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”...

“I formed my opinion before finishing the second paragraph.” So began one of several observations regarding my July 1st commentary about a choice before the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation concerning convicted murderer Susan Atkins:  she would either continue to serve a life sentence or be given a “compassionate release” due to a terminal illness. A June 13, Los...

Here’s your dilemma: You are an ethicist who has been asked by a prison board to offer an opinion concerning the possible release of an inmate. A notorious prisoner – convicted of multiple murders – has served almost 40 years of a life sentence.  Recently, the prisoner has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and has petitioned the board to...