Sorry for Griner
Regarding your Associated Press article on WNBA player Brittney Griner’s arrest and trial in Russia dated July 27: I feel bad for her.
Her social and political stances aside, she seems like a nice person. It is tragic that a split-second decision can result in life-changing consequences.
I won’t judge her on what she could possibly have been thinking when packing her cannabis in her bag to travel to a hostile nation, such as Russia. I save those harsh judgments and condemnations for my loving children.
But, as I tell my children, it is these split-second decisions that ruin lives.
Whether it is having that “one more beer” before driving home, hastily pulling out in front of a motorcycle you didn’t bother to notice, throwing a punch at some drunkard who makes a rude comment to your girlfriend only to crack his skull falling back on a pool table or by jumping in the river to save a drowning dog, which cost two local residents their lives recently.
It is the split-second decisions that ruin our lives.
And, again, as bad as I feel for Griner, this is what life is.
Roger Jones
Clarkston
What a judge can do
Here’s another example of why it takes a judge to effect reforms.
A Vietnam War veteran, who had a history of mental illness and violence, was known to fixate on firearms when he became psychotic. While in Lewis County, he became psychotic, was arrested and the magistrate committed him to the custody of the Department of Health and Welfare, which operates the state hospitals.
While in jail he smeared the cell walls with his feces and was literally bouncing off the walls. The statute required him to be remanded immediately to the custody of the department.
When I called the State Hospital North and told it Mr. X would be remanded to its custody the next day, the hospital told me it had a 30-day waiting list.
When I recounted the statute’s requirement of immediate remand, I was told I apparently didn’t understand what a 30-day waiting list meant.
I then told the hospital that the next day the Lewis County sheriff would deliver Mr. X to either the hospital or the director’s office in Boise, this was its choice.
The hospital found a bed for him the next day.
Only a judge can hold a powerful bureaucracy to account. Working together, we can ensure that we have a judiciary that will require all parties to obey the law, regardless of their size and power.
John Bradbury
Lewiston
