With Liberty and Malice for All

Sometimes our judicial system looks like institutionalized malice.

Last month, an Oregon judge took a baby away from adoptive parents and gave it to a slacker of a birth father who refused to help the birth mother when she discovered she was pregnant.

Now a Chicago court is requiring a 28-year-old man to register as a sex offender because he grabbed a girl's arm who stepped in front of his car on the road. He got out of his car, grabbed her arm and gave her the safety lecture.

Remember "it takes a village to raise a child"?

She broke free, ran away and called the police. She said she was fearful of what he would do next, but it's obvious from even this great distance that she was getting getting her revenge for his rebuke. (Don't risk the wrath of a teen-aged girl--many of them will say anything and they never forget.)

The court even said it was unfair to label the man a sex offender, but labeled him one anyway. He was acquitted of attempted kidnapping and child abduction, but was convicted of unlawful restraint of a minor, which is a sex offense.

Now he wears a scarlet S, and she laughs about it with her friends.