The Patriot Post® · No King Solomons in Sight

One good thing that candidate Gingrich did was open to discussion the role of the judiciary. Personally, I balk at his suggestion that judges should be called before Congress to explain and defend their dopey decisions. That is, unless members of Congress are then called before the judicial branch to explain their own follies. Still, there is no question that far too many judges have gotten way too big for their britches. Make that, their robes.

If it were up to me, I would limit Supreme Court justices to nine year terms. But I don’t want the president or Congress destroying the balance of power that the Founding Fathers worked so hard to create when they wrote the Constitution. Inasmuch as the president and the 535 members of Congress are every bit as prone to screw up as the Court – and even more so when the Democrats are in charge! – I can’t imagine why Gingrich felt those clodhoppers were qualified to judge the judges.

I, on the other hand, am quite prepared to point out any number of loons who get paid to wear their bathrobes to work. For instance, Federal Judge Susan Illston decided to lay down the law to Barry Bonds, baseball cheat and convicted perjurer. Unfortunately, what she laid down was more of a red carpet.

She ruled that, after the government had spent millions convicting the scoundrel, his punishment would consist of performing community service, being placed on probation for a short time and having to pay a $4,000 fine. To put the fine into proper perspective, Bonds was paid roughly $100,000 a game by the San Francisco Giants, meaning that he was paid more than $4,000 every half-inning. As for probation, I don’t think there was really much danger of the long-retired, 47-year-old ever juicing up again in order to hit home runs into Frisco Bay.

But to drive the point home that this was more than a mere slap on the wrist, Judge Illston also sentenced him to a few weeks of home confinement, ignoring the fact that his 15,000 square foot mansion in Beverly Hills was in no way to be confused with Soledad or San Quentin, except, perhaps, in terms of acreage.

I, myself, would have tossed his sorry butt in the slammer, not just for perjury, but for cheating and thereby erasing the legitimate accomplishments of better men, such as Hank Aaron and Roger Maris, from the record books.

It’s due to my friend Ronald Kessler, Newsmax contributor and author of “The Secrets of the FBI,” that I’m aware of the fact that John Hinckley, who continues to be classified as a Class III threat by the Secret Service, will soon be considered for release from St. Elizabeth’s, a psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C.

It seems that U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman, who has been allowing Hinckley to visit his mother regularly for years now, will be the guy who makes the final call. During those visits, Hinckley, who not only shot President Reagan, but Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service Agent Timothy McCarthy and D.C. Police Officer James Delahanty, is kept under constant surveillance by the Secret Service. So not only has this would-be presidential assassin been kept needlessly alive at taxpayer expense for the past 30 years, but we’ve had to pay extra so that his frequent furloughs could be monitored.

The questions that leap to mind are, one, why Judge Friedman has been so magnanimous to this lump of human excrement and, two, has Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster, the object of Hinckley’s psychotic infatuation – and his stated reason for seeking notoriety – been informed that he may soon be resuming his interrupted courtship?

Finally, when it comes to judicial lunacy, is there a more glaring example than the fact that child rapists are ever allowed back on the streets once they’ve been caught and convicted? Every time I read about one of these monsters being released from jail on the condition that they stay a thousand or two thousand feet away from a school or park, I question whether judges or legislators, for that matter, are any saner than Mr. Hinckley. I mean, why on earth would anyone release into society a person who couldn’t be trusted not to rape another child?

Instead of counting off how many feet and inches it is to the nearest playground, why not accept that there is one very safe place to lodge these damn freaks? It’s called a prison.