Once again, friend and colleague Colman McCarthy hits the nail on the head in his commentary regarding sexual assaults in the military. A former Washington Post columnist, McCarthy directs the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington and teaches courses on nonviolence at four universities and two high schools. It was Groucho Marx, and it usually was, who had it right:...

In his closing argument in the George Zimmerman murder trial, Florida state prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda told a jury of six women that Trayvon Martin  “is dead because another man made assumptions, because his assumptions were wrong.” That statement pretty much sums up the entire Martin/Zimmerman incident. From the outset, as soon as the shooting death of the 17-year-old,...

President Obama formally nominated former Justice official James Comey to succeed Robert Mueller as the next director of the F.B.I. However, it was in 2004 that Comey nearly resigned his position as acting attorney general under George W. Bush. In March 2004, a gravely ill Attorney General John Ashcroft had been taken to a Washington hospital for gallbladder surgery. At...

Political pundits and experts love to predict. In the case of conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, it would seem all the experts had a better chance of going to their local carnival, dropping a nickel in Mr. Predicto, and reading the response on air from that little pop-out card. When it came down to a final decision on President...

During a session of Contemporary Ethical Issues, a class taught by me and Professor Stephen Ambra at the New Hampshire Technical Institute, the subject of bullying came up, which prompted me to ask, “Show of hands, how many of you have ever been bullied?” Out of 36 students, I was surprised to discover an overwhelming majority had faced ridicule, coercion, harassment,...

It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one pointing out the lack of a clearly defined ethical code followed by justices on the Supreme Court. “Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.,” the NEW YORK TIMES writes in an editorial (Judicial Ethics and the Supreme Court, Jan. 5) “skirted the heart of the problem: the justices are the only American...

A few years ago, I was called for jury duty. After being selected as a finalist, the judge explained that the case we would be deciding had to do with spousal abuse. He asked if we, as potential jurors, had anything in our personal lives that might cause us not to be impartial in this case, to speak up. I...

When New York Federal District Judge Charles Brieant, Jr. died last summer the staff began packing up his chambers.  However, among his personal items was a painting that has many people talking “Hanging on the wall,” the New York Times wrote, “along with portraits of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, was an oil painting of an obscure judge… Martin T. Manton who sat...

We’ve all heard the expression, “Let the punishment fit the crime”?  Well, for one Colorado judge it couldn’t be more apt! “After seeing so many people return for repeat noise offending,” Reuters news service reported, “Paul Sacco, a judge at Fort Lipton Municipal Court, will punish them by playing music they can’t stand for a full hour.” Who did judge...

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said, “Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.” In the decision regarding Susan Atkins plea for “compassionate release” based on a terminal illness, I choose compassion.  But not in the way you might think. When I first read “Manson, Murder and Mercy”...