>I was impressed by the grudging way that Jim Dwyer of the NY Times provided
>"news analysis" of this story today, i.e.: "More than one person has
>shrugged at the news that these young men have basically been cleared of
>involvement in the rape, remarking that they were not choirboys who had
been
>out chanting vespers in the park that night. They had gone there, as they
>admitted, to rob and beat people. And they did, or they watched as others
>did." <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/06/nyregion/06ASSE.html>
Rape is worse than robbing and beating people and it is wonderful work by defense lawyers -- some of whom I know from the NYC Guild -- to show the careless and authoritarian police work that put these people in jail for a crime they didn't commit.
That said, there is a big difference in condemning bad police work and having to feel great sympathy for people who were out victimizing others. One does not justify the other, but neither does one cancel out the other, either.
I think brutalizers-- whether they wear a badge or not -- deserve little sympathy. I think both deserve due process but that's about all.
-- Nathan Newman