Parole For Murderers Is Mockery Of Justice. Gregory Freeman, StL P-D 11/28/1995

Headline: PAROLE FOR MURDERERS IS MOCKERY OF JUSTICE
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Tue., Nov. 28, 1995
Section: WAR PAGE, Page: 9B, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

WHILE SWITCHING channels on TV last week, I stumbled upon a parole hearing for Sirhan Sirhan.
   Sirhan, if you've forgotten, is the man found guilty of the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, minutes after Kennedy had won the California presidential primary. The hearing aired on Court TV. There, an attorney for Sirhan argued that after 27 years, he had served his time and should be allowed to return to society.
   This was not the first parole hearing for Sirhan. Under California law, he, like crazed murderer Charles Manson, comes up for a parole hearing every few years. Both men have been consistently denied.
   In the latest case, Sirhan's attorney first tried to argue that the evidence that Sirhan had committed the crime was suspect. But the judge conducting the hearing refused to listen to that argument, reminding him that the hearing was only to determine whether Sirhan should be paroled, not whether he was guilty. That, he said, had been determined.
   The attorney then said that Sirhan had done his time for the murder and had shown remorse.
   Sirhan was denied parole, however. In an interview afterward, the judge said that Sirhan had not demonstrated any significant remorse, having stated on previous occasions that he had not committed the crime, despite overwhelming evidence and eyewitness accounts.

As I watched the hearing unfold, I remember thinking that they should never let Sirhan go. He killed Bobby Kennedy. It would be a slap in the face of justice if this man were allowed to walk the streets again, I thought.

Sirhan will probably never win parole because he assassinated a prominent and well-loved public official.
Unfortunately, that's not so certain when the person killed is an ordinary individual. Too often, it seems, these guys - and they're almost always guys - murder someone, serve a limited amount of time, and then walk. It doesn't seem quite right.

Such is the case now as parole is considered for two local men, Robert Toney and James R. Hill III. Those two come up for a parole hearing next month.
   In March 1972, a group of armed men bust into Cousin Hugo's tavern in Maplewood and declared a holdup. Everyone was ordered to lie on the floor. Before all was said and done, an off-duty police officer and a chemist had been murdered, a lawyer had been shot, and a barmaid and a pet dachshund had been stabbed.
   The slaughter was dreadful, the sort of crime that you figure could be done only by someone without a conscience.
   Toney and Hill were two of the men convicted for the murders and assaults. Now they're up for parole.

It's been 23 years, but I'm sure the families of the victims remain grief-stricken today. My own father was killed in an accident 24 years ago, and not a week goes by that I don't think about him. Surely the families of the victims in the Cousin Hugo's incident - as well as the families of other murder victims - carry the grief of that awful crime with them forever.
I don't know whether Toney and Hill are remorseful for the murders, just as I didn't know about Sirhan. But to me, that's immaterial.

The fact is, these folks committed murders and for that reason, in my mind, they should remain behind bars. After all, adults know the difference between right and wrong.
   I go back and forth on the death penalty. At times, especially when there's a particularly heinous crime, I think that death is the only appropriate response. At other times, I worry that if somehow the person found guilty turns out not to be the actual perpetrator of a crime, our system will kill an innocent person.
  But regardless of the death penalty, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that a person who takes a life should find his own life behind bars.
  When that doesn't happen, it seems, the criminal justice system makes a mockery of itself.

After all, because killers have often gotten off with serving only minimal time, witnesses are often reluctant to come forward, despite what they know or may have seen. Their concern, understandably, is that the person will get out of jail and then they will become the target of yet another murder.
Who knows, then, how many killers walk the streets free today because our system has discouraged law-abiding folks from doing what is, in effect, their civic duty?
Until we have a system that makes it much harder for murderers to get paroled - not only those who kill prominent people but those who kill average folks as well - we'll continue to see a never-ending stream of heinous killings.

Gregory Freeman's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. ...< deleted >

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

back