This Is Not Watergate Redux

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People who compare Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey to the Saturday Night Massacre show a stunning lack of knowledge of history. Recent history, at that. This isn't ancient history.

If you want to talk about ancient history, let's go back a couple of centuries to the time when the Founding Fathers were designing the system of government for this new country. Chief among their concerns was due process for people who were accused of crimes. They realized that, no matter how utopian they believed their new land to be, people are still people, and some of them will commit crimes. They wanted a government that would treat all who were accused of crimes to be treated fairly.

There had to be an actual crime, not speculation about what may or may not have been done; there had to be evidence showing that a crime had been committed (if, for example, a person disappears under suspicious circumstances, that disappearance cannot be treated as a homicide unless a body has been found). Witnesses were probably considered the best evidence at first, and they're still valuable, but as forensic evidence gained credibility, its stock in criminal cases rose considerably. When I was in high school, DNA was still in a limbo state, legally speaking. Today it is the coin of the realm.

Fast forward to Watergate.

Where shall I begin? Well, let's start with the fact that the Watergate investigation really began when Bob Woodward was covering the arraignment of the Watergate burglars in June 1972 for the Washington Post — more than a year before the Saturday Night Massacre. Burglary is definitely a crime. Everyone knew a crime had been committed when five men were arrested in the Democrats' national headquarters in the wee hours of a Saturday morning. That was certainly a suspicious thing, but curiosity was really aroused when a paper trail revealed that some of the burglars were linked to Richard Nixon's White House.

That was the root of the investigation. A crime. Not speculation that a crime may have been committed but evidence of an actual crime. Just as the Founding Fathers intended. Facts were deciding the case. Not emotion. Not rumor. Not innuendo. Not hearsay.

And it was the question of how potential evidence in the investigation of that crime was to be handled that ultimately led to the Saturday Night Massacre.

Let's back up just a little here.

In July 1973, it was revealed during the Senate Watergate hearings that there had been a taping system in the Oval Office, a system that was activated by sound. Only four people, I think, knew of the existence of this taping system, and one of them was Richard Nixon.

Anyway, this system had been secretly recording conversations Nixon had with his top aides for a few years. Special prosecutor Archibald Cox issued a subpoena for tapes of conversations believed to be relevant to the Watergate investigation, mostly based on testimony from former White House counsel John Dean; fewer than 6% of the tapes related to Watergate — many of the recorded conversations, for example, dealt with plans for Nixon's trips to China and Russia — and thus were irrelevant to the investigation, but the tapes Cox sought were expected to prove or disprove Dean's testimony, which had been remarkably specific as to the dates of conversations and what was said in those conversations.

Until the existence of the tapes became known, there seemed to be no way to break the impasse, but the tapes could establish who was telling the truth, Nixon or Dean.

Nixon refused to comply and offered a compromise. Mississippi Sen. John Stennis — who was notoriously hard of hearing — would listen to the tapes and provide a summary for Cox. Cox rejected the compromise.

Nixon's attorney general, Elliot Richardson, had appointed Cox earlier in the year and was the only one who could dismiss him. At the time of Cox's confirmation Richardson had promised the Senate that he wouldn't use his authority to interfere; some five months later, Nixon asked Richardson to fire Cox, and Richardson resigned. Next in line was Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who also resigned rather than fire Cox.

Then it fell to Solicitor General Robert Bork, who carried out the order.

One thing that is not mentioned today — but was mentioned in Theodore H. White's book on Watergate, "Breach of Faith" — was the concern about Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was meeting with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow. In the Cold War atmosphere of that time, perceptions were critical on both sides, and a presidential order had been defied. Many in the federal government worried about what the Soviets would think.

That does not justify anything, but it helps to put the decision process into context.

That was the Saturday Night Massacre. If there is a comparison to be made between the Saturday Night Massacre and the firing of James Comey, certain facts must be addressed.

In October 1973 everyone knew a crime had been committed. What was the crime in this case? I'm not talking about speculation. I'm talking about anything that would stand up in court.

That is due process, and every American citizen is entitled to due process.

Even the president, whether you like him or not.

A Nation of Witch Hunters

When I was growing up, "innocent until proven guilty" was practically a mantra whenever someone was accused of a crime. Even if everyone knew the accused was guilty, it simply was not considered American to speak of someone as guilty until a jury had reached that conclusion.

That, after all, was the kind of thing the early settlers came to America to escape (and then, ironically, engaged in their own witch hunting in Salem, Mass.).

The newsrooms where I worked in my newspaper days were always sensitive to that. For a time, when I was a police/courts reporter, my editors always reminded me, when I came to the newsroom to write about the day's proceedings in court, to refer to the defendant as "the accused" or "the alleged" until the jury reached its verdict.

Even if we knew the defendant was guilty. We couldn't say so until it was official — meaning that a jury had reached that conclusion.

Saying so in print only made it seem — and rightly so — that the press had already reached its conclusion. To hell with the jury.

That has never been the role of the press. The press' job is to be the eyes and ears of the community. The newspapers for which I worked, as I say, were always very sensitive about that kind of thing. They earnestly sought to maintain an aura of neutrality, and most of the reporters with whom I have worked would have bristled at the suggestion that they were not absolutely fair.

It's been awhile since I worked in a newsroom so I don't know when that began to change. All I know is that it did — probably tentatively at first but grew progressively bolder as the press began to discover that no one was going to hold it accountable for prejudging criminal defendants.

Even if the press was wrong.

Today, all that is needed for the public to turn on someone is for someone else to say something. Anything. Doesn't matter if it is true. It is accepted on face value. Look how quickly people have turned on Bill Cosby, one of the most beloved entertainers of his day. He has been accused of truly reprehensible behavior. If those accusations are true, he should be held accountable. But they haven't been proven in court, which is where every American who is accused of something is entitled to face his/her accuser and defend himself/herself against the charges if possible. That's what the people who braved the unknown to settle this land wanted.

Well, at least, that's how it used to be.

How about the case of cable TV cooking star Paula Deen, who admitted using the "N word" many years ago and apologized profusely — only to be driven from the airwaves anyway by those whose only motive appeared to be a desire to see how the other half had been living all these years — not a quest for justice.

In Ferguson, Missouri, the grand jury, as you undoubtedly know, has been investigating the August shooting death of Michael Brown, an 18–year–old black man. The grand jury's decision not to indict the white police officer who shot Brown sparked riots and looting.

If you look at the transcripts of the grand jury proceedings, you will see that most of the witnesses' accounts supported the officer's version of events — and most, if not all, of those witnesses were black. The facts simply did not support accusing the officer of a crime and spending who knows how many taxpayer dollars in a futile attempt to convict him.

And that is what grand juries really are designed to do — filter the unsupported cases from the supported ones. Do you believe that there are too many frivolous cases clogging up the judicial system? Grand juries have been doing their part to keep the frivolous cases out of the system in this country for a couple of centuries. If you think it is bad now, try living in an America that doesn't have grand juries to serve as courthouse gatekeepers.

Apparently, there are, to misquote Jack Nicholson, people who can't handle the truth, though. In spite of the testimony of those witnesses, there are still people who say justice wasn't served — and that race was the reason.

That is mere speculation unless there is proof to support it. Astonishingly, there are people who continue to cling to claims that have been recanted, citing them as evidence in this case — when, in fact, they are no such thing.

Things are a bit murkier in the choking death of Eric Garner in New York in July. I haven't seen those grand jury transcripts, and I would like to because it could give me some insight into the jurors' mindset. From looking at the video, it appears that, at the least, a charge of negligent homicide might be in order — but a video doesn't tell you everything you need to know.

Videos do help, of course, and I like the idea of equipping police officers with body cameras so investigators can see precisely what the officer saw when something like this happens. It's a worthy goal, but Barack Obama's pledge to provide federal funds to help police departments pay for such cameras is one more example of how Obama ignores feasibility in order to pursue what he believes would be an ideal world.

America is already $18 trillion in debt. The wise thing — the prudent thing — would be to focus on bringing down the debt, not adding to it. Hard choices must be made. Such choices almost always involve sacrifice, and, in the last six years, many Americans have had to make sacrifices they never thought they would have to make. Their leaders must give careful consideration before asking for more.

Of course, homicides aren't the only things getting attention these days. There have been a couple of cases of rape — or, rather, alleged rape — in the news. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that rape is anything other than what it is — an act of violence. But it is the kind of charge that sticks to someone even if he's been cleared.

I covered a rape trial once. The defendant was acquitted, but he was forever linked to the charge. He lost his job, couldn't find another one locally and, eventually, had to leave town. I've always hoped he was able to pick up the loose threads of his life and get back on track.

I also left that experience thinking that, if newspapers voluntarily withhold the names of alleged rape victims (and that is a voluntary thing — it is not mandated by law — freedom of the press, don't you know), they should also withhold the names of the accused until they have been convicted.

Rape is an incendiary charge. Bill Cosby, as I have pointed out, hasn't been convicted. He hasn't even been formally charged, yet his long–time associates are throwing him under the bus, one after the other. Maybe they're right to do so. But what if they are wrong?

Yes, sexual assault is an incendiary charge. It must be handled judiciously, which makes the case of actress Lena Dunham both fascinating and troubling.

For the last couple of months, Dunham has been hawking her memoir, "Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's 'Learned,'" which includes her account of an occasion when she was raped.

Well, to be fair, she never actually accuses anyone of rape. But she does describe an evening of what is best described as non–consensual sex.

Dunham, in case you don't remember, made advertisements for Obama's re–election two years ago. Those advertisements were intended to appeal to young voters, equating casting one's first vote with losing one's virginity.

I do not mention that to explain any conclusions I may have reached about Dunham or her moral compass or anything like that — I think most readers are capable of doing that on their own — but because her political leanings are important to remember in the context of a portion of her narrative. I refer to her description of an occasion when she claims to have been raped by a prominent "campus Republican" named Barry when she was a student at Oberlin College.

Oberlin is in Ohio and, from what I have heard, put the liberal in "liberal arts." Just about any Republican would stick out like a sore thumb there.

Her account has been effectively debunked by John Nolte of Breitbart. It was praised for its "truthiness" in TIME back in September.

Now that the reliability of the story has been brought into question, Eugene Volokh of the Washington Post wonders if this prominent "campus Republican," identified in Dunham's book as "Barry," has grounds for legal action against her.

The most egregious example of this willingness — nay, eagerness — to blindly accept anything that is said could be found in the pages of Rolling Stone last month. The article described the horrific gang rape of a woman identified as Jackie at a University of Virginia frat house.

There were angry protests and the school suspended all fraternity activities for a year. Those would be appropriate responses except for one thing — "there now appear to be discrepancies" in the account, Rolling Stone's managing editor says. More than a few, actually. There are more holes in the story than you'll find in the average block of Swiss cheese.

As a journalist, I am embarrassed by the blatantly sloppy fact checking. It is shoddy journalism, and it is inexcusable.

Rolling Stone's managing editor was right to acknowledge that the "failure is on us," but the mistakes were so basic that a first–year journalism student, never mind a newsroom full of seasoned vets, would have spotted them.

The thing that concerns me, though, is this: What if the editors at Rolling Stone knew in advance about the problems with the story, and they gambled that no one would call them on it? That it wasn't sloppiness after all?

I am reminded of the bogus charges leveled by Tawana Brawley against a group of white men back in the late '80s. Do you happen to recall who one of her chief supporters was? Al Sharpton.

Helter Skelter

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When I was in high school, I remember reading a dog–eared paperback of Vincent Bugliosi's book about the Manson family murders in the summer of '69, "Helter Skelter."

No telling how many people read that copy before I did, but it was in great shape, no matter how many people had read it. No one had marked on any of the pages, and none of the pages was torn. Only the cover was tattered — "dog–eared," as I said before.

The first page of the book had one sentence in the middle of an otherwise blank page on which people could have written or drawn things — but didn't. Perhaps it was an indication of how respectful people were of the story the book told: "The book you are about to read will scare the hell out of you."

And it did.

I slept with a baseball bat under my bed for weeks. I was convinced that, at some point, someone would come into my room when I was sleeping, and that person would probably have a perfectly legitimate reason for being there, but I would be roused from my slumber by an unfamiliar and unexpected noise and reach under my bed for the bat — and use it without asking any questions.

Fortunately, that didn't happen.

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America has had a lot of exposure to cults in the years since the Manson murders terrorized southern California — and, really, the rest of the nation — so the story of that deadly weekend may seem tame to modern readers.

But it was still comparatively rare in 1969 — and it was frightening for average Americans.

And I'll bet Bugliosi's book still packs a powerful punch for unprepared readers. (Here's a tip: Don't watch the TV movie that was based on Bugliosi's book. The book kept me up at night. The movie almost put me to sleep. It's a strong story. It deserves better.)

Charles Manson's group consisted of a bunch of displaced young people. He had been predicting a race war between whites and blacks in America for a long time, but the Beatles' "White Album" provided justification for his predictions — according to his interpretations of songs from the album.

The song "Helter Skelter" was a direct reference to such a war, Manson told his followers. He saw all sorts of symbolism in certain songs — "Blackbird," "Revolution," "Piggies" as well as "Helter Skelter" — but he saw modest messages in all the other songs on the album, too. He had spoken of hidden meanings in individual Beatles songs in the past, but this was the first time that every song on an entire album — and a double album, at that — was cited.

"Every single song on the White Album," former follower Catherine Share said in a 2009 documentary, "[Manson] felt that they were singing about us."

Manson drew parallels between the songs and verses from the Book of Revelation. He always cast himself as the prime beneficiary, the one to whom both races would turn for guidance following "Helter Skelter" — the apocalyptic race war of which he warned his followers.

Bugliosi, who prosecuted Manson, explained it all in chilling detail in his book on the case. I know I was an impressionable teenager at the time I read it, but I'm pretty sure it was vivid enough to horrify the most hardened reader.

If there had been a checklist of the things that really scared people in the late '60s and early '70s, it would have included all the things that people saw in the Manson family — young, unkempt people living in a rural commune (hippies in the language of the times) under the direction of an older, manipulative, self–appointed messiah.

In the years to come, Americans became familiar with the tactics used by cult leaders to manipulate their followers. Jim Jones' followers committed suicide for him in 1978. So, too, did the members of Marshall Applewhite's religious cult, Heaven's Gate, in 1997. David Koresh and more than 80 of his followers in the Branch Davidians cult died fiery deaths in the siege in Waco, Texas, in 1993.

But in August 1969, people weren't prepared for what they about to witness.

Forty years ago today, Manson sent out four members of his family with the instruction to "totally destroy everyone" in the house he knew as the home of record producer Terry Melcher (Doris Day's son), but Melcher was no longer the tenant. Neither Manson nor his followers knew the current tenants, director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate. Polanski was out of the country 40 years ago tonight, but Tate, who was pregnant, was there, along with three friends.

All four, along with an 18–year–old man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, were killed. Well, truthfully, they were slaughtered. Manson encouraged them to be "as gruesome as you can be," and they were. Most of the victims were carved up, and code words from Beatles lyrics that were intended to incite Manson's race war were written in blood.

The same thing was done the next night when Manson sent half a dozen of his followers into the night. This time he went along "to show them how to do it." The chaos of the previous evening had disappointed him.

They went to the home of a supermarket executive and his wife, where much the same sort of scene unfolded as happened the previous night. Things were done in a more orderly fashion, though — no one had to be chased down and stabbed to death on the lawn this time.

More words were written in blood.

Needless to say, Manson's race war never happened. But Manson and the six who did his bidding were imprisoned and sentenced to death — sentences that were commuted to life when the death penalty was suspended by the Supreme Court in 1972. The death penalty was reinstated in 1976, but the sentences were not changed.

One of Manson's followers, Susan Atkins, who participated in both killing sprees, died in prison nearly five years ago. The rest are still there.

Cut to the Chase

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On this night in 1994, O.J. Simpson led the police on a slow–speed chase.

Many Americans were watching coverage of the NBA Finals. Houston and New York were tied, 2–2, when they tipped off Game 5 in Madison Square Garden that Friday night, and it was an exciting game. The score was tied at the end of the third quarter. On top of that, it had been a close series.

The NBA Finals were being carried by NBC, the network for whom Simpson had been an NFL analyst, and, when Simpson, a passenger in a white Ford Bronco driven by his friend and ex–teammate Al Cowlings, began leading the Los Angeles police on the chase on the freeway, NBC gave it split–screen coverage with the game.

Actually, the game got the short end of the stick while the chase was in progress. The game was shown in a smaller portion of the screen while the chase was in a larger portion of the screen.

NBC's affiliate in Los Angeles didn't even show the split screen. It just showed the chase — until after Simpson surrendered to police. Then it showed the split screen — when there really wasn't a reason to show what was happening in the yard of Simpson's estate.

By that time, the truly dramatic part of the chase was long over.

When the chase was in progress, though, there was a lot of drama. Viewers learned that O.J. had a gun with him.

June 17, 1994, would have been a rather dramatic day in sports even without the NBA game. The New York Rangers celebrated their first Stanley Cup in more than 50 years. Arnold Palmer played his final round at the U.S. Open. In baseball, Ken Griffey Jr. matched Babe Ruth's record for most home runs before June 30. But that Bronco chase is what people remember.

Shortly before, one of Simpson's defense attorneys appeared on TV to read a rambling letter from Simpson to the media, in which Simpson told those closest to him, "Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life." He urged them not to remember "this lost person." Many who heard the letter being read believed it was a suicide note. Simpson's lawyer urged him to give himself up, as he had promised (but failed) to do earlier in the day.

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I have heard it said that the image of that Bronco was one of the most memorable moments on TV in the last half century — exceeded only by TV coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the scene of Simpson's eventual acquittal, the Challenger explosion and the death of Osama bin Laden.

The O.J. case polarized the nation by race. Whites overwhelmingly thought he was guilty of the crimes; blacks overwhelmingly thought he was innocent.

Twenty years later, blacks are more inclined to say he was guilty, CNN reported recently.

But 20 years ago tonight, the nation sat transfixed in front of its television sets watching the Juice's slow–motion run. Americans would take sides later. Twenty years ago tonight, they were wondering how it would end.

Remembering the Simpson-Goldman Murders

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It is still vivid in memory.

It's been a couple of decades, but, in many ways, it seems as if it happened yesterday.

Sometime during the evening hours of June 12–13, 1994, the ex–wife of former pro football star O.J. Simpson, Nicole Brown Simpson, was murdered in the courtyard of her southern California townhouse. The body of a young man, Ron Goldman, was found a few feet from her.

They had both been stabbed repeatedly. Nicole's head had nearly been cut off her body.

The bodies were found shortly after midnight, about half an hour after a Chicago–bound airplane on which O.J. was a passenger left Los Angeles International Airport.

There were a lot of other details that emerged in O.J.'s trial, which came to be regarded as the trial of the century. It was also — as far as I can tell — the public's first real introduction to DNA evidence.

But, on that mid–June day in 1994, what was widely known was that Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman were dead. From outward appearances, Goldman was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He worked as a waiter at the restaurant where Nicole had dined with her family that evening, and her mother had left her glasses there. Nicole called the restaurant and was told that they would be brought to her home. Goldman, who was working in the restaurant that night, apparently volunteered to take the glasses when he finished work.

The assumption at the time was that Goldman had interrupted the attack on Nicole.

It was revealed later that Ron and Nicole were friendly. They had been seen riding together in Nicole's car, and the exact nature of their relationship remains uncertain to this day.

As for the DNA evidence, people had to be educated about that by the prosecution when O.J.'s trial got under way in 1995. But all of that was still in the future on this day 20 years ago.

O.J., of course, was acquitted of the murders — but was later held liable in a civil trial. Years later, he was convicted of an apparently unrelated offense in Nevada and given a sentence that, while not a life sentence, was expected to wind up being a life term, given O.J.'s age. After recent legal rulings, though, O.J. could be released as early as 2017.

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But that wasn't the end of it.

I guess it was to be expected that the 20th anniversary of the murders would bring new revelations, and it has. The National Enquirer, for example, recently published an article claiming to tell why O.J. killed Nicole.

Goldman's sister recently told the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles that forgiveness for the murder of the brother to whom she was especially close is not possible for her.

Last month, Lili Anolik suggested in Vanity Fair that the Simpson trial was the first reality TV show. It was a point I hadn't considered before, but it made sense.

Or perhaps it was more like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The trial brought forth a string of witnesses for the prosecution who could have been a 1995 version of the cast of Desperate Housewives with all achieving a certain amount of rather short–lived fame. It was established during the trial that at least one of Nicole's friends/house guests had a cocaine problem, and it was suggested by the defense during the trial that drug dealers could have committed the murders and that their actual target had not been Nicole but rather her friend.

By the time the trial began, the murders themselves were almost afterthoughts; the human tragedy was mostly ignored. Ron and Nicole were vivid as people only in the memories of those in the court — and outside the court — who knew them. To everyone else they were props in a courtroom drama.

There was a wide range of human wreckage left in the wake of those two deaths.

The image that stays with me is of the streams of blood that could be seen on the pavement outside Nicole's townhouse in the news reports 20 years ago — and the children who were left without a mother. At some point, O.J. was awarded custody of his children, and they moved to Florida.

Those children are adults well into their 20s now. I often wonder what their lives were like after their mother was killed and their father was accused of the crime.

All I know is that the oldest, Sydney, was arrested in connection with a school incident nearly 10 years after her mother's death and sentenced to 50 hours of community service. Last I heard, she was waiting tables in Atlanta.

I think her brother is still in Florida.

An Unheeded Cry for Help

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Fifty years ago today, a young woman named Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death a short distance from her home in Queens, N.Y.

By itself, that isn't too noteworthy, but there were unusual circumstances that made the case stand out, primarily the fact that more than three dozen of her neighbors apparently heard her screaming for help — but did nothing to assist the 5–foot–1, 105–pound woman.

Why? It was probably explained best in a simple comment one of the neighbors made to a New York Times reporter: "I didn't want to get involved."

The attack lasted roughly 30 minutes. The assailant apparently selected Genovese at random and was chased off twice after he started stabbing her — the first time when a neighbor shouted from his apartment window, "Hey, let that girl alone!" and the second time when other windows started opening and the attacker decided to go move his car — but returned twice, the last time to finish off the semiconscious victim, who had managed to get inside one of the buildings.

Her killer found her by following the trail of blood she left behind. He finished her off, then raped her corpse.

About 40–45 minutes after the attack began, one of the neighbors called the police — after first calling a friend for advice on what to do. The police arrived in a couple of minutes; in the course of their investigation, they found 38 witnesses who had heard or seen at least a portion of the attack.

He suggested the witnesses may have been confused by what they were seeing and hearing.

An investigator told the press that Genovese might have survived if the police had been summoned when the attack began; otherwise, there didn't seem to be anything too unusual about the murder at first. It received scant coverage in the newspapers, and little was said in the investigators' report.

"This tendency to shy away from reporting crimes is a common one," the deputy police commissioner said at the time — and, in fact, the case drew no special attention.

Until two weeks later, when the New York Times ran an article with the headline "37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call."

The case was troubling for many people who wondered how civilized humans could stand by and do nothing while a young woman was being brutally murdered. Some offered the explanation that they thought it was a lovers' quarrel, and they didn't want to interfere.

One psychiatrist said the failure of the witnesses to act promptly may have been at least partly because of television. "We underestimate the damage that these accumulated images do to the brain," he said. "The immediate effect can be delusional, equivalent to a sort of post–hypnotic suggestion."

There were numerous theories offered to explain why no one did anything, but none was satisfactory. The Times, in a hand–wringing editorial, wondered why that was. "Seldom has The Times published a more horrifying story," the editorial said, "than its account of how 38 respectable, law–abiding, middle class Queens citizens watched a killer stalk his young woman victim ... without one of them making a call to the Police Department that might have saved her life."

Fear was a plausible reason, I suppose. The city of Boston, about 200 miles to the northeast of New York, had been gripped by the fear of the "Boston strangler" killings around that time. The thought of that may have intimidated some of the witnesses.

But, in the end, it was still hard to rationalize what had happened.

Folks are still trying to make sense of it. Karen Matthews writes for the Associated Press that the case still fascinates people half a century later.

"Kitty Genovese's screams for help couldn't save her on the night she was murdered outside her apartment in 1964," Matthews writes. "Fifty years later, those screams still echo, a symbol of urban breakdown and city dwellers' seeming callousness toward their neighbors."

There are those who, much like the folks who deny the Holocaust, argue that Genovese's murder was not quite what it has been made out to be. Some people, including author Kevin Cook who just published a book on the subject, take issue with various parts of the story, including the number of witnesses.

Some observe that Times metro editor A.M. Rosenthal had lunch with the city's police commissioner about 10 days after the murder, and the commissioner mentioned the case, prompting Rosenthal to send a reporter out to Queens to get a compelling story.

And the reporter came back with a compelling story.

The Genovese case was responsible, I think, for the designation "the bystander effect," a psychological phenomenon in which the more witnesses there are, the less likely people are to help an individual in distress. They conclude that someone else is sure to call the authorities, that such a call may already have been made.

In the long story of human history, I'm sure something similar must have happened before Genovese was slain, but, for whatever reason, it never caught the public's attention the way the Genovese case did.

If you want to find something good that came from the case, Matthews points out that "[i]t has been credited with spurring adoption of the 911 system in 1968 as well as 'Good Samaritan' laws that give legal protection to people who help those in trouble." And that is good.

The emergence of mobile technology makes it easier for people to reach out for assistance as well.

So I suppose the question is: Can a Genovese case happen in the 21st century?

And my answer is: I don't know. Modern technology might not make a difference. I gather that most, if not all, of Genovese's neighbors had access to telephones.

The "bystander effect" might still apply, anyway, whether the phones were mobile or landline.

Evolution of a Massacre

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While you're munching on your Valentine's Day candy, it's worth remembering a Valentine's Day that wasn't so sweet — at least for some folks.

It was 85 years ago this morning in a garage in Chicago. Here's how John O'Brien of the Chicago Tribune sets the scene:

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"On this frigid morning, in an unheated brick garage ... seven men were lined up against a whitewashed wall and pumped with 90 bullets from submachine guns, shotguns and a revolver."

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Chicagoland was gangland in those days, and Al Capone's henchmen, disguised as policemen, were on a mission to eliminate Bugs Moran, Capone's last competition for the designation of top gang boss in Chicago.

Ironically, none of the men who died 85 years ago today was Moran. He wasn't there. Nor was Capone among the gunmen who participated in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

My understanding is that the reason Moran wasn't in the garage was because he slept late that day. When he arrived, there was a lot of activity outside the garage, so he left the scene.

Capone had an airtight alibi for his whereabouts during the killings — he was more than 1,000 miles away in south Florida. He insisted that he wasn't involved. I don't think that many people believed him.

The fellow who assembled the hit team, Jack McGurn, had an alibi as well. He was with his mistress (later wife), having devised a plan and turned it over to his hit team.

The hit team lured the victims to the warehouse with the promise of very good whiskey at a low price. Prohibition was still in effect, and Moran's people couldn't resist.

Capone figured to gain from Moran's death, and, even though Moran was not among those who died 85 years ago, he was finished. Capone and his organization ruled the roost for years to come.

As a student of history, I think that garage should have been preserved as an historic site, but it was leveled nearly 50 years ago. Now its memory inspires marketing themes.

Blood in Boston

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I used to work as a sports copy editor, and, in those days, you never saw an article from the Boston Marathon on the front page of the newspaper.

Times have changed. I can guarantee that the Boston Marathon will be on the front page of every newspaper tomorrow, but that has nothing to do with the race.

It has everything to do with the explosions that occurred near the finish line this afternoon.

Initially, it was thought there had been three explosions, but, as I write this, it appears that the third event — a fire or explosion at the nearby JFK library — was a bizarre irony.

When I heard that, I immediately thought of the hijackings of 2001 — and how I heard of planes crashing into the World Trade Center ... and then the Pentagon. Perhaps it was due to the fact that my office did not have a television, but there was a lot of confusion in my workplace that day — and a lot of misinformation floating around, even from people who had been in contact with friends and relatives who were watching things unfold on TV.

There is always some confusion around an event like this, and, sadly, I have become well acquainted with them. I was living a short distance from Oklahoma City when the federal building there was bombed (the 18th anniversary of that event will be this Friday, by the way); it is safe to say that my exposure to that event was more intense than it was for most.

And I, like most Americans, remember the confusion that was part of the developing story on 9–11. A few years later, I watched, transfixed, as the news coverage of the series of bombings in London flooded the airwaves.

The only things that seem clear are that at least three people are dead tonight, more than 100 are injured (some have lost limbs), and no one has claimed responsibility.

The investigators may already have an idea who was responsible, but they are keeping their cards hidden — as good investigators do.

In the days ahead, I expect many of the pressing questions to be answered — perhaps not always to everyone's satisfaction but answered, nonetheless.

There were people from all over the world in Boston today; consequently, I expect to hear eventually of injured — possibly even deceased — people from several countries.

There may even be things about this case that will surprise me.

Actually, the only thing that I am sure of — at least, as sure as anyone can be at this point — is that this was a coordinated, organized attack that almost certainly involved more than one person. I don't know if it was carried out by a domestic or foreign group. I suppose that is a detail we will learn in due course.

For now, I am willing to let the investigators do their work — which, I suppose, is an easy thing for me to do, considering that I am about 1,500 miles away and I won't have to put up with the inconvenience that many Bostonians will as they try to go about their daily business.

But investigators don't get to choose where a crime is committed. They can only investigate the scene of a crime, wherever that scene happens to be. This seems likely to be a difficult scene to process.

I wish them all the best in investigating this crime. I hope they bring those responsible to justice.

And I hope that we learn whatever we need to learn from this event to keep another one from happening.

But I am doubtful that will happen.

I am doubtful because, as is abundantly clear in the debate over guns, we tend to treat only the symptoms and not the disease.

The symptoms are the weapons that are used to kill and maim people.

The disease is whatever prompts one human being (or a group of human beings) to deliberately hurt or kill other human beings.

People who are bent on destruction will do it with whatever weapon is available to them. They will use guns — or knives, as we saw at the school in Houston last week — or explosive devices, as we saw in Boston today.

Until we are ready to face that problem with the vigor with which we attack inanimate objects, we will not rid our land of this epidemic of violence.

America's First Serial Killer

Monday was the sesquicentennial of the birth of the man known to history as America's first documented serial killer — H.H. Holmes.

Serial killing was not a new thing when Holmes (whose real name was Herman Webster Mudgett) started killing people in the second half of the 19th century so I must conclude that he was not this country's first serial killer — and I'm reasonably sure he wasn't the first to confess to killing someone.

But he did confess to more than two dozen murders — and the authorities of the day, using the forensic technology they possessed, confirmed nine of them. Thus, by the most common legal definition of serial killing, Holmes was a serial killer.

By some estimates, he may have been far more prolific than the legal community could have imagined. His actual body count may well have been more than 200.

He began his life of crime as a swindler, but he soon moved on to more sinister things.

For the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, Holmes opened a three–story "World's Fair" hotel. It was a block long, and it was located a short distance from the fair, an attractive option for out–of–towners.

It was a real house of horrors, though, a maze with dead ends, rooms with no windows, stairs that went nowhere, doors that could be opened only from the outside. Holmes' victims — and, of the ones who have been confirmed, many were women who worked for him in his hotel or the other commercial ventures in the building, but there may also have been several who were in town strictly to visit the fair — never had a chance.

Holmes wanted it that way. He was the only one who fully understood how his hotel was designed because he kept changing builders. It kept suspicion down and tongues from wagging.

Holmes, too, had been a medical student. He apparently dissected many of the bodies and sold parts to medical schools through the connections he had established when he was younger. Thus, getting rid of the evidence was ridiculously easy.

After the fair concluded, Holmes left Chicago. He resurfaced for a time in this part of the country and tried to build a hotel in Fort Worth that was similar to the one he had in Chicago, but he gave up on that and wandered around North America for awhile.

Holmes might have gone undetected if not for the fact that he was arrested in St. Louis for a horse swindle. He was bailed out, but, while behind bars, he became friendly with Marion Hedgepeth, a train robber in whom he confided a scheme for faking his own death and having his wife collect on the insurance.

Hedgepeth was promised payment for providing the name of an attorney who would participate in the scheme, but Hedgepeth wasn't paid so he blew the whistle.

And the whole thing unraveled.

The legal system didn't dawdle over things like appeals in those days. Less than two years after his arrest in St. Louis, on May 7, 1896, Holmes was hanged.

He was a little more than a week away from his 35th birthday.

Hate Crimes Decline

David Gibson, the religion reporter for Politics Daily, wrote last month that, according to the FBI, "the number of reported hate crimes dropped significantly in 2009 from the previous year, to their lowest point in more than 15 years."

This happened, Gibson observed, "despite the deepening recession and growing social tensions."

And that's a good thing — if you can verify that hate–inspired crimes actually did drop, but that isn't as easy to verify as you might think.

I'll grant you that sometimes it's obvious — like that case a dozen years or so ago when the black man was dragged to his death by a group of white men in a pickup truck.

Sometimes it's a matter of suspicion. You may think that a crime was motivated by hate because the victim(s) belonged to a particular race or religion or gender — but suspicion alone is not sufficient to charge anyone with a crime, whatever the motivation.

I would argue that, at least to a degree, all crimes are hate crimes so I'm not sure how I feel about the special designation in the criminal code for hate crimes.

I understand what lawmakers are trying to do, but it seems to me that it is an invitation for the implementation of George Orwell's Thought Police — and I really don't believe that is what anyone really wants in America.

The laws already regulate — as much as is possible — the actions of the citizens. Do we also want to regulate the people's thoughts?

Gibson reports that the faithful are hailing the news, which is to be expected, I guess, in this season of love and hope and joy.

"[R]eligious groups are giving thanks for the decline," Gibson writes, "even if they have no clear explanations for the drop."

I guess no explanations are needed — except, perhaps, in Room 101.

So This Is Christmas

On this Christmas morning, family and friends of three of the people who were involved in Monday's rush-hour shootings in Dallas are grieving their losses.

As you may have heard, the alleged perpetrator died last night of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. Two people were killed in the shootings. A third was injured.

I find myself wondering if all this could have been avoided.

It's the same sort of helpless feeling I've had when I've heard the news about shooting rampages at schools or shopping malls or restaurants or office buildings. Inevitably, it seems, someone steps forward and mentions red flags that should have been heeded in the past.

You know, something like this — "He was never the same after he came back from [Vietnam/the Persian Gulf/a similarly traumatic event elsewhere]."

Which, inevitably, makes me think, "That would have been a good time to tell somebody, wouldn't it?"

I'm not talking about the people who get accused of serial homicides, and then the people who have known them most of their lives say, "He was always such a good boy." Those people, the Ted Bundys of the world, always seem to live lives of divided personalities. They seem to be born that way. No single event transforms them.

I'm talking about the people who are transformed by a traumatic event. Such an event always seems to be followed by a series of warning signs that things have taken a turn toward the tragic.

Based on a story in the Dallas Morning News, the alleged shooter, a former Utah state trooper, became addicted to painkillers following an unspecified "on-duty accident."

Whatever the nature of the "accident," apparently it led to problems on the job and the man resigned in May.

He reportedly was excited by a "job opportunity" in Texas and moved his family here, but few other details have emerged, except that, on the day of the shootings, it appears that the man may have been aware that he was being sought in connection with a couple of crimes — the theft of a woman's purse on Dec. 17 and the later use of her credit cards (which apparently was photographed by a surveillance camera), and another purse snatching earlier on Monday.

This may have triggered some or all of the tragic events that unfolded along a north Dallas freeway. Details are decidedly sketchy at this point. And, while most homicides have their poignant, even ironic, aspects, this case seems to reverberate with them.

I don't know if the man had any other problems since he and his family moved here about six or seven months ago, but his problems in Utah appeared to include abuse of alcohol and prescription medicine, driving under the influence and threatening suicide. I've also heard reports that he was suspected of stealing prescription drugs from the office of his father-in-law, a dentist.

He leaves behind a widow and five children to mourn his passing — and ponder their future in a strange land.

One of the people he killed on Monday was a truck driver who was planning to park his truck at the airport and fly home to be with his wife, daughter and stepson in Kentucky. Instead of spending the holiday with him, they will be preparing for his funeral.

For whatever comfort it may bring his survivors, Dallas police and witnesses have said the man was a hero for managing to bring his rig to a safe stop before he died. As someone who has driven on that freeway during rush hour many times, I can only imagine how difficult that must have been — or how many people were spared serious injury by his selfless act.

The family of a young man from the Dallas area will be preparing for his funeral this holiday as well. Apparently, he loved to work on his '93 Nissan, which he happened to be driving when he was shot. He was single, but it has been said that his Christmas plans included asking his girlfriend to marry him.

Perhaps, instead, she is participating in his funeral.

These were human tragedies — even the loss of the alleged shooter who appears to have undergone a radical transformation since suffering his injury. His friends and colleagues in Utah described a dedicated public servant whose life had been changed.

"This is a huge shock," a former colleague told the Dallas Morning News.

"I want people to know this is not who he is," a former neighbor told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "Something has happened to change him because he's not that kind of a person at all."

I'd like to get all the details before reaching a conclusion, but I have to wonder if the pain and suffering that has been inflicted on the friends and relatives of these three people could have been avoided.

Were any efforts made by the state of Utah to provide counseling or therapy for a man who appears to have been injured in an on-duty accident?

Or did the state sweep his problems under the rug and give him the green light to move to another state, where an exciting "job opportunity" awaited him — knowing all the time that his problems had not been resolved?

Given his background as a state trooper, it's not unreasonable to suggest that his "job opportunity" involved work in security — where he may have been responsible for the safety of many people and the security of their possessions.

If evidence exists that anyone in a position of authority in Utah knew that the man was a ticking time bomb and nevertheless did nothing to prevent him from moving to another state, that person should be held criminally responsible for what has happened here.

And it should serve as a warning to everyone else.

Treasure every minute you have with the people you love. You never know when they will be taken from you.

The Bottom Line on O.J.'s Sentence

I've seen a number of articles that try to boil down the probable prison time for O.J.Simpson.

As you probably know, Simpson, 61, was given his prison sentence today. He was convicted on armed robbery, kidnapping and assault charges in Las Vegas on Oct. 3 — the 13th anniversary of his acquittal in the 1994 murders of his ex-wife and her friend.

These things aren't always clear to those who don't work in courtrooms on a regular basis. A judge's sentence can seem to be ambiguous — even, at times, to appeals courts that deal with these kinds of issues on a routine basis.

CNN reports that Simpson will spend "at least 15 years in prison" but "could become eligible for parole in about nine years."

ESPN says Simpson was sentenced to "at least nine years in prison and the likelihood of as many as 19 years."

The Associated Press played up the sensational angle, pointing out that the sentence was "33 years behind bars with eligibility for parole after less than a third of that."

It can get a little baffling.

I think the clearest, most reasonable assessment of the judgment could be found in Melissa Arseniuk's account in the Las Vegas Sun.

Simpson will spend at least nine years in prison in Nevada, Arseniuk writes. The sentence means "the former football star could remain incarcerated until he is 94 years old if denied parole."

And all the other possibilities in between.

The one thing you can count on is that Simpson will be at least a 70-year-old man before he is free again.

My personal opinion is that no parole board will keep Simpson in prison for 33 years. At some point, public opinion will contend that keeping an elderly man in prison for a non-fatal offense amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

But I'm also inclined to think that — assuming he lives that long — Simpson will spend more than nine years in prison.

And here's one more guess.

Unless Simpson develops severe health problems that rapidly lead to his death, I believe he will eventually be free again.

I find it hard to believe we've heard the last from him.

The End of Prohibition

It was 75 years ago today that America ended its mostly failed experiment with Prohibition.

Prohibition ended on Dec. 5, 1933, when three states — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Utah — ratified the 21st Amendment — which repealed the 18th Amendment.

And syndicated columnist Froma Harrop says it's time to end the modern-day equivalent, "the so-called War on Drugs."

Those who oppose drug legalization should read the article. Not only does legalization make sense from a revenue standpoint, but, as Harrop points out, regulating the strength and purity of currently illegal drugs makes them less deadly.

Removing the "illegal" stigma from these drugs will make it more likely that those who need help will seek it. "We have treatments for alcoholism," Harrop writes, "but we don't ban alcohol." A valid point.

The "War on Drugs," Harrop observes, hasn't had the effect of inflating drug prices, thereby discouraging people from buying and consuming them. In fact, she says, "[t]he retail price of cocaine is now about half what it was in 1990."

Legalizing drugs also would take the profits out of the terrorists' pockets.

Harrop quotes a Harvard economist who contends that legalizing drugs could save $44 billion in enforcement costs while providing governments with up to $33 billion in revenues "were they to tax drugs as heavily as alcohol and tobacco."

It seems to me there would be all sorts of ripple effects from legalizing drugs — not the least of which would be the elimination of all the innocent victims of drive-by shootings from gang members and others involved in the illegal drug trade.

Economist Milton Friedman estimates that the criminalization of drugs has been responsible for more than 10,000 such fatalities — deaths of children, the elderly and other innocent bystanders — per year. These killings would cease if drugs were legalized, he says.

When was the last time you heard about someone being killed in a drive-by shooting that involved the sale of liquor?

"The war on drugs has led to gang violence, trampling of civil liberties, and military interventions abroad," writes Jacob Grier in The American Spectator. "Federalist principles are routinely ignored in medical marijuana raids, doctors face prosecution for prescribing painkillers, and ordinary adults must show their ID just to purchase effective cold medicine. The United States now has more than 300,000 people imprisoned for drug violations."

Harrop concedes that it won't be easy to end the "War on Drugs."

"Too many police, drug agents, bureaucrats, lawyers, judges, prison guards and sprayers of poppy fields have a stake in it," she says — and that, I presume, includes those companies that make their living testing other people's bodily fluids for trace evidence of recreational drug use. "But Prohibition was repealed once."

Indeed it was. And it took an economic crisis to make it happen.

Life in Prison Might Not Be Likely for O.J.

Lester Munson, an attorney from Chicago who writes about legal issues in sports for ESPN.com, says O.J. Simpson may be more likely to be sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison than he is to receive a life sentence for his role in the robbery and kidnapping case that resulted in his conviction on 12 counts by a jury in Las Vegas Friday.

But, for a 61-year-old man, a 10- to 15-year sentence could mean imprisonment for life anyway. It might not be formally declared a life sentence, but, realistically, that's what it may turn out to be.

At the very least, as Munson acknowledges, "Simpson probably will be into his 70s before he returns to freedom."

Simpson's attorney has insisted the verdict will be appealed. But the legal system is set up a little differently in Nevada. Unlike most states, where there are two levels of appeal — an intermediate appellate court and the state's supreme court — only one level of appeal (the supreme court) exists in Nevada.

"So Simpson has only one chance to persuade a group of judges he should be freed," writes Munson.

Furthermore, the arguments that Simpson's lawyers probably will offer in their appeal don't seem likely to succeed, Munson says.

One such argument is that the racial composition of the jury was the "result of systematic elimination of African-Americans." But, as Munson points out, the judge ruled that the original panel of potential jurors was "an accurate reflection of the racial population" in Clark County, Nevada, and "it is unlikely the Supreme Court will second-guess her rulings."

It was impossible to ignore the racial element of the murder trial in the 1990s. The victims were both white, and the defendant was black. But, "[w]ith the possible exception of the selection of the jury, race was not a factor" this time, says Munson. The participants in this case were "remarkably diverse," he writes, making racism a much more difficult claim to make in an appeal.

The second argument likely will suggest that the judge made an error by allowing prosecutors to talk to the jury about the civil judgment against Simpson in the murders of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend, Ron Goldman.

The prosecution argued that it was Simpson's "enduring rage against the Goldmans that caused him to plan and execute the robbery" — in an effort to prevent them from acquiring his sports memorabilia and selling the items to obtain a portion of the $33.6 million judgment.

The judge in the case kept prosecutors from introducing witnesses on that issue, but she permitted audiotapes of Simpson "raging at the Goldmans and their efforts to collect from him."

Therefore, Munson writes, "It will be difficult for Simpson's lawyers to succeed on the issue when the justices of the Supreme Court hear the tapes of Simpson himself describing how the robbery would prevent the Goldmans from obtaining his things and selling them."

The anti-O.J. partisans might not feel as satisfied with a sentence of 10 to 15 years in prison as they might have with a life sentence.

But, in the end, it may be nothing more than a matter of semantics.

O.J. Might Get Life in Prison After All

It may not have happened the way his detractors believed it should have more than a decade ago.

But you have to appreciate the irony of the timing.

Exactly 13 years after O.J. Simpson was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Goldman, a jury in Las Vegas found him guilty of 12 charges, including kidnapping and armed robbery, in a matter involving sports memorabilia that Simpson said had been stolen from him.

Simpson will be sentenced in two months, on Dec. 5. The 61-year-old former NFL All-Star could be sentenced to life in prison. His attorney says the verdict will be appealed.

"We're absolutely thrilled to see that the potential is that he could spend the rest of his life in jail where the scumbag belongs," Goldman's father, Fred Goldman, told CNN. "Right now there is not much more to say other than we're going to wait to find out what else happens."

Was John Paul I Murdered?

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Justice in Massachusetts

Earlier this week, Mitt Romney said the Massachusetts judge who released a convicted killer from prison should resign, after that convicted killer recently was taken into custody and charged with the slayings of a young couple in the state of Washington.

The judge had been an appointee when Romney was governor of Massachusetts.

Romney's call for the judge's resignation smacked of "political expediency," in the words of a past president of the Massachusetts Bar Association.

In today's Boston Globe, columnist Scot Lehigh explores the case in more detail. The "official" local reaction has been "so muted as to defy belief," he says.

"There are important questions that need to be answered," Lehigh wrote.

Even more important, Mr. Lehigh, is asking the questions in the first place.

And that is precisely what he does in today's column.

Jennifer Rubin in The New York Observer writes abou† many problems that Romney is having, including the case of the murdered couple and the released killer. Rudy Giiuliani seized the opportunity to criticize Romney's law-and-order record as governor.

Romney's campaign counterattacked, but, as Rubin points out, comparing records on crime with Giuliani -- a former U.S. attorney -- is "an activity the Romney campaign will want to move on from as quickly as possible."

Romney should be ashamed of himself for trying to score political points from the tragic murders of two young people. But the officeholders in Massachusetts should be considered criminally negligent if they don't address the serious issues that have been raised in this case.

Willie Horton Redux?

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took a position last night that, at first blush, appears to demonstrate the kind of character I'd like to see in the White House.

Romney acknowledged that a judge he appointed while governor "showed an inexplicable lack of good judgment" in a hearing that ultimately allowed a convicted killer to be freed.

Following his release, the convict fled to the state of Washington, where he murdered a young couple who lived near him.

Romney said the judge "needs to resign."

On the surface, that shows a quality that is needed in the Oval Office -- the ability to learn from and try to correct negative results from faulty decisions.

But Rudy Giuliani, citing crime statistics from the FBI, pointed out that murder and violent crime went up in Massachusetts while Romney was governor. The case to which Romney referred was not an aberration.

A past president of the Massachusetts Bar Association said the judge did the right thing based on state law "and for Romney to call for her to resign is nothing more than political expediency."

As I see it, what Romney did was make this judge the scapegoat for the failings of Romney's administration.

It also sounds like we're getting set up for the 2008 version of the infamous "Willie Horton ad" that contributed to George H.W. Bush's victory over another former Massachusetts governor, Michael Dukakis, in 1988.