Should Fear Know No Limits? : Regardless of her past or future, Du committed a violent crime. Her sentence should have reflected that seriousness.

Nothing puts our government to the test like criminal justice. Decisions about guilt and punishment involve our deepest angers and fears and so challenge our commitment to moral principle. Events of the past year in Los Angeles have proved this repeatedly, but none more clearly than the sentence of probation given a convenience-store owner convicted of the manslaughter of a young customer.

The case of 51-year-old Soon Ja Du, who shot to death 15-year-old Latasha Harlins illustrates, among other things, the way fear of crime infects city life and threatens our most basic values.

Judgment here must be cautious. As the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings showed, evaluation often turns on the details and nuances of testimony, matters left out or distorted by secondhand reports. And yet as a people we cannot leave assessment to those in attendance any more than we can leave presidential critiques to Washington insiders. We must judge based on what we know, realizing that our information is imperfect.

Just as important, judgment must avoid exaggeration. The wrongs of the world come in all shapes and sizes; to exaggerate wrongs is itself a moral failure, one all too prevalent in connection with high-profile cases.

A security camera videotape provided much of the basic information about what happened between the teen-ager and the storekeeper. Du was filling in behind the cash register of her South-Central store on a Saturday morning in March. She was well aware of the crime risks; in the previous two years, the store had been repeatedly burglarized, had been robbed on a number of occasions and her son had been terrorized by gang members. Shoplifting was a daily problem.

On March 16, Latasha Harlins approached the front counter with a $1.79 bottle of orange juice in her backpack; witnesses said she had money in her hand. Apparently thinking that the girl was stealing the juice or some other item, Du exchanged harsh words with Latasha and grabbed her sweater. Latasha then punched Du three times in the face and Du threw a stool in response.

At this point, the video indicates that Latasha put the juice on the counter and turned away, as if to leave. Meanwhile, Du picked up a handgun that lay beneath the counter. The gun had been altered so that it had a very light trigger, meaning it would go off easily. Du raised the gun in the girl’s direction and fired. The fatal shot struck Latasha Harlins in the back of the head.

During the trial, Superior Court Judge Joyce A. Karlin determined that there was insufficient evidence of a cool and reflective decision to kill and therefore eliminated the charge of premeditated murder. The jury convicted Du of voluntary manslaughter, a finding that she shot with an intent to kill, but with mitigating considerations--either that she had good reason to be extremely upset, or that she unreasonably believed she had to shoot in self-defense. By its verdict, the jury determined that the shooting was not reckless or accidental.

At sentencing, Karlin stated that Du was not a threat to society and that it was “not a time for revenge.” The judge blamed the shooting in part on the hairpin trigger of the gun and also said that the crime was committed “under circumstances of great provocation, coercion and duress.” The judge suggested that Latasha Harlins’ physical blows contributed to the shooting and reduced Du’s culpability. Karlin sentenced her to five years probation, community service and a fine, along with a lengthy suspended sentence.

I disagree with both the sentence and its rationale. Regardless of her past, regardless of her future, Du committed a crime of violence whose seriousness should have been directly reflected in her sentence.

We will never know exactly what went through Du’s mind when she raised and fired the gun. She may not know. But if we approach her situation sympathetically, as did both the jury and judge, what seems critical is her fear. The case seems to rest on her fear of crime--and of Latasha. Du testified that she feared for her life.

This raises the question, critical in our urban environment, of how we handle the terrors of crime. Do we keep it within legitimate bounds, or do we let it corrupt our relations with others?

Sometimes we forget how fear drives racism and other prejudices. Some small part of the fear may be justified, but the identification of fear with a group leads to unreasoned hostility. The only check on this process is to consider others as individuals, not group members.

Which brings us to the most disturbing aspect of the case: the suspicion of racial bias. Du is an immigrant from Korea; Latasha Harlins was black. Maybe the shooting and its punishment had nothing to do with race, but the case fits a historic pattern of devaluing crimes against black citizens uncomfortably well. Perhaps the best we can say is that justice in this one case was not done.

None of this means that Du is a fundamentally bad or dangerous person. The jury did not pass on her character, only on what she did that March morning. We can understand and sympathize with Du’s situation, but we still must take a stand on the shooting. If she had seen Latasha Harlins as a person and not a feared type, Latasha might still be alive.

We sometimes forget that punishment can be respectful. It can be a penance, a way for the offender to remove the taint of wrongdoing through principled sacrifice. Nor does her punishment give the rest of us a claim to moral superiority. Du’s offense was one that many, many Angelenos could have committed.

At its best, criminal punishment provides a crude and often brutal way of working out tragic conflicts between people. It generally does not make the world better in any immediate way. It is about defending moral principle--here, the value of human life--by attaching painful consequences to wrongful acts. When we make that connection we find some small satisfaction in the defense of value and move on. When the connection fails, the hurt of crime remains a deep and open wound.