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Ridgway trial costs

If she were your sister, would truth be worth the price of a latte?

Editor, The Times:

I thought this day would never come. The day I would see my sister's "alleged" killer face to face. They said it would not be easy; they were right.

There has been a lot about all of this that has not been easy. It's not easy to read of or hear people complain about a $1.50 (yearly) tax to help prosecute Gary Ridgway. How much would their sister or daughter be worth? I know it's going to just get worse, especially if they seek the death penalty, but what is the spending cap on justice?

I admit, for years I hated/resented Seattle for seeming not to care what happened to these women, to put more enthusiasm toward a baseball team of guys who don't even live here and could hardly care about you. My sister would give someone her last dollar or the coat off her back to help someone. Now, she's a tax burden and a victim number.

I've grown some and am not as bitter as I used to be... but it's still not easy to hear someone complain about a $1.50 tax while watching them drink their second latte of the day.

It's not easy to sit in a courtroom and watch your mother cry, while defense attorney Tony Savage brags that his client is "upbeat" and not despondent.

It's not easy to hear that Savage's office is deluged with people wanting to help, because the case is interesting.

It's not easy to still hear jokes about my sister and other victims.

Sometimes, it's not easy feeling comfortable feeling sad, given all the other problems Seattle also has, such as the recent Boeing layoffs. I feel terrible for these people.

There are many others in this city who are hurting for one reason or another... but I and other family members of victims have waited a long 20 years for this, and I will no longer feel guilty for wanting the prosecutor and the county to do everything possible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ridgway is guilty.
- Garrett Mills, Bellevue

If only government would cut baloney out of its priorities

There are thousands of new affectees of the Green River criminal case, only this time the perpetrators are King County Executive Ron Sims and a selected majority of King County Council members and the victims are the county's property-owning taxpayers ("Ridgway defense may tap public till," Times, Dec. 12).

In a sordid fit of revenge against taxpayers — who voted "yes" on Initiative 747 simply because they preferred not to get taxed out of their houses — these government leaders decided they had plenty of money for "gum and candy" expenditures such as funding a high-school lacrosse team, but no money to pay for one of the most high-profile criminal prosecutions of the century. So, in an outrageous move, they trumped up an inflated, projected dollar figure for prosecuting the Green River case and raised property taxes to cover that amount.

Some will argue "But gee, it's only a few dollars per household." To that I answer "baloney." When we send in our hard-earned property-tax dollars, we expect the county to properly prioritize spending — funding first the most basic functions such as law enforcement and criminal prosecutions. There is more than enough money for these ultra-important items.

Then they could put a measure on the ballot asking me if I want my property taxes raised to support the Franklin High School lacrosse team. But maybe that's just too sensible for these prioritization-challenged elected officials.

In the meantime, Sims and those selected council members should remember that they were elected to serve the citizens, not persecute them.
- Michele Sackman, Sammamish

Inversion flayer

As a lifelong, law-abiding, taxpaying citizen of Washington, I have questions for our government leaders — for the executive branch, which is supposed to enforce the law; for the judicial branch, which is supposed to administer justice; and for the legislators, who are supposed to pay for it all, with my money:

What did I ever say that you've interpreted as a mandate that the more heinous the crimes, the more effort you must make, at my expense, to defend the perpetrators?

How did I give the impression that the more evidence the prosecutor accrues, the more I require legal barricades constructed with my tax money to fend them off the accused?

Where did the notion arise that for every dollar I'm forced to spend trying to defend myself and my fellows from serial rapist cutthroats, I'm willing to spend equal dollars to help them get off?

And why, oh why, do you think that instead of a justice system that protects the innocent and punishes evildoers, I must really want to finance a big public legal game where the winners are the ones who manage to outspend the losers in fancy legal maneuvering?
- Scott Kruize, Tukwila

Animus brief

A news report indicated that the Green River costs for the county will amount to as much as $1 million just for the defense! ("Ridgway pleads not guilty in four Green River killings," Times, Dec. 18.)

I've seen the names of the attorneys for the defense and they are pretty high-profile. When others are charged with crimes, including felonies, which can cost upwards of $100,000 for attorney fees to the defendant, it's the defendant who needs to cover their own costs.

Answer me this question? Why do we (the county) have to pick up the costs of the defense attorneys?
- Alan Andre, Seattle

Money down the test tubes

For several weeks, we've been following the unfolding story of how DNA technology has provided for the almost certain conviction of Gary Ridgway for four of the Green River murders. This is the result of some great work by law enforcement in the '80s and more recently on DNA typing.

Now, we are told that it will require five to 15 million more of taxpayers' dollars, depending on who you talk to, to finish the task. And now the prosecutors want taxpayers to pay for two extra lawyers for Ridgway. Will this become another O. J. Simpson spectacle?

We appreciate that it would be nice to know whether Ridgway murdered the other 45 women. But it won't really matter to Ridgway whether he's convicted of several dozen murders or only four.

I for one would rather see the money spent on apprehending future murderers and burglars. Let's be reasonable!
- Lloyd Gardner, Auburn

Stalled economy

Not you father's Ford

How is it that American corporations find themselves asking for a handout? It bewilders this ignorant woman.

Didn't the clever CEOs — and I'm thinking of one big shoe manufacturer in particular — decide it was better for The Bottom Line to build factories in Third World countries to take advantage of "cheap labor," thereby increasing their margins of profit?

No matter that it was obvious the laborers in those factories could not afford to buy the shoes they were producing, especially since they sold in this country for large chunks of American consumers' paychecks. Now, those very CEOs are crying the blues because unemployed American consumers can't afford their shoes either.

Logic tells me that if they had paid their employees a fitting wage, those employees could afford the shoes. And, wasn't that the philosophy behind Henry Ford's revolutionary wages for his employees — that if he paid them enough, they could afford to buy Ford cars? And didn't this make the man and his company among the richest in America?

The present philosophy doesn't seem to have hurt the CEOs, for they leave with their pockets full, even when the company goes bankrupt. So now the government wants to give corporations our tax money to bail them out of their failures, thus, they say, stimulating our economy.

I for one do not think those very corporations would suddenly decide to build their factories in this country, thereby giving employment to American citizens.

If you want Americans to become consumers, give them the money to spend.
- Jane Boren Kaake, Woodinville

Streetcar named Rehire

The talk is flying thick and fast about tax breaks for businesses as a way to stimulate our poor economy. The favorite rationale seems to be "businesses employ people, and incentives for businesses will increase employment."

But an important word is being omitted from this argument — where. Where will the increased employment take place — Malaysia? Indonesia? Mexico? China?

We've been down this road before and, unless there is a very strong proviso attached to this tax cut that requires businesses to employ people here, and to build new plants and buy new equipment here (in the United States), all that will be accomplished is a huge decrease in tax revenue.

Don't governments usually need more money when they are at war?
- Joan O'Reilly, Vashon

History lessons

Manifest density

Protestant vs. Catholic. Israeli vs. Palestinian. Tibetan Buddhist vs. Chinese. American vs. Taliban. Pakistan vs. India. In almost all of the global conflagrations there is one common underlying theme. Simply put, it is religion.

From the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, from the Peloponnesian Wars, from the Crusades, from prehistory to this very moment, religion has been the impetus of more violence and bloodshed than all other causes combined.

For an idea whose basic precepts are all roughly the same — be kind, be honest, help others, live in peace, etc. — we don't seem to be able (as a species) to make such intentions manifest. Perhaps we are not as evolved as we believe ourselves to be. Humans have been fighting the same fight since we first hurled rocks at one another.

I accept that I cannot change the world. I know I cannot stop wars from being fought or belief systems from being argued to the death, but I can do one thing: I can refuse to be part of it. I can refuse to hate or kill someone I've never met. I can deny acquiescence to this senseless and bloodthirsty paradigm.

So to those who desire polarity, those who need an enemy in order to have an ally, I say, "Good luck," but I fear yours is an inevitable fate.
- Jamil Mehdi, Seattle

Lincoln Doctrine

The way I see it, we have quite a nice alternative to the long-range plans of the flag-waving administration to wage little wars, guard everything in sight, suspend citizens' rights and waste tens of billions of dollars in the missile defense game.

We should instead reverse our old habit of political, social and economic double standards, and then proceed to heed good ol' Abe Lincoln's wisdom when he responded to a lady during the Civil War, who criticized him for speaking kindly of his enemies when she thought he should be destroying them.

"Why, Madame, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"
- Keith Brewer, Seattle

Comeuppance

Ask not what your country did

Regarding Michael Kelly's column about the college student who was having a hard time judging the attack on the World Trade Center ("Here's a news flash: Mass murder is wrong," Times syndicated column, Dec. 19):

When Ronald Reagan sold arms to a country that had backed the group that blew up 250 Marines in Lebanon, we were asked not to judge.

When the U.S. Vincennes blew up an Iranian civilian airliner, killing almost 200 people, we were asked not to judge.

When the U.S. supported war in Central America, we were asked not to judge.

When the U.S. bombed civilians in Panama because it wanted to arrest a single man, we were asked not to judge.

When the U.S. bombed civilians in Iraq, and destroyed their access to clean water and their roads and dams, we were asked not to judge.

When the U.S. killed civilians in Kosovo and made refugees of them, we were asked not to judge.

When immigrants from the United States settle Palestinian land and bombs made by the United States and given to Israel are used to kill Palestinian civilians, we are asked not to judge.

Maybe the naive students who found it hard to judge the evil of killing people in the World Trade Center were simply in a state of shock.

Maybe it would have been easier to enter into a state of judgment if it were more broadly accepted that — killing civilians is wrong. Period. The end never did justify the means. Arming the world to its teeth is stupid, since the violence that is sown will eventually harm the country profiting from selling arms.
- Kate Bradley, Sammamish

Marching in lockstep

It takes courage to stand up to the direction "the flock" is currently being herded ("Hecklers drown out speaker questioning federal profiling," Times, Dec. 17). I don't mean true disrespect for the Americans who booed or jeered (president and publisher of The Sacramento Bee) Janis Besler Heaphy's attempts to enlighten them, but I find it sad that still, in this "information age" that people are still so incredibly naive.

Governments have been manipulating their populations forever; it's called the Hegelian principle. Whether our government sponsored it or was manipulated as well, it is breathtaking how quickly they were able to marshal everyone into a "patriotic" lockstep toward a society with limited freedoms.

Once down the slippery slope, it's only a downhill slide. What is considered extraordinary but "justified" at this time will become commonplace for the next generation, who won't even give it a second thought.

But what really gets my goat is a quote from Attorney General John Ashcroft saying that people raising the "phantoms of lost liberties" were aiding terrorists.

That's right, John, keep poking that straw man as long as you can. At least we still have news professionals willing to speak their mind... that is of course as long as it's not considered treasonous? Which would be the greatest irony of all.
- Jay Jensen, Enumclaw

Holiday spirits

Please don't drive

On Nov. 18, the world was robbed when Erin Klotz, a student at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, was killed by a drunken driver near North Bend on I-90. In an instant, a beautiful and priceless life was taken away because someone made an awful decision.

The woman who hit the car Erin was a passenger in had three glasses of wine, an anti-depressant, and a muscle relaxer in her system. The legal blood alcohol limit is 0.08. This woman's blood alcohol level was 0.3, almost four times over the legal limit.

Three glasses of wine may not sound like a lot. How many times has someone said during a party or while going to the bars, "I've only had a few drinks, I'll be fine," and then proceeded to drive home? Someone made that same decision on a Sunday night, and now a talented musician, a giving volunteer, an intelligent and hard-working student, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a most extraordinary and beautiful young woman is no longer here on this Earth.

During this holiday season, and throughout the rest of the year, please socialize responsibly. Have a designated driver. Call a taxi if you need to. Above all, please don't risk the chance of robbing the world of another amazing person by drinking and driving.
- Ellicia Thiessen, Ellensburg