Sparteye, was that a bow-wow in your last post?
Scribbler, I'm picking that you are also a lawyer if only because of your use of legal terminology, although there is nothing to be gleaned from your profile to support the view.
The first scenario was a bit of fun, but you've raised the bar a bit too high here for my liking!
Nothing in your recasting of the facts of the situation changes the morality of anyone's actions in absolute terms. It may, however, change the actions themselves. Someone under duress, unless he/she is a fanatic or a would-be martyr, may well do something immoral to circumvent what he/she sees as a greater immoral act.
"Situational Ethics" is really nothing more than the study of what people will do given particular scenarios. From the point of view of theoretical philosophy morals are absolute, although having said that they are only absolute in the face of the societal norms against which they are formed. (Note that I am totally ignoring overweening moral codes such as the totally confused and self-contradictory Judeo-Christian "ethic" here).
If you want to use scenarios to determine people's ability to perform moral judgements, then I suggest that you acquire (for dosh) James Rest's "Defining Issues Test", because that is recognised as the leading instrument for testing the ability to form moral judgements around the world. I've used it myself on several sample populations. It doesn't work well across divergent cultures, but that's life.
In your scenario (and the original one as well), there are too many actors to determine the real morality of the actions of any one of the people, because if you have four people you have four different sets of moral codes interacting with each other. You also have way too many influences to determine which particular "moral rule" was used in the formulation of the decisions made by any one of the actors. Maid Marion may well have elected to become made Marion for any one of a number of reasons thrown up in your extended scenario. An example: Maid Marion may well have been a hedonist, just looking for a good reason to justify having sexual relations with the Sheriff. To her, saving Robin Hood's neck under those circumstances may have just been a minor, if self-justifying and slightly beneficial, outcome of the action.
And all of this is why I distrust judges. Judges are supposed to apply the law impersonally, but of course they don't. They are prey to their own moral backgrounds (or lack of them). If you are indeed a lawyer, how many times have you tried to get a particular type of case heard by this or that judge because you know that the judge will use a particular set of moral judgments to determine his/her verdict?
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