And where is Judge Roy Bean?

 

 

"Following the law starts at the top. How high? It should start with the President!"

Yes, there really was a Judge Roy Bean. Legend has colored him with a different brush than history has. Judge Roy Bean is often times referred to as "the hanging judge", although history has shown Bean only sentenced two people to hang in his entire career. What he was known for was dispensing justice, as strange as it might have seemed in those days. (And no, he did look like Paul Newman!)

This past week we had another tragedy with our law enforcement. A good and decent man, a good cop, pulled someone over for a routine stop. The man behind the wheel had some outstanding warrants and did not want to be "outed" at a random traffic stop. So he shot the officer dead and took off. A short time later, and a brief gun battle, he was caught. He now is recovering from bullet wounds and facing a first degree murder charge.

This is one more example of what is happening to our society. This cop killer had a rap sheet a mile long. Time after time, he went in front of a judge who would stay or modify his sentence. He should have been serving hard time for many years. Instead, this person with no regard for human life, was allowed to roam among us and kill an innocent man.

However, he is only a microcosm of what is happening in our society today. And it starts at the top, in our Justice Department. We allow law breakers to go free. Exceptions are made for every possible reason. Voter intimidation, which is very serious, was never pursued by our AG. We have all kinds of gangs and criminals coming into this country, hidden in the waves of immigrant children. Instead of turning them around, we welcome them. Some have violent pasts. They are crimes waiting to happen.

Our criminal law was never intended to be totally black and white - however, it was also never intended to be light gray. We need to get back to "if you do the crime, you do the time." If you are sentenced to treatment in lieu of going to jail, you must complete treatment. If you leave treatment, you go directly to jail. Also, we need to do more "stop and frisk" in our cities. We have way too many illegal guns in our cities. When I carry my gun, I carry my legal permit to carry. Go ahead and frisk away.

Judge Bean - where are you today? We will take thousands of you right now. Be it history, or be it legend, the way you dispensed justice was a heck of a lot better than we are doing today.