Text from Healing From
Hate Crimes
Text/Images Copyright © 1995-2001. All Rights Reserved.
Mr. Campos my name is Judy
Hersher and I am President of the Jewish Temple, Congregation
B'nai Israel, that you attempted to burn down in July of 1993.
I represent 648 families that you know nothing about, but choose
to hate, and for whom you wish despair, anxiety and death.
From everything I have seen and heard these past 18 months, Richard,
you are driven by a life philosophy that allows you to unfeelingly
do violence to property and people with no regard for the result.
You pursue your goal dispassionately and with no remorse and without
any true understanding or feeling for the people you affect.
You condone violence, arson, and death to achieve your plan of
purifying the world from all who do not think, look and believe
like you do.
I don't know how you came to be who you are today. I don't know
if it's your family, teachers, or your friends who planted the
seeds that you have harvested. But I believe after listening to
you, and watching you and reading your writings, that whatever
brought you to this point in time is no longer of any moment.
You sit here now and you stand here now and alone. In my eyes
and those I represent, we hold you responsible for your own actions,
and no one else.
You have been judged and are judged not for your beliefs, which
however abhorrent to me, would not have brought me to this place
and time, you are judged for your actions. For the future you
face, dismal, terrifying and bleak as it rightfully is, you have
no one to blame but yourself.
I had hoped when this trial began to find a young man, confused
and perhaps cajoled by his buddies, veering off from a path of
what might otherwise be one of relative peace and tranquility,
for one insane adolescent instance.
Instead, I found a cold, calculated adult, capable of devising
and carrying out an ever escalating series of violent acts. You
may lead others to believe you are young and malleable, but you
do not convince me and those I represent. You are dangerous because
you do not value human life, nor understand its intrinsic value.
The sad thing, Richard, is that you have wasted your time and
you have wasted your life. You haven't succeeded in achieving
your goals and you and others like you will never succeed. Much
greater, more articulate and more powerful people than you have
tried and failed and they will always fail. And that is because
you, and they, don't understand the true forces that they face.
While we may, then and again, be the victims of misguided and
evil intentions, we are survivors. We won't hide from you. We
will meet you and your accomplices, to the extent they exist,
in whatever manner we need to. We will see to it that you and
others like you receive the full brunt of the justice system.
The Jews were here almost 6,000 years before you and they, and
their descendants, will be here 6,000 years after you are long
forgotten.
Sometime today I expect your attorney, Mr. Brady, will stand up
and make an impassioned speech about the need for compassion for
you, and the hope that there is some way to rehabilitate your
beliefs. He will as this court, and the "victims" that
I represent to show similar compassion. He must do so as your
attorney, because that is his job to do so. It is not compassion
for you that is necessary in these circumstances. It is compassion
for the fabric of the entire community which you attempted to
destroy, whose peace you have violated. You, not us, must pay
the price. We, not you, deserve protection. When you think nothing
of the fact that innocent people and children could have been
in the room you firebombed, you confirm my lack of compassion
for you.
When you wrote and publicly said that you had no remorse, when
you stated publicly that you condone violence to achieve your
ends, you negated any chance or hope of compassion. You describe
yourself as a terrorist and you must be treated as one.
I have reached the conclusion, and I believe others have as well,
that you do not merit compassion in your sentencing. And even
if you are capable of being rehabilitated, the risk you pose to
others is so great, that I have no choice but to honor and care
for others over you. I therefore ask that the court have no compassion
for you and sentence you to the maximum sentence in state prison.
While you sit in your cell, wherever that might be, ponder this.
The very groups you hate, but don't know or understand, the very
groups you tried to terrorize, have formed a coalition. We have
joined together and made a commitment to work peacefully to counteract
any forces which you or others like you may wish to bring to bear.
We have made our voice known in changes in the law, in fact enhancing
the punishment that you are likely to receive. We have made it
more difficult for you and people like you to silently slip through
the court systems. Your actions have led only to greater strength
in those you profess to hate.
You have succeeded in one thing though, Richard. You have succeeded
in making me and others like me feel great pain for having to
advocate our position of the maximum sentence for you in state
prison.
I must keep my faith with others much more deserving and sympathetic
than you. And I have to affirm that good does, in the end, triumph
over evil. The events recently in Oklahoma indicate just how dangerous
people like you truly are.
We have no choice but to keep you away from everybody, because
you care truly for nothing but chaos and violence, and because
you do not understand the value of life.
You deserve nothing less than the full measure of punishment.
What I want to leave you with is this, the futility of your acts.
You have wasted your life, Richard, and you may have very well
lost whatever little soul you have left.
Healing
from Hate Crimes
Letter
to the Honorable James T. Ford, Superior Court
Summer
of Hate, Sign of Hope
Help
Make Hate Homeless
Rock-Soft
Fences
Internet
Filtering, Letter to Senator John McCain
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