I don�t think deeply about justice often enough. I know that may sound strange coming from a public defender but it�s true. I can and do become outraged from time to time about the unfairness of what I�m seeing before me but I�m usually too caught up in the equities of the moment to think about justice itself. The Sunday newspaper changed that for a moment.

The Sunday Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has a big, front page story named �One Family�s Pain.� The subtitle, however, not the title is what drew my eye. The subtitle was �Parents Seek Justice for Teenage Son Killed While Running Two Years Ago.� I was expecting a story of parents either trying to find their son�s killer or complaining about the punishment the criminal justice system was meting out. I got neither. What I got was a story of the hope of misusing the courts to assuage rage.

The part I haven�t told you yet is that the teenage son�s 19 year old killer then committed suicide after the event. What the parents of the murdered boy want is to go after the parents of the boy who killed himself and their son and make them pay. They seem to believe that the parents must have done something negligent although they really don�t know what. But their son is dead and the other kid did it. For them, that alone proves that the other parents were negligent.

The father of the murdered boy in a statement quoted in large type actually said, �I believe they shouldn�t be allowed to live a normal live. We aren�t able to live a normal life.� He�s lost touch with reality if he really believes that parents who discover that their son has killed someone else and then, later, himself are able to live a normal life. I�ve survived family suicides twice. If they are any more able to live a normal life than he is, it is a testament to their inner strength.

The father�s attitude, however, bothers me far less than the editor�s use of the word �justice.� I understand that the man is grieving and that grief can do terrible things to people. But what possessed the editor to dub his quest a search for justice? How does justice require pouring on more pain to no worthwhile end? When did it become socially acceptable to direct rage at others around if the proper target is dead and gone? The whole thing is a blood feud, no more, no less.

For once, I was proud of lawyers. The story said that no lawyer would take the case. The father suggested it was because there was not enough money in it. I was glad to see that no one would take a case with no legal basis. I was glad to see that lawyers would refuse to misuse the courts this way.

Justice is not vengeance. Justice is something more lofty than that. Justice is doing what is morally right and what a situation objectively requires. If Atticus Finch wouldn�t condone it, what you�re seeking isn�t justice and Atticus would have nothing to do with this case.

Justice, justice shall you pursue.....and to pursue it, pointless vengeance must you forsake.

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