Word: sirica
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JUDGE JOHN J. SIRICA'S lenient sentences last Saturday for John Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and Robert Mardian show that two and a half years after the Watergate break-in, justice is still a long way off. Giving three of the most powerful men in the Nixon administration no fines, and only 30 months in jail--less if they exemplify "good behavior"--constitutes, in comparison to their crimes, little more than a slap on the wrist...
Before he read his sentences, Judge Sirica said that he took four points into consideration: the protection of society, the possibility of rehabilitation, the effects of the sentences on defendants and their families, and "the deterrent effect that the sentence might have on others who may be tempted to commit the same type of crimes for which these defendants now stand convicted...
...Before Sirica handed down the sentences. Haldeman's defense counsel, John J. Wilson, gave the traditional statement on an appropriate sentence. He claimed that he hoped Sirica "considers whatever Bob Haldeman did, he did not for himself but for the President of the United States; that the virtue of loyalty is not to be forgotten when evaluating all the attending circumstances." This same argument was used to defend fascist killers at Nuremburg...
...loyalty should count at all in considering the sentences, it should be loyalty to basic principles of justice and not to any particular egomaniac. That Sirica's sentences were some of the stiffest in the entire Watergate nexus of crime and corruption attests to the gravity of this particular trial and its consequences. Enough of Watergate has already been obfuscated and forgotten for four of its most active participants to be mildly scolded and sent off to resume high social, if not powerful, positions in American society again...
...chapters my mother will not enjoy reading. My son may be surprised at my admitting certain things. I was capable of doing wrong, and I did wrong. I can only try to right the wrong. I certainly cannot be proud of the actions that brought me into Judge Sirica's courtroom. I have done my best to serve the processes of justice in the only way I knew...