Capital Punishment

Ingmar Guardique, a San Salvadore illegal, was convicted yesterday of murdering Chandra Levy, a young intern in Washington D.C., nine years ago. The evidence was orderly and convincing. Capital punishment is a possibility.

Now what is to be done with Condit? This guy, a typical sleazy politician who had an affair with the victim, was almost lynched by the media. Well established legal minds debated his motive and how he carried the murder out. Dominick Dunne said he had strong evidence Condit had arranged the kidnapping of the girl and had her sold into slavery in the Middle East. Every profound and nodding head declared him guilty. Some began to connect the dots and wonder aloud if Condit had killed Joyce Chaing. He lost his election, was vilified and whipped out of the fort. Now what? We're sorry? We're sorry but you brought a lot of this on yourself? Or is this a random punishment we voters inflict, the price for being in the nation's Capital?

But this is not just an occupational hazard for the powerful and well-connected. Richard Jewell comes to mind. Working as a security guard at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, he finds a suspicious package and leads many people to safety before it explodes. It turns out to have a pipe bomb in it. Rather than lionizing him, the press turns on him as the likely perpetrator and virtually indicts him before Eric Rudolph is caught and convicted as the real bomber. In a twist of brutal irony, his lawsuits against the people who defamed him were ruled invalid because he was a "public figure"; the press makes him a public figure, destroys his life, and then escapes his legal response because he is a public figure!

Plausibility should be left for coffee houses. Responsible people simply can not behave like this without any recourse on the part of the defamed--unless you bring back dueling.