Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, March 3, 1982
End of a nightmare
For two years in Atlanta, most black children were afraid to play too far away from their back yards. Black parents felt a strange, empty feeling whenever their children were late coming home from school. They looked at their watches again and again.
Now, the nightmare seems to be over. Saturday, a jury of eight blacks and four whites, found Wayne Williams, 23, guilty of two of 28 murders that terrorized Atlanta's black neighborhoods.
Many relatives of the 28 young blacks were relieved by the news. Members of the special force that investigated the murders were relieved, too—so relieved that they said Williams probably committed the other 26 murders and so relieved that they decided to halt their investigation.
The Fulton County district attorney, who headed the investigation, made this statement in a story that appeared in almost every newspaper in the country.
"I hate to get into the personal bit, but when I had Williams locked up, I didn't think there would be any more killings—and there haven't been any more."
Wayne Williams may very well have been the man who strangled, stabbed and
suffocated 28 children and young men in Atlanta. If he is, he should be locked up, and maybe he should never be released.
But that is a big "if." As it stands, Williams has been convicted of only two of the killings. And it appears that police have charged, tried and convicted him of the other 26 murders—all without the inconvenience of dallying with the U.S. court system.
Trial by inruendo and trial by newspaper are certainly expedient. But they are not right, either legally or morally.
Saturday, after the trial, most spectators were convinced of Williams' guilt. But some weren't sure. Williams' attorneys plan to appeal, and the parents of some victims have said they aren't satisfied with the verdict.
One of those parents was Camille Bell. Her nine-year-old son was found strangled and dead in an abandoned Atlanta school.
"For those families like mine, it will mean they will never know who killed their children," she said.
Wayne Williams has been captured and convicted. And the nightmare in Atlanta is finally over.
We hope.
'Largo 8' episode illustrates problem in law enforcement
Where do law enforcement officials draw the line? And how do we find the boundary so that we can keep from crossing it?
Frequently, legislators make laws that are nearly impossible to enforce equitably and completely, leaving it to the police and the courts to decide on the magical cutoff point between good citizen and bad citizen. And even if it were physically possible for police to arrest all lawbreakers, public outrage would prevent any such mass jailing.
Instead, police make arbitrary decisions, interpreting the laws so the rules fit their capabilities to enforce them. The highway speed limit is 5 mph, but many people get a ticket
CHRIS COBLER
for going 56 mph? Various cutoff points are 62 mph or 64 mph, although the public never knows for sure. Supposedly, fear of not knowing how far we can transgress will keep us in line.
Nonetheless, cross the line we do. And the overworked system, although inherently weak and muddled, reacts as best it can with usually mixed results.
The works really become gummed up when they attempt to deal with so-called victimless crimes. Added to the question of how far can we transgress is another, even more essential question: what is a transgression? In a victimless crime, no one is involved except the perpetrator, so why and how do you punish someone for doing something to himself?
The recent escape of the now-famous Largo Eight illustrated this dilemma. In the Ranchercho Village park in Largo, Fla., eight senior citizens conspired to play nickel-and-dime棋 in the billiards room. The ludicrousness of the situation is apparent. One imagines Professor Ziegler playing a game of chess. "We've got trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for poker."
But Pinellia County Sheriff Gerard Coleman decided he had to draw the line somewhere. His
offers went undercover to raid the game. They confiscated a deck of cards, poker chips and $24. When the case came to trial, Judge William Blackwood (read Solomon) put the Large Eagle, who range in age from 18 to 70, on probation for a charge, and ordered them to账付 $7 in court costs.
The public, especially the about 450,000 retirees in Pinellas County, was shocked by the news of the caper. Letters poured in from across the country—none were in favor of arresting old people.
A woman from New York wrote: "This disgusting episode of yours, lock up retirements, has turned me off in making Largo my retirement home . . . How do you think their children and grandchildren feel? . . . That's a nice way to go to your grave. How low can
But despite the reaction of the public, the law clearly had been broken. Florida's gambling statute specifies that it is illegal to engage "in any game at cards, keno, roulette, far or other game of chance, at any place, by any device whatever, for money or other thing of value."
The law seems to be spelled out clearly, but it is also impossible to enforce equitably and completely. Obviously, the laws we make and the laws we enforce diverge somewhere along the line. The divergence only increases when we attempt to legislate victimless crimes.
It is easy to dismiss this incongruity because we are so accustomed to it. Our society usually compensates for the great injustices and we are appeased.
Even the Largo Eight were generously compensated for their troubles. The public donated nearly $1,000 for their defense; the Largo Chamber of Commerce honored the eight at a luncheon in the Freedom Room of Freedom Savings and Loan, and Bally's Park Place Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., flew the men in for an all-expenses-paid weekend of gambling (even though poker is illegal in New Jersey's casinos).
KANSAN
Before we sigh, "all's well that ends well," we should remember that not all incompliances make national headlines and have storybook endings. Instead, most of the little injustices keep accumulating as law enforcement officials keep drawing and redrawing the lines to fit the times. Meanwhile, we play a no-win game of moral hopscatch within the shifting lines.
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U.S. on wrong side in El Salvador
By EDWARD ASNER
BY EDWARD ASNER
New York Times Special Features
NEW YORK—Hey, Asner. What gives you and your actor friends the right to speak out about U.S. foreign policy? Who do you think you are?
That's why I want to our nation's capital last week—because the situation in El Salvador is rapidly becoming another Vietnam War, and I want to prevent that from happening.
I think that it's not only a right but an obligation for every responsible citizen to speak out when our government is acting in ways we believe are wrong.
A full-scale war is now raging in that Central American country, and every day the intending enemy flies
Tragically, we're on the wrong side once again. And once again, we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars propping up an undeserving military junta, while we close health clinics and day-care centers here in the United States.
It makes no sense to me for the United States to get into another needless nightmare.
And I won't sit back quietly and witness a repeat performance of another tragedy that the U.S. Congress doesn't vote for and the American people don't want.
I'm working hard to learn more about what's happening in El Salvador, and asking everyone I know to become better informed.
- for example, but you know that:
  • More than half the people of El Salvador
subsist on an income of less than $10 per month?
- Nearly 50 percent of the children in El Salvador die before the age of 5?
- There are fewer than three doctors for every 10,000 people?
- Unemployment in El Salvador today is more than 40 percent.
- And 2 percent of the population owns 60 percent of the land?
We all need to learn more of what's happening there, but you don't have to be a historian or a political scientist to know that El Al Jazeer came another Vietnam War if we don't act now.
Elections for a constituent assembly are set to take place in El Salvador this month, but there is no reason to believe they will be more genuine than the highly touted election we promoted in Vietnam that kept Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky in power.
Elections in El Salvador have been nothing but Fraudulent for decades. Why should anyone else?
More than 30,000 people have been killed by
one of the 150 were in the population.
If that were happening here in the United States, would mean a million and a half oceanele (or eleven)
Torture and brutality are commonplace in El Salvador, and anybody who claims that concerted efforts to protect human rights are either ill-informed or not telling the truth.
What's happening in El Salvador is more
than tragic -it's sickening, indecent,
inhumane—and it's got to be stopped.
Without U.S. military and economic aid, the junta in El Salvador could not survive, and the suffering of the Salvadoran people could end.
The truth is that once a government not worthy of one U.S. penny is being kept alive by the authorities, it can never be restored.
It is the responsibility of every concerned citizen to stay informed and speak out in the name of decency when our government's foreign policy is wrong.
We must say: "No, that won't be done again in my name. No, that not how I'm want my tax document."
It is, after all, what George Washington and
their fathers of our government impended for
their own benefit.
Last week, we observed George Washington's 250th birthday. That anniversary is a fitting time to honor our presidents tell the truth, who the honor will the of the American people.
(Edward Asner, actor, was in Washington last week with other actors to announce support for a nationwide project, Medical Aid for El Salvador. They presented a $25,000 check to a representative of that organization. The money is to be spent for medical supplies that are going to the Democratic Revolutionary Front in El Salvador.)
Let us each speak up now
Let us each tell our representatives that if they want to be re-elected in November, they'd better stop U.S. intervention in El Salvador now.
Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
Kansas bill attacks free exercise of religion
I would like to take this opportunity to explain in greater detail why this bill violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Recently, the Kansas House House of Representatives passed an "anti-conversion" bill. All of the opponents of House Bill 2688 believed this act was destined to be declared unconstitutional.
or all the rights protected by the First Amendment, none stands higher than the right to罢权.
Our nation's commitment to this value goes back at least to Thomas Jefferson's Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, enacted by the Virginia Legislature even before the First Amendment became part of our Constitution, a paragraph of Jefferson's bill reads as follows:
"It be therefore enacted by the General Assembly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or beliefs; nor shall he be bound by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the men in this now diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities."
This precious value of religious freedom as a natural right is the very heart and soul of the First Amendment's free exercise clause. As the Supreme Court said in Sherbert v. Vern, 374
"It is basic that no showing merely of a rational relationship to some colorable state interest would suffice; in this highly sensitive constitutional area, only the gravest abuses, endangering paramount interests, give occasion for permissible limitation."
To the degree that Bill 2688 is constitutional, it is unnecessary. Kansas penal laws already deal sufficiently with protecting citizens from fraudulent misrepresentation. If a member of any religion misrepresents himself there is a burden through established laws and court procedural rules.
The Kansas mental hygiene laws provide appropriate civil remedy in situations where a person is truly unable to provide for himself by reason of mental or physical disability.
Often the actual language used in the bill is pseudo-scientific and even self-contraindictory.
In Section 2, the bill talks about the determination as to whether an individual has been exposed to a "systematic course of coercive persuasion." What is meant by "coercive persuasion"? A person can be coerced or can be persuaded, but not both at the same time.
Such vague and undefined terms are what makes the bill so potentially abusive. The bill could be used against a person who joined the party, or left his parents' unpopular "cult" religion.
My plea is to the good men and women of all religious persuasions to write their state senators and express their concern for religious liberty. We may not agree on every theological nuance, but on the issue of religious freedom we must either stand together or be destroyed in isolation—one by one. Let your conscience in prayer be your guide.
Lowell Mitchem.
Lowell Mitchem,
Unification Church state director
Playboy visit news
To the Editor:
Apparently, Anne Wallace does not know what a newspaper is when she writes that the University Daily Kansan's coverage of Playboy coming to KU is a waste.
A newspaper is just that: a news paper, and a newspaper covers news. Certainly if we don't consider the Playboy visit to campus "news," you might think they altered without the knowledge of the readers.
Remember, Ms. Wallace, if you have an accident in Lawrence, that's news, and the Kansas will probably cover it in its "On the Record" segment. "Playboy coming to town is nothing to pout about."
Dreux Demack
Olathe
To the Editor:
Regarding the recent article in the University
Daily Kansan on pending midwifery licensing legislation for Kansas, I would like to briefly correct the wishful musings of the M.D.s who were quoted at the meeting.
They decried the legalization of midwifery as a step backwards in medical care and called midwives "baby-killers" in so many words. This is an odd charge for the M.D.-obstetric com- position, given that it is the doctors who actually have the most record for bringing infants into this world.
Here are the facts, as supported by virtually hundreds of studies stretching over more than 30
- The safest birth attendants are lay midwives working in the mother's own home for a home based unit.
- Nurse-midwives, working in homes or in out-of-hospital clinics, possess the next safest job in a health care setting.
- M.D. general practitioners are less safe than lay or nurse midwives, but are safer than the other specialists.
- M.D. obstetricians have the worst safety statistics, with higher rates of mortality and morbidity for both mothers and babies. This is a reflection of their tendency to apply surgical, interventionist technology to even the most uneventful, naturally-proceeding birth.
- Teaching hospitals, under the aegis of obstetric staffs, are patently unsafe for mothers and infants; Caesars in some of these hospitals reach the amazing level of 25 percent; nationally the rate of Caesarian births is 12 percent.
A trend emerges: the more traditional training the birth attendant has, the worse is the outcome. This is testimony to the fact that a comfortable, living environment and some skills unique to the very patient lay midwives, result in the healthiest newborn infants and mothers.
Documentation for these facts is brilliantly gathered in the book "The Five Standards of Literacy." (The latter is an American edition.)
James DeMeo Lawrence graduate student