The Playboy Forum

Judicial Discretion

Several Illinois judges are under fire for ignoring the state's new Class X crimes law that requires a mandatory six-year prison sentence for "serious" offenses, such as selling more than 30 grams of coke. The judges are accused of simply finding certain defendants guilty on lesser counts, regardless of the evidence, so they can give them less than the mandatory sentence. State's Attorney Bernard Carey made a big deal of this, implying that the judges are somehow corrupt or dishonest and letting dangerous criminals off easy.

From what I can tell from newspaper accounts, the judges are only displaying the kind of intelligence and good judgment too rarely found in courts or in the law itself. In what was evidently the most flagrant case, the defendant was charged with possession of 106 grams and ended up with probation and a fine. The judge, a black man, was quoted as saying, "I thought that was an appropriate sentence. One reason I did it was that this was a young white kid, and there was a serious question if he could exist in [a prison] environment."

Presumably, this kid was not found to be a narcotics kingpin with a long string of arrests, and the judge saw no purpose served in locking him up for six years in a place that, from all accounts, might destroy his mind and possibly his life.

Judicial discretion can be abused, certainly. But any law that permits no discretion is likely to cause more injustice than judicial laxity. Let penalties be determined by the objective seriousness of the offense and the past record of the offender, but not on a purely arbitrary quantity of something.

(Name withheld by request), Wilmette, Illinois

Money talks, Money Walks

According to the papers, movie producer Robert Evans received one year's probation for a cocaine conviction on the condition that he use his talents to discourage drug use among youngsters--make a film or something. That's fine, but it does seem to prove that if you have enough money or know the right people, you don't go to jail. I happen to be in prison with a number of people convicted of the same crime and of other offenses who are at least as sorry for their mistakes as a celebrity who gets probation. We are in a better position than anyone to work with young people, tell them about the consequences of lawbreaking, about the loneliness and depression of prison and the cost to loved ones. Yet, being poor and unknown, we were offered no such alternative.

Anthony Brienza, Woodbourne Correctional Facility, Woodbourne, New York

Failure to Communicate

I learned the hard way that certain common gestures are not universal in their meaning. While in Rio de Janeiro, as a pilot flying a Stokes Super Pressure Balloon in an international hot-air-balloon race, I had four native Brazilians working as my ground crew. As I do not speak Portuguese and the ground crew did not speak English, we had an interpreter so we could communicate. But because of the hundreds of thousands of people and the balloon-burner noise, I was using hand signals: The thumbs-up signal means pull down on the top lines; a solid fist means hold what you've got. (Normally, prior to take-off, using this type of balloon in a wind, the top lines are to be brought into the basket and secured, with your ground crew holding your basket down.) My balloon was standing up holding, waiting for the start gun. I gave the signal thumb on forefinger, forming a circle, meaning in the U.S.A. and other countries in the world that everything is OK.

The four men on the lines responded by throwing their ropes into the air, turning their backs on my balloon and walking away. So I was off and flying prior to the starter's gun, with all my top lines dragging over the other balloons. Not until I landed in the water some time later did I learn of my mistake. No one had told me that in Rio, the thumb and finger forming a circle, when aimed at a person, means, "You're an asshole."

Don Davis, Long Beach, California

Well, that's one mistake we won't make the next time we're hot-air-ballooning in Brazil!

Fast Work

Your "Legal Loophole" item in the November Playboy Forum Newsfront reports the dilemma of Louisiana authorities when they discovered they couldn't prosecute a young lady for "driving under the influence" when the drug in question was not booze but pot, which the law didn't mention. The legislature corrected the problem swiftly and that "loophole" now is closed. We thought you'd like to know.

Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Lim, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Violence Porn

After reading Women Against Sex--A Reporter's Notebook, in the October 1980 issue of Playboy, I was more than a bit shocked by the flagrant non sequitur reasoning presented by Women Against Pornography.

I oppose the glorification of violence in any form, whether it be snuff films or a cop show on television. A case probably could be made for limiting the expression of glorified violence on the basis that it may contribute to crimes such as rape. For rape is exactly that--a violent crime. It belongs in the same category with murder and aggravated assault. W.A.P. is justified in its opposition to violent porn, but why does it stop there? War movies, cop shows and even some children's cartoons glorify violence. One might think those are more harmful because of their ubiquitous presence.

Nonviolent pornography, like other nonviolent expressions, cannot possibly contribute to rape or any other violent crime. Nonviolent porn is a glorification of the human body and sexual expression--two beautiful and worthwhile themes.

I contend people don't rape only because they are sexually frustrated (just as I contend that pornography doesn't contribute to sexual frustration). People who rape seek to inflict violence upon someone and sexual assault is one of the more humiliating ways to do so. When we begin to address the issue from that perspective, only then will we begin to understand rape and the rapist.

Richard O. DeWald, Austin, Texas

Apart from the sound points you make, there remains the problem of semantics. "Pornography" is a term that is now largely the property of antisexuals who do not distinguish between any kind of explicit sex and erotic sex. "Porn" now is bad, by popular definition, even though it has a long, perfectly legitimate, nonviolent and even an artistic history. It's unfortunate that when violence is depicted in a sexual context, it's usually the sex that freaks people out. It's generally OK to torture, maim and kill, as long as men do it to one another and keep all their clothes on. We've commented on this over the years; maybe we'll have a little discussion of the semantics of porn in a future issue.

The Liuzzo Case

Like other writers who have reported on this case, Johnny Greene (Did the FBI Kill Viola Liuzzo?, Playboy, October 1980) gave little thought to what we have considered to be the central issue: Was the indictment of Gary Thomas Rowe engendered by anything other than the Ku Klux Klan's desire for revenge?

Greene states that the indictment was based upon testimony of the two Klansmen who had been convicted by Rowe's testimony, "and on the basis of testimony given by people who had been afraid to speak up in 1965." The latter witnesses were actually two former Birmingham police officers, concerning whom Judge Robert Varner writes: "The testimony of those officers is incredible in view of their silence during the original trials and the many years thereafter prior to Rowe's indictment." According to Rowe's testimony, the two officers were openly sympathetic to the K.K.K. in the Sixties and probably assisted various Klansmen in avoiding arrest and prosecution.

The fact is that the only way to force the Government to reveal Rowe's new identity was to get him indicted, and the Ku Klux Klan would not hesitate to employ perjury and political influence in its quest for revenge. Our initial investigation convinced us the prosecution of Rowe, whom we represented, was instigated in a very deliberate manner by the K.K.K. in order to accomplish two goals: one, revenge for Rowe's undercover work for the FBI, which resulted in the convictions of two Klansmen in Federal court; and, two, insurance against the FBI's ability to recruit agents to infiltrate the Klan organization. Those goals would be accomplished by Rowe's arrest and trial, regardless of the outcome.

The Klan's strategy failed in that Rowe was never incarcerated or extradited to Alabama for trial. Still, the Klan proved that it can penetrate the Federal witness-protection program, that it can use the Alabama legal system to carry out its terrorist plots and that it never forgets its enemies.

Greene's viewpoint has some validity, of course, in that the FBI employed some questionable tactics in trying to cope with Klan violence in the Sixties. But the K.K.K. was, and is, a wellorganized, extremely ruthless group of terrorists, and Greene's suggestion that the FBI, or Rowe, was responsible for the Klan murder of Mrs. Liuzzo is neither logical nor appropriate.

Alexander L. Zipperer, III, Attorney at Law, Savannah, Georgia

The Klan's tactics and involvement have been pretty well known, so the emphasis was on the FBI's responsibility, which for years was successfully concealed. The Playboy Foundation, by the way, is helping support an A.C.L.U. civil suit in behalf of the surviving members of the Liuzzo family and our Legal Department is continuing to press a suit against the Justice Department for release of the FBI's secret Rowe Task Force Report under the Freedom of Information Act.

Power of Prayer

It often seems that no idea, no matter how strongly discouraged by experience and logic, ever completely goes away. We still have flat-earthers, astrologers, millenarians, single-taxers and snake handlers. And despite thousands of years of gory history demonstrating that church and state are a disastrously explosive combination, there are still people who would like to see this democracy turned into a theocracy, a church-run state like Puritan Salem or Inquisition-era Spain. There are the people who want the Bible version of creation taught in science classes. There are those who want the law to say that a fertilized human egg has a soul. And there are people who want daily prayers conducted in public-school classrooms.

What these would-be Ayatollahs never seem to understand is that the effort to keep religion and the state apart does not arise from disrespect for religion. On the contrary; it is inspired by a healthy respect for it--as a powerful force in the world and in the lives of individuals and one that, like the atom, has great potential for both good and evil. Many people question whether or not we are ready for nuclear power. I sometimes wonder whether or not we have ever been ready for organized religion. In any case, one thing is sure: The institutional wall that separates church and state is as vital to public health as is the shielding around the core of a reactor.

Yet Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, a longtime promoter of religiously inspired restrictions on abortion, has also sponsored legislation that he hopes will make prayer in public schools legal despite the First Amendment. In 1962, the U. S. Supreme Court declared officially sponsored prayers in public schools unconstitutional. To a bill regulating the Supreme Court, Senator Helms attached an amendment that would prohibit the Court from hearing any case involving a state law "which relates to voluntary prayers in public schools and public buildings." The Helms Amendment passed the Senate and went to the House of Representatives, which historically has had even fewer qualms about mixing law and theology. No politician wants to appear to be voting against God. But even if it became law, the amendment would probably ultimately be squelched. It is highly improbable that the Supreme Court, an independent branch of the Government, would willingly self-destruct by allowing Congress to carve away an important chunk of its jurisdiction.

Why this insistence on prayers in public schools, where they are bound to be recited in front of children who prefer to pray differently or not at all? Surely God-fearing folk can get up early enough to pray with their children before sending them off to school. These are the same people who keep telling us that government intervention threatens the family. Why do they want a state-employed teacher to conduct their children's morning prayers? I no more want my child exposed to some public official's version of prayer than I would want his teacher to take a lump of plutonium into the classroom. To speak of voluntary prayer in public schools is nonsense. When any school sets aside a time for religious observances under the authority of teachers, the practice is as voluntary as a Russian election. And the result can only be the very thing the First Amendment is intended to prevent: intimidation or persecution of citizens because of their religious beliefs, especially if those beliefs--or the absence thereof--are not shared by the majority.

It is distressing to see the lengths to which people like Helms will go to impose their notion of religiosity on all of us, but it is encouraging to realize that this latest legislative maneuver is an admission of defeat. After all, what the Helms Amendment is saying, in effect, is that proponents of prayer in school can never expect the Supreme Court to rule as they would like it to. Which means that on this point, the First Amendment is so clear that any attempt to get around it hasn't a prayer of succeeding.

Robert J. Shea, Glencoe, Illinois

With so many world examples of what happens when theology becomes mixed with law and politics--from Ireland to Iran--we find ourselves amazed that anyone in this country can espouse liberty and yet seek to dismantle the constitutional wall that historically has protected our system of government from the power of organized religion.

Save the What?

The cartoon on page 257 of the November issue of Playboy has been brought to my attention. I was shocked, not only as a leader of the Penguins in Peril movement but also as a human being. Man's inhumanity to man has become acceptable, but your slur against the penguin is a slap in the face of the animal world and an insult to people who haven't anything better to worry about.

First of all, penguins are not sex objects; antarctic chauvinism is the enemy of penguin lovers and liberated persons everywhere. Second, the scattered bottles in the cartoon foreground are nothing more than a cheap shot at reviving the vicious ethnic caricature of penguins as hard-drinking, insensitive philanderers.

Penguins in Peril is a nonprofit organization dedicated, among other things, to protection of the legal rights of penguins and to the achievement of parity with seals, whales, whooping cranes and other fat cats of the endangered-species set. The organization has recently launched an investigation of the problem of overcrowded icebergs in the south Antarctic Ocean while simultaneously activating our campaign to establish a Penguin Legal Aid Society in every North American city where zoos and private penguin collections are found. With our resources stretched thin, we scarcely anticipated a smear campaign from the people who brought us the Playboy Foundation and the Playboy Legal Defense Team. We thought you were the good guys.

In short, this letter is a demand for equal time under the Federal Equal Time for Critters Act. We demand that you publish a statement substantially as follows: "Penguins are really nice and probably don't do nasty things except as consenting adults in private, and all that." In the meantime, if the Playboy Foundation or any Greenpeace dropouts would like to contribute large amounts of money in small, unmarked bills, a volunteer bagman will be provided at no cost. Anyone making such a donation should know that it is tax-deductible; unfortunately, we can't say that, because it isn't true.

Richard Scheuler, Grand Exalted Penguin, Penguins in Peril, Red Bluff, California

According to supporting documents supplied by this, ah, zealous do-good organization, the most imminent peril facing penguins is that presented by a consortium of French businessmen and Saudi Arabs who are threatening to tow large icebergs, penguins and all, from antarctica to the Arabian peninsula as a novel source of fresh water for irrigation purposes. Our editorial position on this is, for the present, uncertain.

Triple Trouble

In your November Forum Newsfront item titled "Triple Threat," you report that a woman's attacker "knocked her down, took off her shoes and sucked on her bare toes. Then he ran off, taking the shoes with him." The way I count the sequence of events, the total comes to four.

(Name withheld by request), Spring Grove, Illinois

We gave that matter a lot of thought, as you can imagine, and decided that the shoe removal was incidental to the toe sucking and therefore should not be counted separately.

"If you have enough money or know the right people, you don't go to jail."

"The Playboy Forum" offers the opportunity for an extended dialog between readers and editors of this publication on contemporary issues. Address all correspondence to The Playboy Forum, Playboy Building, 919 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60611.