LETTERS: JUDGE'S RECORD SHOWED DISREGARD FOR FACTS

To the editor:

I must respond to Michael McGuire's comments regarding U.S. Sens. John Ashcroft and Christopher Bond's rejection of Judge Ronnie White's appointment to the U.S. district court. His Machiavellian rhetoric regarding Ashcroft's "machinations" aptly aspire to absolute absurdity. What motivated Ashcroft to oppose White's nomination was not racism as McGuire's letter so deftly implies, but White's consistent judicial activism when it comes to weakening the rule of law.

Judge White's record on the bench shows a consistent disregard for the facts of the case in his ostentatious attempt to rewrite Missouri law. His most brazen example is in the case of Ernest Lee Johnston. Johnston bludgeoned three convenience-store workers to death during the commission of a robbery. Each victim was slaughtered by 10 or more claw-hammer blows to the head. It was premeditated, cold-blooded butchery. The jury, based on the overwhelming evidence presented, sentenced Johnston to death. The Missouri Supreme Court, led by White's opinion and a narrow 4-3 margin, voted to throw out the death sentence and order a retrial of the death penalty phase. Judge White's opinion was that the defendant's lawyer did not adequately present evidence which would have led to a life-imprisonment decision. The defense argued that Johnston was a crack cocaine user and that he was driven to robbery because of his addiction. According to Judge White, the defense failed to bolster that argument by soliciting the testimony of a forensic psychiatrist who could have persuaded the jury to only sentence Johnston to life.

How can they presume this? Are the judges experts in forensic psychiatry? How could they possibly know how the jury would have ruled? Why should crack addiction be an adequate defense for life imprisonment? Due to White's tenuous opinions, justice is not being served, and the families of these three victims are forced to go through this ordeal again. This is indefensible.

In light of this information, Bond decided to withdraw his support for White, and any reasonable person can understand why. It is not "blatant lying" by Bond to change his mind about someone based on recent outrageous opinions rendered by a left-wing activist judge. You have to evaluate the qualifications of the judge based on his record to the present. Obviously, Bond was convinced by the latest decision and perhaps other decisions that White has ruled on since 1997 that he is not fit to rule on the U.S. district court. Fifty-two U.S. senators agreed with Bond and Ashcroft on this matter. I also would suspect that a majority of Americans would agree with me on this matter. The "black eye" that was given to Missouri was not from the senators, but by the left wing of the Democratic Party, which is attempting to pit blacks against whites by crying racism. Where were those catcalls when Clarence Thomas was being unjustly lynched? Hmmm? Where was Mr. McGuire during the Thomas hearings? Where was his outraged voice? Probably as subdued as the NOW group's was during Clinton's sexual-harassment escapades.

JIM KREWSON

Shawneetown