Is Howard right about Jeff Pine?

I recall some months ago reading with astonishment in the Providence

    Journal Attorney General  Jeffrey Pine's suggestion that mass murderer

    Timothy McVeigh be tortured. There was nothing in his past to suggest

    that he had a malignant character defect- a propensity for sadism perhaps?

      So I concluded that it was all brainless PR directed AT the "the ethical

    basement of the universe " to use Howard Lisnoff's descriptive words for

    Rhode Island in his March 28 letter to the editor.

       Again Mr. Pine has merited the wrath of Howard over the stiff sentence

    given to 15 year old Jessica Gonzalez for " brutal,cold killing ". He

    sees " racism " as a factor here.

        When Mr. Pine announced his resignation from his job -citing financial

    pressures to earn more money for his growing family- I suspected that

    the simply truth was that he was burned out. He is- I think - neither

    a sadist ( McVeigh is white ) or a racist. He IS a casualty of the

    office. You LOSE with the public if you are " wimpy ". And you LOSE if

    you are " tough ".

       In the final analysis the PHILOSOPHY of the law is the culprit. In

    sentencing a 15 year old to virtual life in prison, there is an ethical

    assumption at work not different from that of THEOLOGY : that EVIL is

    rooted in the depths of the INDIVIDUAL SOUL even at a very young age.

       This assumption only perpetuates the office of chief prosecutor.EVIL

    - not to dismiss personal responsibility altogether- has deep SOCIAL

    roots. Society has barely begun to understand this. It is still CHEAPER

    to build more prisons.