Haag Slaying

In your (June 21) editorial “D.A. Acted Legally-but Morally?” the writer concludes with “Like it or not, the letter of the law was met. Clearly, what was not met was a community’s expectation of justice.”

This is in reference to the death of Myron Haag in Escondido, as a result of an altercation with a young man seen urinating on Haag’s front lawn. The facts as recited in the editorial, the young man’s profanity and refusal to leave when requested, certainly create justified sympathy for Haag, even perhaps to the point of excusing his punching the other man. Haag’s punch brought a retaliatory punch, which resulted in his death.

The public outrage which followed Haag’s death is easy to understand. The editorial writer’s ignorance of the law--she suggests that a judge could “. . . decide the matter at a preliminary hearing . . .”--somewhat harder to understand, but that is not what I find indefensible about the editorial.

It seems to me that what is wrong with the editorial, both legally and morally, is the clear suggestion that a matter of this kind should not be decided according to the law, but rather should be decided according to “a community’s expectation of justice.” And to suggest that a judge or the grand jury would have been free to ignore the law and treat the matter differently seems to misconstrue the fundamental requirements of our legal system.

It is one of the difficult tasks of a district attorney to follow the law (which he was elected to do) even when he may wish that he didn’t have to. To do so shouldn’t provoke editorial wrath.

It doesn’t take more than a moment’s thought to imagine the chaos that would be brought to the criminal justice system if prosecutions were left to the discretion of “a community’s expectation of justice.” Even if that expectation had the benefit of editorial guidance.

May I suggest to the writer of the editorial that public retribution might very well do away with a principle which the people of this country have tried to preserve in their history: that ours is a government of laws rather than of men.

DANIEL C. LEEDY, Judge of the Superior Court-Retired