Editorials
Monday, February 24, 1997

Courts must keep
menaces locked up

ONE of the most dismaying, though by no means unique, examples of the failures of the criminal justice system is the case of Lawrence Singleton, who raped and mutilated a teen-age hitchhiker in California, severing her forearms with an axe. Singleton was sentenced to 14 years in prison but served only eight years and four months. After his release he moved back to Florida in 1988. Last week he was charged with the murder of a prostitute.

After the California case, Singleton became a nationally known pariah - when he came up for parole in 1987, residents staged demonstrations and filed suit to ban him from their communities. But that didn't prevent him from attacking again - three weeks after attempting suicide.

Since Singleton's trial, California law has changed. He would now serve at least 45 years for the same crime. That's progress, although it comes too late to save his latest victim.

This is a man who should never have been released from prison - much less before completion of his full sentence. A former California county official who helped to hound Singleton out of the San Francisco area said, "It's as if someday, somewhere, I was expecting something. It's very chilling."

The courts must keep psychopathic killers behind bars as long as necessary to protect society. How many victims will it take before the justice system gets the message?

In Hawaii, Honolulu City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle is campaigning for what's called truth in sentencing. Carlisle notes that a 20-year sentence now means on average 5 1/2 years in prison. The truth-in-sentencing bill calls for 10- to 20-year terms for the same type of offense; it would raise the average time served to 8 1/2 years. Carlisle also favors taking authority to reduce sentences away from the parole board.

That would translate into a need for more prison space. Not all criminals have to be locked up for extended periods. But for the really dangerous ones, there is no other answer.

Guam commonwealth

GUAM'S bid for U.S. commonwealth status made news the wrong way when a Washington newspaper suggested that President Clinton changed his position on the issue because of $600,000 in Guamanian contributions to Democratic candidates. That was unfortunate, but the proposal itself has merit and deserves more attention than it is getting.

Bowe bows out

THE Marine Corps says it is looking for "a few good men." A former heavyweight boxing champion has decided that on second thought he isn't one of them.

Former champ Riddick Bowe decided to leave the Marines after only nine days, in part because of the "extremely regimented lifestyle," the corps said. Bowe is only 29, but that's old for a Marine recruit, and in the end he couldn't adjust.

Nice try, anyway, Mr. Bowe. There are millions of us who wish we could work up the courage to do something like that.

Vietnamese visit

SIX colonels from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam were in Hawaii for five days last week touring military facilities as guests of Adm. Joseph Prueher, U.S. Pacific commander-in-chief. One of their stops was at the Army's Central Identification Laboratory, where remains of U.S. war dead are brought from Vietnam for identification. It would have been a routine visit except that passions still run high over the Vietnam War. The United States didn't extend diplomatic recognition to Hanoi until 1995. With such visits, maybe the war is really over.



Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership

Rupert E. Phillips, CEO


John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher


David Shapiro, Managing Editor


Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor


Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors


A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor



Text Site Directory:
[News] [Business] [Features] [Sports] [Editorial] [Community]
[Info] [Letter to Editor] [Stylebook] [Feedback]


© 1997 Honolulu Star-Bulletin
http://starbulletin.com