Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Amarillo paper: More than probation for Coleman unjust

The Amarillo Globe News said it would have been a "miscarriage of justice" to give Tom Coleman a harsher sentence than probation for his perjury conviction. The Panhandle Truth Squad parsed the garbled prose and justly lashed the "newsroom ghosts" for issuing the provocation while hiding behind the veil of anonymity.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast at 1:26 PM

1 comment:

Charles Kiker said...

I'm no fan of the Amarillo Globe News, certainly not of their editorial policies. I have always felt that they should indicate which editor is responsible for a given editorial.

I am no fan, nor defender, of Tom Coleman. I don't feel jail time would have been a "miscarriage of justice," but I do feel justice was served. Tom got a stiff sentence, a 7 year prison sentence suspended for 10 years--no alcohol, no guns, can't leave Ellis County without his probation officer's permission, a $7500 restitution payment to Swisher County; he can never again work as a police officer. Now that one's good for Tom, and good for all of us!

Jail time for Tom would have been revenge for the jail time the Tulia defendants served. Our justice system really shouldn't be about revenge, but it is. A nicer word is retribution, but it means about the same thing.

Our justice system is based on retributive justice. Biblical justice is restorative justice, making things right. Tom's sentence approached restorative justice. In retributive justice, the model our system is based on, Tom should have served time.

Tom's victims received a miscarriage of retributive justice. Tom got restorative justice in a retributive system. And that ain't right!

1/20/2005 08:50:00 AM

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