I would like to start today's blog with a thank you to the majority of Supreme Court Justices for upholding our constitution and seeing to it that all humans are afforded equal rights in the one country that should be a leader in that respect. I am particularly impressed with Justice Kennedy, who put politics aside and wrote his own decision quoting Past-Chief Justice Earl Warren who declared that the freedom to marry is a basic civil right and fundamental freedom. He wrote that close to fifty years ago when faced with making a decision on interracial marriage...and here we are today, putting an exclamation point on those words.
I used to tell my debate team that they are truly entitled to their feelings and beliefs. Many of them came up with very valid points when defending their side of difficult issues. I also tried to impress upon them that their discomfort did not afford them the ability to trample on anyone else's constitutional rights. I know that then, like now, religious beliefs were often in conflict with constitutional rights. At the end of the day though, hundreds of years ago our country was founded so we could all live equally with our own beliefs.
Our judicial system, from the Supreme Court to the County Courts keep our country honest. Lawyers, as maligned as they often are, keep our courts running honestly. As frustrating as it was to see O. J. walk free, it was not because he had soulless lawyers. He walked free because our system worked when the prosecutors didn't do their jobs. Unfortunately, many times innocent people are caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and desperately need someone to prove their innocence. Even the most guilty among us deserve a defense in our legal system. It was not easy to agree to defend Lee Harvey Oswald, Ted Bundy or the Boston bomber. Luckily there are people who believe so strongly in our system that they put themselves at risk to defend it, and the people who try to destroy it.
Paul Levine, author of Bum Rap, was a lawyer before becoming a novelist. He knows the system inside and out, and he shares that knowledge with us through his fiction. He writes with a bit of humor and a great deal of suspense. In Bum Rap, he allows Steve Solomon, a criminal attorney, to be arrested for a murder he swears that he didn't commit. Since Solomon is one of two main characters in Levine's Solomon and Lord series, this begins to get interesting. Levine then takes a protagonist from another of his series, and brings him in to defend Solomon. The story is an interesting one, and it was fun watching the author complicate things by bringing these characters together.
The complications in Grant McKenzie's book, No Cry For Help, were less enjoyable. Don't get me wrong, the book was a good read, but there were definitely parts that made me want to jump in and help the poor protagonist. I hate going to the mall with Arthur, splitting up and meeting again at an appointed time. If we go together, we stay together. I don't want to wonder where he is as I nurse my second cup of tea in front of Teavana. Poor Wallace Carver waited for a family that never came back. Worse then that, there was no evidence that they ever entered the mall with him, even though he knows they did. His family was wiped from existence...even their belongs disappeared from their house. The police were of little help, and this poor Everyman ended up on a terrifying search for the life he knew he lost.
Definitely a good time for that glass of ice tea and a comfortable chair.
Happy reading,
- Beverly