Perhaps politics really has become bipartisan, cooperative. Outgoing Kentucky governor Ernie Fletcher has certainly been cooperating with Democratic State Representative Brent Yonts.
http://www.kentucky.com/...
Nine lawmakers wrote letters supporting the pardon application of Burgess Harrison Yonts, the son of state Rep. Brent Yonts, D-Greenville, who was convicted of wanton murder earlier this year in a hit-and-run car accident that killed a Murray State University graduate student.
"We are writing you begging for mercy," Brent and Jan Yonts wrote in a six-page letter.
Fletcher reduced Harrison Yonts' prison sentence from 20 to eight years. Fleenor said a review of similar cases found sentences of fewer than 10 years.
Really? Similar cases? Did David Fleenor, the governor's general councel, mean vehicular manslaughter cases? Did he mean hit-and-runs? Because I know of no one here in my hometown of Murray, Kentucky, who is aware of another case similar to this one. Let's review:
At around 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. on November 11, 2005, Harrison Yonts, driving drunk, struck 62-year-old grad student Nadia Shaheen with his SUV. Ms. Shaheen was found dead in a ditch at 6:39 a.m. A side-view mirror found in the ditch with her led police to Yonts.
http://www.murrayledger.com/... http://www.wave3.com/...
Were this simply another story of a drunken college student making a terrible, life-altering mistake, I would be more sympathetic. The crime would still be heinous, yes, and would still deserve some jail time, but if most of us didn't mature a great deal after the age of 20, this would be an awful world to live in. What sets this apart is that Yonts was eventually convicted not only of wanton murder and drunken driving, but also of "leaving the scene of an accident and tampering with physical evidence [emphasis mine]." Get it? Nadia Shaheen was found over four hours later in a ditch by the side of the road.
http://www.whas11.com/...
Though Yonts expressed remorse when he was sentenced, he maintained his innocence throughout his trial. I remember watching the news with absolute disgust as his defense attorney argued that he couldn't possibly have been driving his own SUV that night because, well, the police found his vehicle facing direction X, and Harrison was in the habit of parking facing direction Y. Prosecutors, however, saw Yonts's change of parking direction as further evidence that he was aware of his crime and his culpability.
Before Harrison Yonts was sentenced, his father addressed the court: "I ask you to have mercy on my son; if I could take my son's place, judge, I'll be glad to go."
As a parent myself, I can sympathize with the elder Yonts's pain. I cannot fully comprehend it and I hope I never, ever have to, but I can sympathize. What I cannot understand is a reasoning process that allows a parent to say something so patently ridiculous in the face of such behavior, the reasoning process that allows one to feel justified in recruiting fellow lawmakers to lobby for the special treatment of one's child.
"...if I could take my son's place, judge, I'll be glad to go." Has it never occured to Brent Yonts that spoiled adults who trample on the rights of others often began life as spoiled children who were not forced to be accountable for their actions? Was Brent Yonts's expression of grief indicative of a pattern of clean-up-junior's-messes-and-pat-him-on-the-head parenting or an aberration that sprang only from his pain? Given the nine lawmakers who wrote to Fletcher asking for mercy, given the elder Yonts's own letter, I am inclined to think it was the former.
I adore my son. I do. I'm very fortunate; he's a fantasic kid. I'm inclined to think that most of his terrific nature is innate, but that doesn't mean it will always come to the fore of his behavior without some guidance. When he misbehaves, he gets in trouble. I don't spank (for one thing, he has his mother's stubborn streak; you think a spanking would stop him?), but he is well aware that actions have consequences.
I hope that I will never have to face what Brent Yonts has had to face. But were I to one day find myself in his situation, I hope that I would say to my child, "Son, I am so disappointed in you and I hope that you are disappointed in yourself. You know that what you did was wrong. I love you, though, and I hope for your sake that you put this time to good use trying to figure out what your priorities should be. I believe that you can. I'll visit once a month and I'll write you every week."
Sound harsh? It is precisely because I adore my son that I will do anything in my power to help him become an adult with a sense of responsibility to others. It is precisely because I adore my son that I believe him capable of being more than a spoiled, selfish brat.