On:    Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:43:32 -0400 Michael Baier
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Does these statements make sense to anyone?????
>
> The dismissal came "not because she's innocent but because she is sick,"
> attorney general's office spokesman Nathan Barankin told CNN.
>
> "I have always had faith that the truth would win out and justice would
> be served - and it has been," Dunn said in a written statement.
>

There is a dictum that while courts try cases, cases also try courts.  It
is evident that Ms. Dunn does not, in all probability, have much time left
to live.  A justice system must weigh the benefits of a conviction against
the potential costs to the system of even a successful prosecution.  Ms.
Dunn would have been an unquestionably sympathetic figure as a female
defendant suffering from personal tragedy, burdened with disease, forced
from her job and then hounded by an unfeeling bureaucracy, in a case that
most of the public has demonstrated no strong feelings of interest.

The system of justice has been most likely served here, albeit not in the
manner Ms. Dunn's statement is meant to be taken (as a declaration of her
innocence).  The sentence that she awaits is greater than any a court
could impose and this exercise of mercy avoids the spectacle and expense
of a messy public display.  The prospect of a woman defendent dying whilst
in the dock could not have held much attraction for the prosecutors'
office either. That said, I greatly suspect that Ms. Dunn's political
connections had much to do with this decision.

--
James B. Byrne                mailto:[log in to unmask]
Harte & Lyne Limited          http://www.harte-lyne.ca
9 Brockley Drive              vox: +1 905 561 1241
Hamilton, Ontario             fax: +1 905 561 0757
Canada  L8E 3C3

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