JUSTICE IS BLIND UNTIL WE OPEN OUR EYES but in the end, The Truth is Out There
While teaching English in the Pyrenees a few years ago, I was introduced to a party game called Mafia which I guess we were using as a team building game. I have only played the game once but after the game was over, I thought Every Juror and Jury should play this game before deciding on a guilty verdict.
If Lady Justice is blind then this game will open her eyes. A large group of teachers were formed in a circle and we were introduced to the game, Mafia is the name of the game and a Californian teacher named Brian explained how it worked.
I have linked a video explaining the game at the very end to describe Mafia better.
Brian didn’t just explain the game but acted it out a little more by adding a Boston accent giving it a The Departed flavour, you know the classic Leonardo de Caprio film with a star-studded cast including Jack Nicholson.
Nice guy Brian was easy to work with and even shared his mountain bike with the group so we could all explore the Pyrenees more.
The world could definitely do with more people like Brian, in the workplace.
We each had to close our eyes and he would signal to two people that they were either a cop or a killer by tapping them on the head or shoulders. Brian did not touch me and it started to become clear who the killer was. The game also has a doctor that can save someone during his rounds but a doctor's practice involves a lot of guess work too. Dr Watson needs Sherlock after all.
I ain’t no snitch so don’t think I’m gonna talk to no feds about how this game goes down and I certainly can't explain it as well as my friend Brian nor do it with a Boston accent like one of those stooges you see in dem gangster films.
In a classic Agatha Christie, Cluedo style adventure we found ourselves with a dead body and this weren’t no suicide, we were looking at. This was a murder, a cold-blooded murder by some dirty rat, staring right at me.
Firing in the dark, each round produced another body.
Our detective took a guess and accused the wrong person, a move the detective repeated in the next round even after another body was discovered when eventually suspicion fell on me as I was still alive. Was I the murderer?
I knew the answer to that but I was surprised to still be alive as my roommate hated me.
If Dan was the killer I would have been the first to die. My snoring had become an issue and bunking in the same room, Dan was not too polite in the morning when he woke up or whenever we worked together. If he was the killer, why hadn’t I been killed? It didn't make any sense to anybody.
My defence fell on deaf ears, “I’m not the killer but I can't explain why I am still alive unless he wants us to think that he is not the killer, he is keeping me alive so no-one suspects him” I said
Eventually, the grim reaper touched me too and it was revealed that my psychopathic roommate did want me dead but needed me alive as an alibi at the same time.
The doctor and detective saved no-one and the mafia won the game, I was just another casualty of justice with my “I’m Innocent” claims falling on deaf ears. It was difficult to believe but someone was actually framing me for murder and my innocence only revealed postmortem.
It was a fun game but I would love to see thousands of people partaking in similar experiments to see if we can actually determine the killer in our midst. A role courts must do on a daily basis, essential for our belief in justice.
I would love to see juries playing this game before trying it out in real life. How many miscarriages of justice have been made? How many innocent people have been accused of murder and worse, executed for the fact?
Maybe I think too much and maybe this was an exception to the rule but I doubt it, Brian the Boston crime boss should be teaching this game to children, adults and jurors, all over the world.
Justice is blind until we open our eyes but in the end, the truth is always out there.
CONCLUSION: Neither detective nor doctor saved the day and organised crime shocked us all.
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