SUNDAY IS DIARY DAY

Monday Update:

We think it's important to remember those who died at the hands of tyranny. American soldiers are now fighting, and dying, to defeat the type of people that
be-headed Daniel Pearl. The Post from Sunday stays up today, as we reflect on Mr. Pearl's life.
(It's either that, or complain about taxes, and who wants to be predictable?)



We wrote and posted this yesterday, but it bears repeating today:

The Herald reported that murdered Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl’s name will be read today on Miami Beach at a ceremony at the memorial to the victims of the holocaust. Pearl’s name will be added to the wall of names and read, along with millions of other names, all who were victims to hate and intolerance.

Daniel Pearl was killed by Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan in 2002 because he was Jewish. Pearl was beheaded because he worshipped a deity who was different from the deity that those who killed him worship. In Pearl’s religion, life is sacred, and the lord commands that one should do good deeds for others for the sake of humanity. Those who killed Pearl, worship hate and intolerance, and they condemn themselves, and their religion, to a fate much worse than that they inflicted on Daniel Pearl.

May Daniel Pearl’s name always be remembered and spoken, as a brave man, who was killed by cowards.

We will speak Daniel Pearl’s name aloud today, and everyday that courage is celebrated.

It is unfortunate in a sense that Pearl's name will be read along with those who are also remembered as victims. To be sure, Pearl and those who lost their lives in the holocaust were victimized. But in the end, their memory will outlast those of their killers. They may have been victims, but their humanity outlives the ideas of those who murdered them. It is their names that will be spoken today, not the names of those who killed them.

Daniel Pearl will be remembered by me as a hero. And in a sense, from the youngest child, to the oldest person, all whose names are spoken today, and who are remembered individually and as a member of "the six million" are heroes. Their lives were taken in a struggle against inhumanity. By our very existence today; by our very act of speaking their names and remembering them, we celebrate the victory of humanity.


DIARY OF A MAD JURIST.

A Judge emailed us this week to express some displeasure over our regular series: Diary of a Mad Jurist. We were sufficiently chastised to remind everyone that this post is emailed to us anonymously, and we have no idea if the writer is a Judge.

All rise.....

DIARY OF A MAD JURIST.

Rumpole, I've had occasion to read some case law lately on judicial vindictiveness. I have to tell you that some of my colleagues do not make me proud. If you read the case law, you see, in limited circumstances, sarcastic and sneering Judges handing out outrageous sentences. The worst cases are where the offer was something like 3 years, and the defendant gets 40 after trial, and the judge sneers "he should have taken the plea when it was offered."

These are people's lives you know. Criminal conduct must be punished. But conduct worth three years (the length of law school) does not suddenly become worth 30 years because someone had a defense and it didn't work. Do not get me wrong Rumpole. People who use violence and hurt innocent people need to be removed from society, unless some rare circumstance can convince me otherwise. But the sentences I am reading about are just awful. How do some of these Judges sleep at night after taking away a 1/3 or 2/3's of a person's life? Don't they know how horrible prison is?

And that's another thing. There are so many things that need our tax dollars. Hungry children, health care, education, and yet I can't help thinking that a civilized society needs to treat its inmates better. I'm not talking about color TV's and the best gym equipment. I'm talking about making prison a quiet and sobering experience. Where time is spent in thought and remorse, and not some hell hole ruled by thugs where the guards have no control. I guess, having sent my fair share of people to prison, I just wish I could believe that there would be a chance of some of them coming out better than they went in.

Anyway Rumpole, thanks for the time.