Justice can be ugly

I had a good laugh at Jim Dey's column in this morning's News-Gazette concerning Matt Hale.

I'm not sure it's online or if they ever put his columns online - those that don't show up in his News-Gazette Weblog - so you may want to spend the 50 cents.

Seems poor Matt, who went and got himself convicted for all sorts of nasty things including plotting to kill a judge and complicity in Benjamin Smith's little killing adventure, was sentenced to 40 years of hard time.

And if you plot to kill a judge, they REALLY REALLY MEAN HARD TIME.

Matt's new address is the federal maximum security prison in Florence, CO. Yeah, the same Super Max that has such guests as Ted 'Unabomber' Kaczynski, Terry Nichols of Oklahoma City fame and a handful of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. Those are not nice people.

Matt's in deep ****.

In you want more details, read Dey's column. It's worth the four bits.

Still, there's another side of the coin. One actually wonders if Matt's little temper tantrums (although they did result at least indirectly in the death of at least two people) are super-max justified. That is one harsh penalty. 40 years in super max solitary in Colorado. He's eligible for parole when he turns 65, in 2037.

Nevertheless, don't look in my direction if you're organizing a protest march.

I never much felt sorry for Matt anyway. His racist taunts were nothing more than a pathetic, desperate attempt to feel superior to SOMEBODY, ANYBODY. When your own self-image is so low you have to resort to racism to attempt to feel better than someone, you've got big problems.

He spent a long time in school but never managed to get educated. And until his move to Colorado, spent just about his entire life living with his parents in Peoria. How pathetic. Hard to feel any self-esteem that way.

So, Matt, enjoy Colorado. Hear the skiing's good there.

And so it goes.