‘Twilight Zone Verdict’

This is in response to Linda Stone-Elster’s letter (June 5), “ ‘Twilight Zone’ Verdict.”

Director John Landis was not “let off the hook by the judicial system.” John Landis was tried and acquitted by a jury. That is what is known as a fair trial in a free society. I am shocked that as a teacher, Stone-Elster is unfamiliar with this concept.

I am also shocked that The Times allowed her to grind her self-serving ax under the pretext of objecting to the Landis verdict.

The Title 8 provision by the Labor Standards Enforcement Division allowing for the absence of a studio teacher when minors between the ages of 16 and 18 are working on a movie is a good and long needed adjustment.

The entertainment business is subject to more regulations with regard to minors than schools and day-care centers where kids spend the vast majority of their time. But the regulations prior to 1986 unfairly restricted the use of 16-to-18 year-olds. These are young adults who could work in any other business with nothing more than a work permit. They could be legally employed in fast-food places working within inches of vats of boiling hot oil on their feet for eight-hour shifts, that was all perfectly OK.

But give them a four-hour commercial shoot and the industry was required to provide them with teachers and social workers. This was clearly discriminatory toward film makers whose safety record is, incidentally, outstanding, particularly with regard to minors.

As to 16-to-18 year-olds being sufficiently mature to make decisions “regarding their welfare and safety,” one fervently hopes that is the case, since most of these young adults are driving cars.

But I am sure Stone-Elster’s heart is pure and her opinions are not based on the extravagantly high fees paid to these teachers and social workers required on the set when minors are employed. Even though these fees are substantially higher than any other teacher, social worker or child care worker would receive.

But it is brutally unfair to take pot shots at jurors who gave up 10 months of their lives and careers to serve on the “Twilight Zone” case.

DENISE ARANT

Los Angeles