To the editors:
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On a more serious note, I wish the Reader’s press columnist had given a bit more credit to the opinion of Justice James Heiple in the Baby Richard case before joining the feral journalistic mob calling for his head [Hot Type, July 22]. It is not the justice’s responsibility to make a point by point disputation with Bob Greene; on the contrary, it is the responsibility of Greene–and all the other reporters and columnists who’ve been ululating about the case–to display a little intellectual humility in the face of things they have not bothered to learn anything about. I hope I’m not the only person who suspects that most arguments between Bob Greene and the state supreme court justices–indeed, between Bob Greene and most living things above the level of plankton–will on analysis find Greene rather unequipped to compete.
The defenders of the adoptive parents harp on the fact that they are the only mother and father the child has ever known. If the rabid attackers of Heiple want to create a statute of limitations on illegal adoptions, they should make that case. They don’t because it is a difficult one to make: Perhaps the defenders of Rolando Cruz would like similar logic applied to his situation. “We’ve had him in jail for years now,” the state could say. “He’s used to it, and it might be traumatizing if we let him out.”
