasey has held that the applicant does not need to show that the protected ground was the only central reason for persecution but was one central reason. 533 F.3d 1128, 1134 (9th Cir. 2008). Perhaps the people of Japan would be more successful in arguing this.

A person who is ultimately successful in proving that they qualify for refugee claim may also face other bars to enter the U.S. such as on health-related grounds. Applicants who are diagnosed with communicable diseases of public health significance, also known as Class A conditions, are inadmissible to the U.S. Class A conditions include gonorrhea, leprosy (infectious), syphilis (infectious), and TB (active). Another category for communicable diseases of public health significance are diseases that may subject the applicant to federal isolation and quarantine. These diseases include cholera, diphtheria, infectious TB, plague, smallpox, yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fevers, severe acute respiratory syndromes, flu that can cause a pandemic, and other diseases that may pose a public health emergency of international concern.

In the case of the people in Japan exposed to severe dosages of radiation because of Godzilla’s atomic fire, they may face quarantine initially. However, if we look at the individuals exposed to high radiation levels after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the aftermath of Chernobyl, we see that after gamma radiation has passed through the body, the person is no longer radioactive and can’t expose other people. However, the exposure to severe radiation may compromise the person’s immune system where they may be susceptible to Class A conditions and be inadmissible to the U.S.

Assuming the person seeking refugee status in the U.S. manages to overcome the health-related ground of inadmissibility, they still will face the cap on the number of refugees that the Trump administration has imposed in the U.S. The Obama administration let in 110,000 refugees to the U.S. per year but the Trump administration gradually decreased the cap from 45,000 to 22,415 to 18,000 for the following year. Perhaps the applicants would be better off seeking refugee in a country like Canada who despite having a total population that is less than California, admitted 28,000 refugees.

Of course, Japanese Citizens who are visiting the U.S. or are here on a non-immigrant visa such as a H1B or F1 Student visa can always apply for asylum but that would bring its own complications which I will discuss in the next article.

[1] Singh v. INS, 134 F.3d 962, 967 (9th Cir. 1998); Fisher v. INS, 79 F.3d 955, 961 (9th Cir. 1996).

[2] UN Handbook at ¶ 51, 13.

[3] Singh v. INS, 134 F.3d 962, 967 (9th Cir. 1998).

[4] Castro-Martinez v. Holder, 674 F.3d 1073, 1081 (9th Cir. 2011); Mashiri v. Ashcroft, 383 F.3d 1112, at 1121 (9th Cir. 2004); Vitug v. Holder, 723 F.3d 1056 (9th Cir. 2013).

[5] Matter of M-E-V-G, Respondent, 26 I&N Dec. 227, 237 (BIA 2014).

Can the Invisible Man be Prosecuted for Indecent Exposure?

By

Josh Gilliland

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October 9, 2019

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The Invisible Man does not have invisible clothes. This requires that he remove his clothes to be fully invisible, opposed to clothes filled by an empty void (done brilliantly in the 1940 The Invisible Man Returns). If the Invisible Man goes out in public, can he be prosecuted for indecent exposure?

Indecent exposure in California is when a person either willfully or lewdly “exposes his person, or the private parts thereof, in any public place, or in any place where there are present other persons to be offended or annoyed thereby.” Cal. Penal Code § 314(1).

The Invisible Man did willfully go in public places where other persons were present while naked. The issue is whether he “exposed” himself. While he technically was naked, and if someone interacting with him knew he was naked, would that meet the statute? Alternatively, does the fact the Invisible Man cannot be seen mean he cannot “expose” himself? Would “expose” be a subjective standard in simply knowing a translucent person is naked in public? Or is it a strict liability for simply being naked in public, regardless of whether the Invisible Man is visible?

Case law does add some illumination to these questions. There must be a specific intent to expose one’s genitals as a necessary element for the offense of indecent exposure. People v. Massicot, 97 Cal. App. 4th 920 (Apr. 17, 2002). Specific intent to commit indecent exposure was found in a case where the defendant broke into a home naked, but the victim was unable to see the defendant’s genitals because he was behind a dresser. People v. Rehmeyer, 19 Cal App 4th 1758 (1993). Moreover, the gravamen of indecent exposure is the exposure and not the number of observers. People v. Smith, 209 Cal. App. 4th 910 (Oct. 1, 2012).

What does this mean for the Invisible Man? He intended to expose himself in order to not be seen. One can argue being invisible was like being behind a dresser, thus blocking the view of his entire naked body. Alternatively, the fact he is invisible and naked shows there is intent to not expose himself. This paradox illustrates the law is not designed for invisible people to be prosecuted under indecent exposure, because it creates legal impossibilities that can simultaneously meet and fail to meet legal standards of a crime.

Banking on the Rules of Evidence in The Clone Wars

By

Gabriella Martin

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October 4, 2019

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The Clone Wars episodes “An Old Friend,” “The Rise of Clovis,” and “Crisis at the Heart” center the Banking Clan and its role in the Clone Wars. Operating as a galactic IMF and neutral territory, the Banking Clan on the planet Scipio is the economic heart of the galaxy handling funds for both the Republic and the Separatist movement.

The story opens with Senator Amidala traveling to Scipio to obtain aid for those displaced by the ongoing Clone Wars. Enter “traitor to the Republic and known Separatist” Rush Clovis, the representative assigned to discuss the terms of the aid loan with Senator Amidala. If you’re wondering why anyone would put their trust in someone with such a title, I’d remind you that even though the phrase “I have a bad feeling about this” abounds in a galaxy far, far away, no one ever seems to follow that up with a “yeah, you’re right, let’s not do this.” But I digress.

Although Padme initially requests that Clovis be removed from the loan negotiations, she later agrees to work with him to investigate his allegations of fraud and stolen money that has left the bank out of funds. Together they convince the Core Five to allow Padme to enter the vault and accompany the transfer of funds and later devise a plan for Padme to obtain the evidence while the power to the vault is temporarily disabled. While they manage to successfully obtain incriminating evidence, they’re quickly caught with Padme being detained for espionage.

Once rescued by her husband, Anakin, Padme and Clovis return to Coruscant to expose the banking fraud on Scipio.

Oh, Padme (and frankly everyone in the Republic leadership)! If only you had followed the Federal Rules of Evidence. The brief battle at Scipio (deemed a “war”, although I’m not sure this title fits) would have been avoided and the banks may not have ended up in the Chancellor’s control. Although they may have eventually, given how things ended up in Revenge of the Sith, it might have at least been delayed.

The initial drive

The drive that Padme and Clovis bring to the Chancellor in “The Rise of Clovis,” is the first piece of evidence introduced to prove the corruption in the Banking Clan. The Chancellor–as our theoretical judge–asks Clovis to substantiate these claims of corruption. When Clovis presents the drive which shows funds being diverted from the bank into private accounts, Senator Organa rightly demands to know the veracity of the evidence. After all, Clovis’ credibility is questionable. Padme responds by invoking the spirit of the Federal Rules of Evidence of 901. Rule 901 of the Federal Rules of Evidence covers the authentication of evidence. Rule 901(a) states that “to satisfy the requirement of authenticating or identifying an item of evidence, the proponent must produce evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponent claims it is.” Authentication and identification are the conditions precedent to the admission of documents and physical evidence.

In order to identify the drive that Clovis is presenting, Padme tells Senator Organa that it was she who downloaded the files from the Muun mainframe. Given Padme’s knowledge of the files, the Chancellor asks Padme to work with Clovis to investigate the Banking Clan and determine the extent of the corruption.

With the foundational evidence establishing the corruption in the Banking Clan, we can, as Darth Sidious said: “move to the next stage of the proceedings.”

The “smoking gun”

As the investigation continues, it is discovered that the Separatists have not been paying interest on their loans, and yet the Banking Clan is lending credits to the Republic–credits it does not have. However, Padme notes that there is still a critical piece of information missing.

Meanwhile, Count Dooku is tasked with bringing Rush Clovis back into the fold and making him head of the Banking Clan. Dooku uses a droid to send Clovis a message asserting that the Separatist government will support his appointment to the leader of the Banking Clan and providing him with a disc containing the details of the secret Muun accounts.

Clovis takes the disc to Nix Card and the Chancellor who blindly accept this evidence and arrest the Core Five for corruption and embezzlement based on this “smoking gun” showing the secret accounts.

Unlike the disc that Padme brings from Scipio, no one questions the veracity of the disc with the secret accounts. No one asks Clovis to identify the source or authenticity of the evidence.

This is troubling considering the way Clovis’s character has previously been attacked. More importantly, for our purposes anyway, it is concerning given that there’s a clear hearsay objection to be made. The evidence of the secret accounts on the disc is an out-of-court statement being offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted because they are being used to prove the existence of the accounts. The only way to admit the evidence on the disc would be under a hearsay exception–most likely the business records exception (Rule 803(6)). This would require a Muun custodian of the records to testify that the bank records on the disc were kept as part of the ordinary course of business. Testimony would also be required from someone with knowledge of the veracity of the information on the disc. Neither of which happened in this case.

The moral of the story–the Chancellor/Darth Sidious’s plans could have been easily foiled by a legal Jedi with superior knowledge of the rules of evidence.

Defending the Invisible Man

By

Josh Gilliland

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October 3, 2019

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The 1933 Invisible Man is the story of Dr. Jack Griffin who had been turned invisible by an experiment involving a rare drug named monocane. Unbeknownst to Dr. Griffin, monocane had a side effect of turning subjects mad. When the audience first is introduced to Dr. Griffen, he is invisible, wrapped in bandages, curt, rude, and clearly under stress. He rents a room with a sitting room for a makeshift laboratory at a tavern and inn named the Lion’s Head. Life goes downhill from there.

Griffin eventually is evicted for being a week late in rent. He slammed the door on one of the owners of the inn, followed by assaulting the other by pushing him down the stairs. At that point, Griffin goes full super villain. His rampage included:

Straggling a police inspector to death;

Taking his colleague Dr. Kemp as a hostage for assistance;

Forcing Dr. Kemp to assist in recovering Dr. Griffin’s notebooks;

Assaults a room full of people by throwing beer steins;

Threatens to kill Dr. Kemp the next night at 10:00pm;

Causes a train derailment that resulted in 100 deaths;

Kills two volunteers searching for him;

Kills Dr. Kemp; and

Trespasses in a barn

Dr. Jack Griffin did A LOT of harm. He had a death toll over 100, plus a long list of people he assaulted. Defending him would not be easy, but he does have one defense: insanity.

The insanity defense requires the defense to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Dr. Griffin was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his actions because of a severe mental disease or defect. 18 U.S.C.S. § 17. This requires expert testimony and evidence that Dr. Griffin suffered from a mental illness and did not understand murdering people was wrong. The defense could actually be successful with testimony from Dr. Cranley (played by Henry Travers, who would later play the guardian angel Clarence Odbody in It’s a Wonderful Life). Dr. Cranley knew the dangers of monocane from published German research. Additional evidence could be offered from the German publication on the dangers of the drug and Dr. Griffin’s notes to show he had treated himself with the drug.

It is worth noting that Dr. Griffin not knowing the harmful effects of the drug should be entered into evidence. While there is no doubt risk from trying to turn oneself invisible, the fact the research he had was prior to the publication of the German research, shows he did not knowing take a drug that could drive him mad.

The Invisible Man has one of the largest body counts of any of the Universal Monsters. He also has a legitimate claim to the insanity defense. Does that excuse the deaths? No, but it would be unjust to simply call him a monster without giving him a fair trial.

Were the Clone Soldiers of the 501st Legion Correct to Disobey General Krell?

By

Steve Chu

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September 30, 2019

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars presented many memorable story arcs that explored the lives and challenges facing clone soldiers of the Galactic Republic. During a 4-episode arc: Darkness on Umbara, The General, Plan of Dissent, and Carnage of Krell, Republic Clone soldiers are faced with a tall challenge when they are assigned to the command of a General who seems to care little for their lives and treats them only as assets on a battlefield. General Pong Krell repeatedly orders the men under his command to undertake dangerous missions that seem to make little sense. Some of the Clone soldiers begin to question the wisdom of the General’s orders, which prompts a discussion among the clones about what they should do. The soldiers had a duty to follow orders, but how far does this go?

We can look to our own world history for some examples. Different countries have different military traditions. Under the American military system the general rule is that an order can only be disobeyed if it is unlawful. This standard provides enough room for interpretation that courts have trended in different directions over the years, with some courts emphasizing the individual over the military, and others siding with the military over the individual.

One oft-cited example is the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, in which 504 people were killed, including young women and children. The incident involved a cover up, and ultimately 14 men were charged, and one person convicted. This incident is often looked to as an example of an illegal order which a soldier would not have to obey.

Other cases have emphasized that one cannot simply rely upon the defense that they were simply following orders. In one well-known American case, during the War of 1812 crew members of an American privateer were tried for stopping and searching a neutral Portuguese vessel on the high seas, when during the stop the American crew assaulted the Portuguese captain and crew and stole valuables. The court rejected the defense advanced by the crew in which they argued that they had simply been following orders. The justice wrote:

This doctrine . . . . alarming and unfounded, is repugnant to reason, and to the positive law of the land. No military or civil officer can command an inferior to violate the laws of his country; nor will such command excuse, much less justify the act. Can it be for a moment pretended, that the general of an army, or the commander of a ship of war, can order one of his men to commit murder or felony? Certainly not.

The crew was found guilty.

The German military system emphasizes the individual over the military, following a standard whereby a military order is not binding if it is not “of any use for service” or cannot reasonably be executed. German military rules, mindful of history, now forbid the use of the German military to do anything other than defend Germany itself. The German military system emphasizes a military experience built around the inner conscience of each individual. German soldiers can refuse combat assignments or disobey orders with relatively little consequence. This standard has been upheld repeatedly in civil courts.

Most symbolic is the fact that new German soldiers swear their oaths to defend Germany at the Benderblock, a Berlin building where participants of a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler were executed in 1944. Today the building is a museum to German resistance. It is a powerful reminder that new German soldiers are sworn to their oaths not in a place of military obedience, but in a place of military resistance.

This brings up the question, what form of military system would the Old Republic have in place? Given that the Clone Wars aided Palpatine’s consolidation of power, it would seem likely that even if there were some rules to allow for limited judgment by the individual soldier, much of the power would be placed in the hands of the military commanders. By the time of the Galactic Empire, when we see Darth Vader summarily execute officers for alleged incompetence without so much as a trial, there would seem to be very little room for individual judgment. If a soldier objected, it would likely be best to remain quiet rather than risk becoming the victim of a Force choke.

Back to the clone wars episode, after a difficult debate, the clone soldiers continue to follow orders until a fateful confrontation in which it is revealed that they are in fact fighting against another Republic clone trooper regiment. In the heat of battle, Captain Rex senses that something is amiss and discovers the his men are in fact fighting against their own clone brothers. Armed with this knowledge, the clones confront General Krell, who reveals himself to be a traitor, intent upon joining the enemy after first destroying Republic assets. Several clone troopers are killed in the ensuing conflict until General Krell is rendered unconscious. A difficult question now confronts the soldiers: what do they do with the traitorous general?

There is little time for a court martial, and ultimately one soldier cannot bear the betrayal and executes the former General. Ironically, the soldier pulling the trigger is the same soldier who had vigorously defended the General earlier in the story, and could not cope with the idea that their commanding officer had betrayed them. Insubordination, mutiny, and treason. All heavy issues touched upon during this story arc.

False Impersonation, Larceny, and Data Breaches in The Clone Wars

By

Josh Gilliland

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September 25, 2019

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You don’t need a holocron to see all of the legal issues in The Clone Wars arch Holocron Heist, Cargo of Doom, and Children of the Force. In this season two story, Cad Bane was retained by Darth Sidious to steal a Jedi Holocron from the Jedi Temple in order to access a kyber crystal with all of the personal information of children strong in the Force, and then to go kidnap children. There is a lot to unpack in these episodes.

Holocron Heist

Cad Bane retained the shape shifter Cato Parasitti to assume the identify (and shape) of Jedi Ord Enisence, who was murdered by Bane. Cad Bane and Cato Parasitti both committed trespassing in the Jedi Temple, which is entering property without the owner’s consent, which is why Parasitti’s shape shifting abilities were needed for the heist. Cal. Penal Code § 602(m). Once inside the Jedi Temple, Parasitti assumed the identify of Jocasta Nu. Parasitti assisted Bane by providing operational support from inside the Jedi Temple by accessing the Jedi computer system. The unauthorized computer access would be a computer crime under California law, because Bane and Parasitti were in a conspiracy to use the Jedi computer system both deceive through impersonating a Jedi and to wrongful control Jedi property by stealing a Holocron. Cal. Penal Code § 502(c)(1).

The law does not specifically address shapeshifters, but it does address false impersonation of another person:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other electronic means for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person is guilty of a public offense punishable pursuant to subdivision (d).

Cal. Penal Code § 528.5(a).

Parasitti impersonated both Ord Enisence and Jocasta Nu using electronic means (the computers in the Jedi Library) for the purpose of defrauding the Jedi of property (the aforementioned holocron). Without impersonating a Jedi, Parasitti would not have had access to the Jedi’s computer system.

If this was simply a case of taking library property, the fine for taking the holocron would be a fine of at least $50 but not more than $1,000. Cal. Penal Code § 490.5. However, this case is not one of simply taking a library book. The holocrons were kept in a vault with limited access only to the Jedi Counsel. The value of the holocron should exceed $950, making the criminal action grand theft. Cal. Penal Code § 487(a).

Cad Bane gained entrance to the Jedi Temple using stolen codes to get past a security shield. At a minimum, this is a trespass. However, since the Jedi Temple is inhabited by the Jedi (many live there), the elements for burglary are met, because the Cad Bane entered the Temple with the intent to commit grand or petit larceny. Cal. Penal Code § 459.

Cargo of Doom

The second episode in this three-part story opens with Jedi Bolla Ropal being held onboard a Separatist warship in energy bonds. Bane ordered Droids to inflict pain upon Ropal to compel him to open the kyber crystal containing personal identifiable information of Force sensitive children. This would meet the legal definition of torture, which is when a person (Bane) caused extreme pain for the purpose of persuasion of Ropal. Cal. Penal Code § 206. Bolla Ropal died from being tortured which would be first-degree murder. Cal. Penal Code § 189.

Cad Bane ultimately gained access to the kyber crystal, which allowed him to access an untold number of Force-sensitive children. If the Republic, or planet within the Republic had a data breach law like California’s, things would get messy fast. The fact Bane was able to access encrypted personal identifiable information, means that an unauthorized person accessed the data, which would require the Jedi to inform those whose data was breached. Cal Civ Code § 1798.29.

There was just one problem: the Jedi did not have the list of the Force-sensitive children within their control. They literally had to use the Force to figure out children who were potentially at risk.

Children of the Force

Darth Sidious is really bad with Younglings. Cad Bane’s scope of work was expanded to taking Force-sensitive children from their parents. Bane posed as a Jedi and took two children from their families. This is kidnapping, which is when any person who takes another person into another country, state, or county. Cal. Penal Code § 207.

Mustafar would be high on the list of where NOT to take a child under any circumstance.

The children were kidnapped in order for Darth Sidious to conduct medical experiments upon them (foreshadowing what ultimately would be Inquisitors in Star Wars Rebels). There is no way these experiments would have been legal. In order for any medical experiments to be authorized, the parents would have needed to give their informed consent, which would have needed to include the a) nature and purpose of the experiment; b) an explanation of the medical procedures; c) a description of the risks reasonably expected from the experiment; d) explanation of the benefits of the experiment; e) explanation of alternative procedures; f) be informed of the avenues of medical treatment, if any, available to the subject after the experiment if complications should arise; g) Be given an opportunity to ask any questions concerning the experiment or the procedures involved; h) be instructed that consent to participate in the medical experiment may be withdrawn at any time and the subject may discontinue participation in the medical experiment without prejudice; i) Be given a copy of the signed and dated written consent form; and j) be given the opportunity to decide to consent or not to consent to a medical experiment without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, coercion, or undue influence on the subject’s decision. Cal. Health & Safety Code § 24172.

The parents of the Force-sensitive children had no such opportunities, because their children were KIDNAPPED! Moreover, Darth Sidious took the position that if the children died, he lost nothing.

That is not the sort of guy you want as a babysitter.

The entire story arch of Darth Sidious retaining Cad Bane to murder, steal personal identifiable information, and kidnap children for medical experimentation, shows how “dark” the Dark Side is for achieving universal domination at any cost. These are great episodes and worthy of re-watching.