While being loyal to my job, I feel that I also need to be loyal to my husband. I would tell him that I was going to let the authorities know he was involved in the hit and run, and also let him know that I am willing to take the fall with him but that it must be done. I have known people that have kept secrets and later on down the road they just couldn’t handle it anymore, and instead of telling someone the truth about what happened they decided to commit suicide instead. We had a family friend who was adversely affected by the Chaz Higgs/Cathy Augustine case here in Reno who killed himself and unfortunately the police couldn’t get to him in time to speak with him more about the case before he died. I think personally the Reno police or Washoe County deputies could have prevented his death had they only offered some support to him. He was actually supposed to testify in court on the case.
The definition of the Code of conduct is, "Principals, values, standards, or rules of behavior that guide the decisions, procedures and systems of an organization in a way that (a) contributes to the welfare of its key stakeholders, and (b) respects the rights of all constituents affected by its operations"(Dictionary.com). With that being said, I feel that as an honest person I must uphold the Code of Conduct regardless of the fact that it may be losing someone I love, or something I love. At least I will be able to know that I did the right thing for myself. I’m not a very religious type of person, but even knowing that I’ve lied about something makes me want to go to confession as I was raised Catholic. As a person I am not comfortable with lying, or keeping secrets that need to be told to make things right, or help the police and things of the like. I believe strongly in karma.
If my husband could hold in a secret as big as this one for so long it really makes me wonder what else he could be hiding. Is this the first time he has committed a major felony? It really makes me question our marriage actually. As a married couple you’re supposed to be able to confide in each other no matter what, and keep secrets is not a healthy way to manage a marriage. If my husband could keep this information from me for so long perhaps he has kept other things from me and deserves what is coming to him as karma would say.
Another way of going about turning my husband into the police without him knowing I told would be to call it into secret witness, now this is if I was afraid of him hurting me to keep the authorities from finding out what he did. I would still put myself at risk to going to jail as being his accomplice, but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about him knowing that I was the one who broke his trust by going to the authorities after he had specifically asked my to keep the matter strictly between us. As I said before, I would more than likely have to tell my husband that I was going to turn him in rather than take the cowardly approach.
Since the hit and run in itself is a felony it might make it harder to give my husband up to the police, especially since he didn’t come clean until six months after the incident and the charges might be much harsher on him now than they would have been had he not kept the secret for so long. They might also be harsh on me regardless of whether I knew about the accident or not. It would be very hard for sure, but I still have to stick with my gut feeling and do what is right for the both of us and tell the police what I know. Also as I said before I would do my best to make them believe that I really did have nothing to do with the accident and that I didn’t know anything about it until my husband finally came clean to me about it so much longer down the road than he should have.
Finally, after my husband came clean to me I would go directly to the police. I would not wait over night to think it over or to discuss it with anyone else because I don’t want to know about it long enough to have time to think about it to be able to come up with a better story about what happened or to even decide not to tell the police about it. Besides if I were to wait to tell the police I would more than likely tell friends or family of mine in the mean time because I am not very good at keeping secrets like that to myself. They really do eat at me, and I would need to be able to get it off my chest as soon as possible. I think I would also offer myself out there for a polygraph test to assure them that I am not in any way, shape, or form lying about it.
In conclusion to this paper I come to the point that no matter what happened between my husband and I, or my job and I, I would have to tell the police that my husband is the man that they are looking for to solve the hit and run case. It would be morally, ethically, and even religiously wrong of me to know go directly to the authorities on said case. I definitely do not want to end up like friends of mine who have committed suicide for keeping in secrets. I wouldn’t divorce my husband for the accident as it was just an accident, but I would not be happy with him by any means. If he commit’s a crime, he needs to be held accountable for his actions as does anyone else who commit’s a crime or in this case a big time felony.
Reference
Farlex. (2008). The Free Dictionary.
. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/code+of+conduct; originally accessed in November of
2008.
