Barbara Kay: When a mother is on trial, the father is the accused

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2010-11-17 16:50

Article here. Excerpt:

'The trial was over, But Judge Stong added comments after the verdict announcement suggesting that if had the power to overturn the jury’s verdict, he would. He said, “It is more than disconcerting to think that if Campione had not been so abused, so used and discarded as a person, her two daughters could still be alive…” Judge Stong was determined that even if it is Campione that gets locked up, Canadians would know that the real villain, morally speaking, is Leo Campione, the father of the dead girls (even though his alleged abusiveness was entirely based on his wife’s allegations and never proved), and it is actually the “discarded” Elaine Campione who is the victim.

Judge Stong felt such personal animus against the grieving father that he wanted to deny Mr. Campione and his parents their opportunity to read a victim-impact statement, standard practice even with mandatory- sentencing cases. He only relented under strong pressure from the prosecutor, who reminded the judge that the murdered girls had been “an extremely important part of [Mr. Campione's] life.”'

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Comments

Over the years I have acted as my own attorney on numerous occasions in different states. I have noticed that when in court if one has a male judge there are usually one or more female handlers in the room that the male judge will look to for signals when they don't know what to do. I have seen many judges that depend on lawyers within their system for advice on cases, somewhat slanted view of justice when your getting paid by the same employer, no real neutral ground. The only way we will ever be sure we receive any form of real justice for ourselves is if we control our own court systems. If one seeks justice I do think it is somewhat naive to expect it from a system that is staffed by "professional" judges. Our justice system should be all volunteer from within the community, anyone that can pass a test designed to show comprehension and a basic psychological profile could be called to serve in their community as a judge for a period of time. Of course there is more, but I'm sure there are those that get the basic idea. Then and only then will we have a chance at justice in "our" courts. Until we address the real problems we will be doomed to repeat them. Just my humble opinion.

David A. DeLong

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Submitted by David A. DeLong on Thu, 2010-11-18 14:30