Prevas had a reason to send defendants without lawyers to 0) jail
Baltimore Circuit Judge John N. Prevas is not always the soul of tact. But to describe his recently abandoned practice of jailing selected defendants who show up for trial without a lawyer as "judicial bullying and a fundamental disrespect for the human dignity of defendants" is hyperbole by University of Maryland law professor Michael Millemann ("City judge jailing poor defendants who lack lawyers," Oct. 25).
Criminal defendants have many good reasons for deliberately showing up for court unrepresented. A postponement because of lack of counsel increases the chances of never having to go to prison. Witnesses may die or disappear, police witnesses may retire and move away or prosecutors may grow so weary of calling the case that they will offer a sweetheart plea just to get rid of it.
The older the evidence grows, the harder it becomes for the state to prove its case. This is why so many defendants who never make bail waive their right to a speedy trial and choose to stay in jail until they plead guilty. They almost always get a better deal than they would have if they'd gone to trial promptly.
A defendant who does nothing to secure the services of counsel can be deemed to have waived them and be ordered to face trial without them. Judge Prevas is unwilling to let defendants stack the deck against themselves in this way. By jailing the most insouciant, he has been able to get their full attention and to keep them from manipulating the system.
When Judge Prevas was a new judge, city prosecutors who have felt the sting of his brilliance as much as anyone else dubbed him "the Ayatollah." I hope that this latest hubbub will do nothing to diminish his assiduous dedication to the marriage of efficiency and justice.
Hal Riedl
Baltimore
The writer was law clerk to Judge John N. Prevas from 1986 to 1988.
'Cancer of commercialism' encroaches on new stadium
What an insult it is to this city when the naming of the new stadium is in the hands of commercial greed. I thought stadiums were monuments of regional pride and named to inspire such. What does this say about Baltimore? That we are prostitutes selling the name to the highest bidder?
When did Madison Avenue so completely take over society and leech it of its values? Isn't it time people started to fight back this ever-encroaching cancer of commercialism?
Chris Winslow
Baltimore
Article didn't portray smokers group fairly
We are an independent businesswoman and former co-chair of the Republican National Committee; the president of a public broadcasting corporation and former college president and a financial consultant and former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department.
Perhaps most important, we are adult citizens who happen also to be smokers. Our relationship with the tobacco industry consists of our use of a product and our gratitude for financial contributions in defense of 50 million consumers.
With no outside interference, we oversee all expenditures and approve all consequential actions of the National Smokers Alliance, which has been fighting discrimination against smokers publicly since 1993.
Had your reporter, Scott Shane, called any of us as he was invited to do, perhaps his report on the National Smokers Alliance would have been less distorted, but that would have destroyed the conspiracy theory provided to him by the anti-smoking group that seeks to increase Maryland's cigarette tax by $1.50 a pack.
The National Smokers Alliance does and will oppose the tax. We hope we shall be joined in that opposition by 800,310 adult smokers in Maryland who may well be wondering why they should pay more taxes when tax cuts are being considered for everyone else.
Jeanie R. Austin
David M. Nummy
Charles W. Sydnor Jr.
Alexandria, Va.
The writers are directors of the National Smokers Alliance.
Sad to read columnist's description of black voters
How very sad it was to read Gregory Kane's diagnosis of the election ("Black voters succumbed to Glendening demagogy," Nov. 7) in which Ellen Sauerbrey was trounced by Maryland voters.
His language was wrapped in wordiness that must be an embarrassment to The Sun, his teachers of the language, as well as the voters who exercised their right to cast their ballots in favor of whomever they chose.
Shame on me; I never saw one of the caricatures on the television screen. I did not need instructions to make decisions that affect my choice about whom should lead the state during the next four years.
How sad it is that Mr. Kane used such lofty language with an obvious animus of mind and spirit to describe a community that sought successfully to put flesh to its dreams. How sad it is that he sinks to such profanity to describe the wishes of the voters of Maryland.
It would have been far better for Mr. Kane to have used his energies to get out the vote for the candidate of his choice. Congratulations to those citizens who thought and acted for themselves. Perhaps Mr. Kane will volunteer to be chairman of the "get out the vote campaign" for the person and party of his choice in the next election.
The Rev. Marion Curtis Bascom
Baltimore
Cannot excuse Germany for horrors of Nazis
The Perspective article "Hearing the echoes of 'die Kristallnacht'" (Nov. 8) on the horrors of Kristallnacht was interesting and well written. Yet it contributes to the disturbing // trend of literature and general attitude to the Holocaust of the insistence of separating the Nazis from the German people in general.
The latter refers to a political designation and to be sure, all Germans were not Nazis. But the consistent separation of the two groups implies that they were distinct and lends itself to the popular, though erroneous, belief that the mass of the German people were as much slaves to the Nazis' will as was the rest of Europe. This contention is wrong.
The Nazis did not come to power by force or coercion. Neither did they impose their agendas on an unwilling public. The regime enjoyed popular support on many fronts. Indeed, waging a world war and pursuing the extermination of a race of people would be virtually impossible without popular support.
To claim that all Germans were supportive of the xenophobic principles that led to the Holocaust would be ludicrous. But the voices of protest at the time were so few and far between that to suggest that what happened in Germany was the work of a small, authoritarian regime, is equally absurd.
Germany cannot be reminded enough times of what unspeakable crimes that it, as a nation, perpetrated against the world in general and Jews in particular.
Evan L. Balkan
Baltimore
Affirmative action critics out of step with the times
Manfred Smith's letter about affirmative action ("Racial preference wrong, even for a good cause," Nov. 10) misses almost immediately the broader perspective as to why affirmative action has been so successful.
Critics and opponents alike need to come down from their ideological soap boxes long enough to remember that it was created to combat racism perpetrated by those who now find it turned against them, like a once-loyal attack dog having turned on its owner.
When will its opponents, particularly the white ones, stop waltzing around and plunge feet first into the real and unspoken reason they want so badly to see affirmative action end? For eons, conservative white males, mainly white supremacists and "good ol' boy" types have insulated and isolated themselves in a balloon of special privileges. Affirmative action is the long, sharp needle that pricks at this balloon by leveling the playing field.
The juxtaposing argument shared by its critics that "racism by any other name still stinks" is, much like former presidential candidate Bob Dole, one that is good and decent, but a bit out of step with the times. It should have been preached long ago to the forefathers and ancestors of those poor, unsuspecting whites who now find themselves victimized by it.
It never ceases to amaze me how so many of affirmative action's critics manage to muster enough philosophical and intellectual pTC savvy to find a way around it but not nearly enough compassion or insight to come up with either a viable alternative or a solution to the problem of racism.
Grafton K. Gray
Baltimore
Pub Date: 11/18/98