Friday, January 13, 2006
Both Sides Now
It's amazing how stern judges suddenly start evincing a concern for the rights of the convicted when it's their own bottoms that are parked in prison cells. I don't know whether or not this former judge is sincere in his claims of rehabilitation. But I do wonder how he can claim not to know what it was like in the hellholes to which he gleefully sent hundreds of persons during his career, even as he was looting $600,000 from a mentally retarded woman's estate. I have a feeling that none of the persons he sentenced for the maximum ever stole quite as much as he did, or from victims that were quite as helpless. This is not to say that all of the persons he sentenced were angels. Most were not, in all likelihood. But I do find it interesting that someone like him might be considered more "worthy" and "noble", say, than a teenage boy who shoplifts from convenience stores to get food for his family, and whose total takings wouldn't be worth a hundredth of what this ex-judge stole.
More blogs about politics.
