by Brittany Murrietta

Created on: May 03, 2010

In the third grade, I'd push my skinny legs into the line for the football game with the neighborhood boys; I prized the fierceness of the sport. I remember this kid Matt decided to shove his judgment down my throat and tease me while I was waiting to be picked for team, I talked back, and this kid got in my space, and right as he raised up his fist, my older brother clocked him in the face.

High school came along somewhere down that line, I would sneak out the back gate when I wasn't allowed to a party, my mom, however would somehow always find out where I was. Before she’d drive down and yank me into humiliation, I’d be saved by whom else but big brother in his 97’ Toyota Ranger; he always gave me a heads up and an escape route.

And when college came around and I had my heart shattered by the first boy I truly loved, who was there but my big brother, to talk to me whenever I'd cry about it...not to mention scare the crap out the next couple of guys I dated so they would never think to lay a hand on me.

Is it ethical, you ask, to turn your brother in for murder? The man who has the same blood as mine running through his veins, the boy who's walked with me through childhood, the man whom I see as my guardian angel in my past, present, and future? No, of course not; how could I ever? How could anyone ever disregard the circumstances of your family member’s situation and throw him to the dogs on a count of some deranged sociological code of ethics?

Who is to say what is right and what is wrong, even when it comes to murder? Just flat you stating that you’d turn him in save no room for his part of the story to be heard, therefore no leniency, this is much to cold to do to someone you’ve grown up with…I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying, “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Some may argue that the fate of a criminal is out of his or her hands once they decide to make the decision for another’s. I ask, who are you to be the higher power? You’re no Jesus. We’ve all been beasts of burden, we should think twice about condemning someone for something we may have done in his or her situation.

It is expected of the keeper of such a secret to feel guilty for disobeying the public opinion of what is right and what is wrong. But there is no guilt to be found in keeping your hands out of someone else’s business. The real guilt would come from living the rest of your life as a snitch, as a traitor to your own blood, who holds your love and gives it in return.

It isn’t ethical to turn in your brother for murder, simply because it’s unethical not to know how to think for yourself. The choice should be unattached to any moral structure before giving the push to hammer the gavel, and the fate of that sound should be made by God almighty, not Bruce.

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