This is an interesting little story from the
New York Times about using "addiction" as an excuse for misbehavior. Apparently
it is a valid excuse for commiting a serious felony in some courts in our land.
Elizabeth Randolph Roach could not stop shopping, her lawyer told a
judge.
She shopped for things she did not need, things she did not
want, designer
clothes and jewelry she never even
wore.
A shopping addiction, her lawyer said, compelled Ms.
Roach to buy a
$7,000 belt buckle at Neiman Marcus, amass 70 pairs of shoes
at one time and
become so enthralled with shopping in London that she racked
up a $30,000
bill and missed her plane back home.
And
it was the shopping, argued her lawyer, Jeffrey Steinback, that
propelled
her to steal nearly a quarter of a million dollars from the
consulting
company she worked for by padding her expense accounts.
On
Wednesday, a federal judge agreed. Judge Matthew F. Kennelly of
Federal District Court [in Chicago] spared Ms. Roach from going to prison,
reducing what could have been an 18-month jail sentence because he said she
was using her shopping addiction to "self-medicate" her chronic
depression.
--New York Times, May 25, 2001
A few questions come to mind...I wonder what
the judge would have done if Ms. Roach claimed she was "self-medicating" herself
with an illegal drug to combat her depression...Would that be any different from
stealing a quarter of a million dollars? (NOTE that the sentence she was spared
from was only 18 months...for stealing 1/4 million dollars. I'm sure any "crime"
involving a 1/4 million dollars worth of an illegal drug would have gotten her
18 years. ) What if she were black? Should we ban shopping? Why is
this system called the Criminal JUSTICE
System?
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