Leniency doesn’t offer true justice

News that a Massachusetts judge bent over backward to accommodate a drug-dealing criminal once again affirms that misplaced benevolence paired with profound ignorance is often par for the course in our criminal justice system.

Judge Timothy Feeley exemplifies the worst in progressive judges, bestowing the benefit of the doubt onto prolific criminals when their plight, at least in his mind, demands a higher regard than that of the victims.

After he was busted for distributing heroin in 2015, one would expect a strong jail sentence for Manuel Soto-Vittini, especially in the age of the opioid scourge. But Judge Feeley saw it differently, saying, “a probation sentence is something I am more comfortable with than state prison for someone with no record.”

The judge called the crime “basically a money crime.”

He said that Soto-Vittini was “a person who made some terrible judgments and decisions, but made them for what he thought was in the best interest of his family.”

Indications are that Judge Feeley did not want to put SotoVittini in a position where he might face deportation, but rather keep him around doing what was in the best interest of his family. Unbelievable.

Judicial activism is repeatedly resulting in citizens being victimized by criminals who should be locked up or deported, but radical liberals are willing to risk the lives of the law-abiding. The act of mercy and forgiveness toward the criminal element is so intoxicating to some on the bench that it outweighs any dire consequence to society, whether that is a drug epidemic, sexual assaults on women or dead police officers.

News stories like this are fairly commonplace in this state and word gets out. Criminals and bad actors of all kinds know that Massachusetts is a place to thrive. Sure, the hard-working men and women of law enforcement will make the arrests, but there is a good chance the perp will get the right judge and be right back on the streets.

How a candidate stands on this issue is as good a litmus test as any. It is an election year.