5A LETTERS | YOUR VOICE BY DANTE RAMOS | NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE MAXIMIZE YOUR DENTAL HEALTH UTILIZE YOUR YEAR-END DENTAL BENEFITS The offi ce of Dr. Fred Gaeta and staff are now welcoming new and returning patients for dental cleanings, emergency and routine dental care. Most insurance plans welcome. Financing available through Care Credit Fred Gaeta DDS 75-5706 Hanama Pl. Suite 105A Kailua Kona, HI 96740 fredgaetadds.com Call for Complimentary Consultation 329-3314 ElEctrical NO JOB TOO SMALL FOR ALL YOUR ELECTRICAL NEEDS, WE WELCOME YOUR CALL. Ph/Fax: 325-1600 Cell: 936-0260 Lic.# C-24983 allphaseelectrical@hawaii.rr.com "Specializing in Solar Power Services" SLIPPAHS SLIPPAHS GET YOUR OOFOS® ON! GET YOUR OOFOS® ON! • Unparalleled impact absorption • Unparalleled impact absorption • Superior arch support • Insane comfort Try OOFOS today. You will thank you. • Superior arch support • Insane comfort Try OOFOS today. You will thank you. Available at Waimea General Store 885-4479 Available at Waimea General Store 885-4479 Travel the 4 Corners of the World Regent Seven Seas Venice to Rome $300 On-Board Credit with FREE Air August 2016 Lindblad/National Geo Tours to Cuba Meet the People. Share the Experience! American Steamboating Early Booking Discounts on cruises in 2017 Oceania Riviera 10 Days Athens to Athens in September 2016 A.S.K. about Travel 808-325-1651 Wild Walkabout Travels 866-325-1651 info@askabouttravel.net SOCIAL SECURITY ATTORNEY For those who have applied and have been denied, or have cases on appeal or have just given up. 808-342-3682 Danielle R. Beaver Frank A. Ury www.HawaiiSocialSecurity.com 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu, HI 96813 Take time to relax with our cards. 7.90% Rates as low as APR* NO ANNUAL FEE NO CASH ADVANCE FEE NO BALANCE TRANSFER FEE REWARDS! Our VISA® Credit Cards were created with our you in mind. Our low rates, custom artwork, member benefits and free rewards program** gives you a chance to relax. Apply today! 930-7700 hicommfcu.com *APR = Annual Percentage Rate. Other rates available. Rate and card determined by creditworthiness. All loans are subject to approval. Programs, rates, terms, conditions and services are subject to change without notice. The foreign transaction fee is 1.00% of the amount of each transaction in U.S. dollars. Certain restrictions may apply. HCFCU membership is required. **Rewards points can be redeemed for merchandise and travel. You earn 1 rewards point for every $1 spent with a HCFCU credit card. Points earned have a 3-year expiration date from the date they are earned. Federally insured by NCUA. OPINION SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 2016 | WEST HAWAII TODAY If Stanford University had handled Brock Turner’s case as a matter of internal discipline, the rest of the world might never have known what he did. Turner was found guilty in March on three sexual assault charges. On June 2, Judge Aaron Persky sentenced him to six months in jail. The Internet exploded in outrage at how lenient the sentence was — especially in the face of an extraordinary statement, published last weekend by BuzzFeed, in which the victim detailed the physical and emotional trauma that Turner had inflicted on her. CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield read the 12-page statement on the air in its entirety. More than 600,000 people have signed a petition seeking Persky’s removal. Yet amid that uproar, there’s a deeper lesson that’s getting lost. Turner’s conviction illustrates why bringing police and the courts into campus sexual assault cases serves the cause of justice — something that shouldn’t be left to unaccountable, confidential administrative panels. Turner’s not just some guy who left an elite university under a mysterious cloud. He’s now a convicted criminal. The reason people across the country know his name, and the reason he’ll have to answer for his offense in perpetuity, is that law enforcement was involved with the case from the start. Turner’s victim wasn’t affiliated with Stanford but did attend a frat party there with her sister. She was unconscious behind a dumpster, with Turner on top of her, when two graduate students bicycled by and stopped to investigate. When Turner fled, they stopped him — and they called the cops. Campus sexual assault allegations generally go before internal university panels, which typically handle too few cases to develop significant investigative expertise, have an institutional incentive to keep everything hush-hush, and often have little to go on besides two conflicting accounts of events that occurred weeks or months before. Professional detectives and prosecutors have more experience in obtaining witness testimony and other evidence. Courts weigh facts under standardized procedures that give prosecutors tremendous discretion but still protect the rights of the accused. The legal system, to be sure, is adversarial and often coarse. In her statement, Turner’s victim detailed the insulting questions raised by Turner’s lawyer. She wrote, “I was pummeled with narrowed, pointed questions that dissected my personal life, love life, past life, family life, inane questions, accumulating trivial details to try and find an excuse for this guy who had me half naked before even bothering to ask for my name.” A rape victim who sued Worcester Polytechnic Institute for negligence has made similar complaints, as the Globe reported this past week. Turner’s case also shows how the justice system benefits from external scrutiny. When cases are formally tried, outside observers can decide whether the cops and the courts are doing their job or not. Hence the recall petition, and the angry comparisons of Turner’s sentence with the fates of less privileged defendants. Especially as states reconsider harsh sentencing requirements and ponder the impact of race and class in criminal justice, it’s entirely appropriate to ask whether a blond-haired, blue-eyed Stanford swimmer should be sentenced more harshly — or, alternatively, whether black and Latino offenders who receive harsher punishments deserve more mercy. Good policy decisions are easier to make when the facts are out in the open. And campuses are safer when the misdeeds of a criminal like Brock Turner are known to the public, not locked up a university’s secret file cabinet. Terrorizing, terrible neighbors Picture this: I hear some animal commotion going on under my deck, when I’m just about to fall asleep. I put on my shorts and shoes and grab my nine iron I keep next to the sliding glass door to the deck, and investigate. There’s this pit bull chasing the little chicks, and “momma hen” trying to keep herself alive while protecting the chicks the best she can. I charge this devil with the iron, and it hightails it out into the street. I’m in hot pursuit. It runs way down the neighbor’s backyard into a vacant lot far north of me. “OK,” I’m thinking to myself. He’s gone home or to his pack of wolves. I climb back into bed, and he’s back. I charge him with full fury, and he runs into the neighbor’s front yard, joining his other pit bull buddy, that keeps the neighborhood awake in all hours of the day and night, when the owners aren’t home. It’s the same one that tried attacking me a year ago. It’s buddy is still on a leash. I felt no fear in wanting to make a tee shot off its head with that nine iron for a hole in one. I still keep a mace canister in the pocket of my work pants, since the last attack when I was just picking up my mail across from my driveway. “You cannot live in fear.” Another new mantra I’m keeping alive in my daily life I found in the Scriptures. By the way, the first encounter tonight, I saw him eat one of the black, little chicks. When momma hen came to my front porch this morning, she had only five baby chicks. Yesterday, she had nine. I sent a copy of this to all my neighbors, who might be wondering what all the commotion was about last night. The owner of the dogs knows what happened. Someone was inside the house when it all happened. I heard voices or the TV. Just keep them tied up, please. Dennis Lawson Kalaoa Stanford rape uproar’s lost lesson: Call the cops
11
To see the actual publication please follow the link above