Riverside Case

* When I read (April 19) that a deputy district attorney of Riverside is trying to pin a yearlong sentence on a brain-damaged woman with the mental capacity of a 6-year-old, I was filled with rage at such benighted idiocy. Were we being revisited by some blackhooded inquisitor from the Dark Ages? I would like to have throttled him.

But if the woman, who suffered a stroke at 18 and has spent nearly all her life in a mental institution, is to be understood and pitied, mustn’t I show the same measure of empathy for a man, who, bereft of any generosity of heart or feeling, is obviously at least as damaged and handicapped as she is? I don’t think so.

RONALD RUBIN

Topanga

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So Riverside’s Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Bentley intends to put a brain-damaged woman, who has spent 16 years institutionalized, behind bars for assaulting a security guard because he’s read the medical reports concerning her condition from a neuropsychologist and other mental health professionals and doesn’t find them “that bad.” Can we then assume that he’s willing to consult a physician for legal expertise?

JULIA DUFFY

Malibu