LTE: Sand, Davis Are Embarrassment
Ron Fusco
November 28, 2007
Rutland Herald
In a Nov. 7 editorial concerning Windsor County attorney, judge, and marijuana aficionado Martha Davis, the Herald gushes that "a diversion program makes winners of everyone." I don't recall anyone asking me if I feel like a winner. Actually, I feel like a loser. Why? Because my opinion of the legal system in this state has just dropped another notch downward. The Herald endeavors to compare Ms. Davis to a wayward teenager with a six-pack in the car. Ms. Davis is not a teenager. She is a 61-year-old woman who presumably knows what she is doing, and she wasn't caught with a joint in her purse. It was over two pounds of marijuana. She should be someone the general public as well as the teenager with the six-pack respects.
Windsor County State's Attorney Robert Sand justifies his wrist slapping of Ms. Davis with the lame excuse that there was no proof she intended to sell the marijuana. Even if that were true, do we still want people judging the rest of us who, contrary to the laws they are supposed to enforce, keep a stash of several pounds of illegal drugs on hand for their personal use? In either case, Ms. Davis should have had her license to practice law suspended or revoked.
This case really smells, and only serves to further the widely held belief that it's not what you know, it's who you know. Mr. Sand reportedly has had both a professional and personal relationship with Ms. Davis. He should have removed himself from this case. But instead he says he "made a judgment call." Allow me to make a judgment call of my own. Sand and Davis are both an embarrassment to their profession.
Ron Fusco, Rutland |
