Word: lasaga
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...afraid that your editorial (“Justice Served in New Haven,” Feb. 20) did not grasp what I was trying to do in my testimony last week for Antonio C. Lasaga. There was considerable pressure to impose an unreasonably long prison sentence just because Lasaga was a distinguished professor at Yale. I was trying to counteract this. I was not successful. The State of Connecticut imposed a 20-year prison sentence. This was more than three times the sentence recently imposed in Massachusetts on a hockey dad for killing another hockey dad; it was twice...
These erudite and eloquent men claimed that Lasaga should receive a lenient prison term because his prolonged incarceration would deny the world the benefit of his astonishing geological expertise. Fortunately Superior Court Judge Roland D. Fasano was able to look beyond their impressive academic credentials and realize that such arguments are fundamentally antithetical to the principles of the American justice system...
Moreover, Lasaga should receive the same treatment as other prisoners. His requests for reading material and scientific supplies should be considered according to the pre-existing rules of the prison where he is to be imprisoned. To make exceptions based on his admittedly keen intellect would be unfair to the other inmates. With any luck Lasaga will use his extended incarceration to think about the severe consequences of his crimes. He should reflect that the tragedy in this case is, of course, not that the American justice system has dashed his glittering geological career, but that a young...
...Lasaga is an intelligent man who may still have important intellectual contributions to make. His heinous crimes do not invalidate his earlier research, nor do they prevent him from making worthy discoveries in the future. Journals must consider according to their own standards whether or not to publish any new papers he may write...
...principle that all Americans are equal before the law is far more valuable to society than any findings Lasaga might have been able to make if he had been given a shorter sentence. It is rather surprising and distinctly disturbing that a Harvard professor was not able to grasp this basic concept...