Making Life Work

By: Ronald L. Dart

    He is twenty years old, but he looks more like sixteen. In blue jeans and sweater, his hair neatly cut, he looks like he should have books under his arm and be headed for class. The district attorney says he is a cold-blooded killer. It seems he held up a convenience store late one night. The clerk offered no resistance and gave him all the money in the cash register. But as he scooped up the money and stuffed it into his pockets, this “student” calmly raised his pistol and shot the clerk squarely between the eyes just to leave no witnesses. Now the district attorney wants you, the jury, to find him guilty and sentence him to death.

By: Lenny Cacchio

Somebody! Help me understand this.

    In Philadelphia a woman was thrown in jail because she couldn’t pay $120 in library fines. Notices from the library didn’t get to her because she had moved several times, including some stays at a battered women’s shelter.

Meanwhile, in Boston a judge sentenced a convicted rapist to probation, and he told the victim to "get over it".

    A terrorist found with a carload of explosives and plan to blow up Los Angeles International gets 13 years in prison, just weeks after an octogenarian businessman gets life because stockholders lost lots of money when the company failed.

If our society wants send the message that money is more important than life and safety, our justice...