Richard G. Epstein

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A VIRTUAL EYE FOR A REAL EYE

TEXAS USES VIRTUAL REALITY
TO PUNISH VIOLENT CRIMINALS

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Criminals are Forced to

Experience the Suffering

that They Inflicted Upon

Their Victims

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Special to the Sentinel-Observer

by

Wendy Gorn

The Crime Beat

When the United States Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment is unconstitutional in 2018, proponents of capital punishment were sure that they had lost a powerful deterrent against crime. Now, the state of Texas has introduced a form of punishment that is likely to generate much controversy. Using virtual reality simulations, Texas forces each violent criminal to experience the very crime that they committed from their victim's perspective.

Under the Texas statute, violent criminals include murderers, rapists, spouse beaters, and armed burglars, any criminal who physically harms or threatens his or her victim. Using the latest virtual reality authoring tools, recreations of the original crime are created, and the condemned criminal is forced to experience what it was like for his or her victim to be murdered or raped or to be held up at gunpoint.

The new legislation that permits this form of punishment passed the Texas legislature in April of 2027 and became effective on January 1 of this year. Texas purchased the appropriate virtual reality authoring tools, hired the appropriate authoring teams, and set up appropriate virtual reality chambers in which the criminals would endure their punishments.

There was almost no opposition to the new form of punishment in the Texas legislature. It was universally agreed that this form of punishment was not cruel and unusual and that this form of punishment was an almost perfect form of justice.

The first criminal to have to endure this punishment was Ralph Sanchez of Brownsville. Convicted of armed robbery, he was forced to experience a virtual reality simulation in which he was held up at gunpoint. Ralph Sanchez seemed unmoved and unimpressed by this punishment. After all, he knew that it was not a real gun, that it was only virtual reality. This raised questions about the purpose of this form of punishment. Was the purpose to reform the criminal, to cause them to have a change of heart, or was it purely revenge for the suffering the criminal had inflicted?

On February 17th the public was forced to confront a new possibility: that this form of punishment can be cruel and unusual. On that day Fred Wiggins, a convicted murderer, was forced to experience the murder that he committed, with a baseball bat, from his victim's perspective. Mr. Wiggins emerged from the virtual reality chamber a changed man.

Brownsville State Prison warden, Stanley Baker, saw the change in Wiggins immediately. "He came out of the virtual reality chamber with a look of terror in his eyes. He looked like a broken man."

Apparently, the virtual reality simulation communicated to Wiggins the enormity of his crime. Since February 17th Fred Wiggins has been non-communicative. He spends hours on end huddled in the corner of his cell, shaking back and forth, weeping and crying.

"We haven't been able to reach down to where he is," Warden Baker said. "Something profound happened. I think Wiggins really understands the enormity of his crime. But, we can't get him to speak. We can hardly get him to eat."

No one knows exactly what happened to Fred Wiggins psychologically, but his case has ignited a bitter debate over whether the use of virtual reality to effect justice on the basis of "a real life for a virtual life" constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Warden Baker believes that Wiggins deserves whatever suffering comes his way. "Wiggins murdered a young man in cold blood with a baseball bat, just for the hell of it. That young man was married with two beautiful children. He ruined those three lives plus how many others? I don't think that forcing Wiggins to see the enormity of his crime is cruel and unusual. Maybe it's what we should have been doing to murderers all along.

"One thing is for sure, Wiggins is suffering for his crime like no one I have ever seen. You see, that is why I prefer this form of punishment to the death penalty. With the death penalty the murderer can look forward to the release of death. With this punishment, there is no such release, at least, not any time soon."