Published: September 04, 2008 10:59 pm            

HAMILTON: The president won’t judge

Adam Schneider doesn’t care who becomes president. One year ago, his baby’s mother suffocated his not-yet, 2-year old son, Trevor. An expert suspected that Shauna Mahoney did so while likely in some state of post-partum depression. She now serves time and hopefully is receiving counseling for that grave act. 

One year later, Adam is in court. This week, he stood before a judge. His attorney is hoping that new information pertaining to his mental capacity will vacate both criminal charges and a plea bargain that he could not understand. This would give him the second chance at life that he cannot give Trevor.

After many months of being denied access to his son, the frustrated young father broke into a house where his boy stayed and recovered a highchair and two baby blankets that he had purchased at Wal-Mart with the balance of his minimum wage checks. Taking only those things, he was arrested for breaking-and-entry and burglary.   

Sadly, both Shauna and Adam have likely been set upon the treadmill of the criminal justice system and cannot vote anyway. A life of recidivism is probable, and no one wins. 

We should all grieve. We should grieve for Trevor. Despite the detachedness that she has shown throughout this traumatic period, we should grieve for Shauna, too. And we should certainly grieve for Adam. But, we should also grieve for the health and criminal justice systems that ushered these two young people to the point that they now find themselves.

Neither national candidates Joe Biden nor Sarah Palin got them into the system, nor will either Barack Obama or John McCain get them out. Adam’s issues are not the Russians, the Georgians or the war on terrorism; he barely understands the issues around his own court case. Though he is 27 years old, he functions at a level far less than that. But, he understands that Trevor no longer says, “Da-da.” Adam is now in the battle for his freedom and soul. Voting is beyond his comprehension.

But I think that, like the rest of us, if he could really, truly understand those national and international issues, he’d still think that the most important vote that he could cast this year would certainly be for a city court judge. Far fewer people can do that than can vote for president.

Next month Adam will once again be standing before that black-robe that has more influence upon his single, immediate future than anything in the United Nations, the White House, the state legislative office building or executive mansion, the county legislative chambers or in any city hall. His hopes are not in any promises to correct the economy, or bring troops home, or allow mothers to continue to have unbridled access to choice.

His choice would have been the continuation of Trevor’s life. And his personal economy will be largely dictated by a judge.

Like all of us, Adam’s immediate salvation may come through a sword of justice that is sharp enough to part that thin line between the complexities of law statutes and the simplicity and compassion that wafts through the spirit in which it was written. He would want a person with both a superior knowledge of the law and the understanding of the human experience that leads those, such as himself, to the steep precipice of the criminal justice system. His hopes of change are in a system that can identify and correct both the social ills that plague us, and the flaws that it has within itself. He prays for someone who is willing to mete out justice for both society and the individuals of which it is composed. In all likelihood, he stood before such a judge this week. The worry is the next time, the next person, and the next judge; not the president. He won’t judge.

Adam and Shauna cannot vote. But you, I and your neighbor can. We have a tremendous responsibility to recognize that while people died for our right to get to the polls, it was someone in a black robe that reaffirmed our right to vote. Without our choosing the best possible candidates, no system will work properly. No person is perfect. That said, without good judges, no system will work at all.

So leave your couches and spend a few minutes rightly making decisions in a voting booth — or grieve in a jail cell for much longer due to wrongly made decisions from a judicial bench. It’s the most important and significant vote that you have.

Do your duty. Educate yourselves and then, and only then, please go vote.

Ken Hamilton is a Niagara Falls resident. His columns run Fridays in the Gazette. He welcomes feedback at Ken Hamilton930@aol.com.

        

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