Readers Express Ire in Pollard Case

Shakespeare said it better, speaking of compassion and mercy: “It blesseth him that gives and him that takes . . . it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown; . . . and earthly power doth then show like God’s when mercy seasons justice.”

Tim Rutten’s column on the agony of Jonathan Pollard confirms this view almost as eloquently and as movingly.

I applaud Tim Rutten and The Times (I am tempted to add finally) for exposing this gross miscarriage of justice that saw our government lie, break promises and exact punishment with vindictiveness and cruelty that have not been matched in my memory.

There is no question about Pollard’s guilt--he is guilty.

His guilt is not mitigated by the indisputable fact that he transmitted information that, under a signed agreement, was supposed to have been used against our soldiers in the Gulf War, and that again and again the irrefutable point was made that Pollard did not spy against the U.S. and no data harming our security were passed.

Yes, he deserves to be punished, but he doesn’t deserve life imprisonment without the possibility of parole--a sentence imposed in violation of a plea bargain that promised a shorter sentence for him and his wife in exchange for a full confession and agreement to a secret trial.

He does not deserve to be held for 23 hours out of every 24 in solitary in a subterranean cell. He did not deserve to be confined to a ward for criminally insane for reasons that were never made clear.

Finally, he doesn’t deserve a sentence that is so out of proportion with the one-year, two-year and four-year sentences handed down to spies who betrayed us much more seriously and who did not spy for friends and allies as Pollard did.

Jonathan Pollard has served six years. Let mercy “drop as the gentle rain from heaven . . .” and have his sentence commuted to the time served.

SI FRUMKIN

Studio City