JUDGE RICHARD POSNER
Evil results from "the indifference to the human consequences
of decisions."
--Richard Posner
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Judge Richard A. Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court
of Appeals is recognized as the leading intellectual of the judicial branch.
Posner wrote on the subject of evil in an essay (reviewing Ingo Muller's
book, Hitler's Justice) entitled "Courting Evil" in The New Republic.
Posner agreed that the German judiciary did evil because it "was so immersed
in a professional culture as to be oblivious to the human consequences
of their decisions." Posner wondered, provocatively, whether American
"prosecutors who pursue marijuana growers, sellers of dirty magazines,
and violators of arcane campaign financing regulations are inappropriately
using their offices in much the same manner as did prosecutors who earlier
brought charges against Germans for 'dishonoring the race.'" Posner urged
judges against being "eager enlisters in the popular movements of the day."
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| ITEM: THE INCARCERATION RATE IN THE U. S. RANKS HIGHEST
AMONG INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS....FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL JUDICIAL
CENTER, JUDGE WILLIAM SCHWARZER, SAYS: "NO INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY IMPOSES
SENTENCES OF COMPARABLE SEVERITY." |
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