Given One Too Many Chances

Calendar February 6, 2004 | Posted by Aubrey Turner

It was sad, but not unexpected, to hear that they found the body of that young girl who was abducted in Florida.

This part of the FoxNews article really caught my eye:

A state Department of Corrections official said Thursday that a probation officer had asked a judge on Dec. 30 to declare Smith in violation of his probation because he had not paid all his fines and court costs.

Probation official Joe Papy said Circuit Judge Harry Rapkin declined to find Smith in violation, which could have returned him to jail.

Why do we give these people so many damn chances?  He’d been arrested multiple times and was only given jail time once, the rest he kept getting probation.  If that judge had listened to the probation officer (who just happens to be the person who is closest to the offender), perhaps none of this would have happened.  Of course, with this type of offender, it may have just delayed the inevitable.  We’ll never know for sure.  What I do know, however, is that someone should have gotten tough on this guy a long time ago.

Category Categories: Miscellaneous

1 Comment

  1. Ron Ryan says:
    February 8, 2004 at 10:40 am

    I noticed that the good Judge was quick to point out that he now feared for the saftey of his own family. I wonder if he would be so quick to pin the blame on someone else if it had been his own daughter that was killed in the first place, and in this manner. Although he will never accept it, the blood of that 11 year-old girl is on his hands. Judge Harry Rapkin should be a poster child for everything that is wrong with this judicial system.