Saturday, June 30, 2007
Not Fair & Balanced
Obstruct justice, out a CIA operative, lie under oath -- 30 months in prison with a possible presidential pardon for the well-heeled I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Beat and sexually assault a woman? Less than a year and a half for Eugene A. Marriott Jr., the man of God from Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church.
But wipe a DWI conviction from the books to augment your income as a Latina single mother? It's 42 months in prison with no time off for good manners.
This is the country and state we live in, unfortunately.
Today the Washington Post reports that a former lowly administrative assistant from the Fairfax County prosecutor's office was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for "making a man's drunken driving conviction disappear when she worked in the office in 2004."
Fairfax judges and prosecutors recused themselves from the case. And poor Cecilia A. Ruiz, 30, mother of two children, 6 and 8, had the harsh luck of facing the same Prince William County assistant commonwealth attorney who prosecuted Justin Wolfe and other death row luminaries from the region that leads the state in capital murder convictions.
State sentencing guidelines called for probation. However, the prosecutor wanted more; and a jury of her so-called peers obliged and handed down the hard-hearted sentence. At the time, the Fairfax prosecutor's office was being "criticized...for reducing charges against" Marriott.
"I'm asking the court to be lenient," Ruiz pleaded with sobs to the judge on Friday.
No matter. Honorable retired Fairfax Circuit Court Judge J. Howe Brown went along with the jury. And justice was served for the two-time winner of "employee of the year" award.
Meantime in the land of milk and honey and justice for all, the rapist won't have to register as a sex offender; and Libby will probably be pardoned.
Oh hell, when recalling legal moral outrages, let's not forget the chase pure preacher's wife who received a mere three years last month after shooting and killing her husband in cold blood.
Beat and sexually assault a woman? Less than a year and a half for Eugene A. Marriott Jr., the man of God from Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church.
But wipe a DWI conviction from the books to augment your income as a Latina single mother? It's 42 months in prison with no time off for good manners.
This is the country and state we live in, unfortunately.
Today the Washington Post reports that a former lowly administrative assistant from the Fairfax County prosecutor's office was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for "making a man's drunken driving conviction disappear when she worked in the office in 2004."
Fairfax judges and prosecutors recused themselves from the case. And poor Cecilia A. Ruiz, 30, mother of two children, 6 and 8, had the harsh luck of facing the same Prince William County assistant commonwealth attorney who prosecuted Justin Wolfe and other death row luminaries from the region that leads the state in capital murder convictions.
State sentencing guidelines called for probation. However, the prosecutor wanted more; and a jury of her so-called peers obliged and handed down the hard-hearted sentence. At the time, the Fairfax prosecutor's office was being "criticized...for reducing charges against" Marriott.
"I'm asking the court to be lenient," Ruiz pleaded with sobs to the judge on Friday.
No matter. Honorable retired Fairfax Circuit Court Judge J. Howe Brown went along with the jury. And justice was served for the two-time winner of "employee of the year" award.
Meantime in the land of milk and honey and justice for all, the rapist won't have to register as a sex offender; and Libby will probably be pardoned.
Oh hell, when recalling legal moral outrages, let's not forget the chase pure preacher's wife who received a mere three years last month after shooting and killing her husband in cold blood.
// posted by Howling Latina @ 1:20 PM 
