Posted on 03/13/2005 2:53:37 PM PST by paltz
Several years back I was riding in a cab and talking about the troubles of New York Knicks' broadcaster Marv Albert, who had been fired after being charged with sexual assault. The cabbie, a passionate Knicks fan and Albert supporter, protested when I said that NBC, Albert's employer, had no choice but to fire him.
"What about his right to a second chance?" the cabbie asked, indignant. "I thought everybody in this country gets a second chance." As if to prove him right, Albert got his job back less than a year later.
I remembered that conversation this past weekend, as I watched news reports of Martha Stewart's release from prison and listened to one commentator after another intoning some variation of the idea that everyone deserves a second chance in America. "We're a nation of second chances!" one of them gushed.
I'd be interested to see a poll of how many Americans believe that a second chance is guaranteed by the Constitution, and I'm surprised, given decades of judicial activism, that such a right has not yet been found by one of our Supreme Court justices, perhaps Anthony Kennedy. He's already decreed that "the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe," so enshrining second chances in some similar fashion wouldn't be much of a leap.
Somewhere along the way, the idea changed from America itself as the second chance -- a place to come to and start over -- to life in America being a nearly limitless series of second chances. That's a big difference, like trading in Home of the Brave for Home of the Mulligan.
Don't get me wrong. I believe in second chances as much as I believe that punishments should fit the crimes. Now that Martha Stewart has served her sentence, she is free to pursue her business again. Whether she is successful or not will be determined by changes in the market, increased competition, shifting public taste, and other factors. She won't fail, however, because of any stain from her past indiscretions. That would be a violation of her quasi-mystical right to a second chance.
In an earlier time, she still would have gotten a second chance, but in addition to the business challenge she would also have faced the challenge of surmounting a stigma as an ex-con. She would be trying to sell goods to people who had no particular belief that she had a "right" to a second chance. On the contrary, they would probably consider her very lucky to be getting one.
You don't hear the word luck too often when someone like Martha Stewart emerges from her travails and bounces effortlessly into a new TV hosting gig. You don't hear sorry, either. You don't hear them say, My, what a country, that I could be found guilty of what I did and be welcomed back. You don't hear them say how sobering it is to realize that one mistake in Iraq means the end of all second chances for our troops over there, but over here, a mistake a day is good for the soul so long as one never admits the mistake.
Some chalk up such arrogance to the prerogatives of a rich and powerful woman, but I can't help but think that Martha's posture is not too far from our own, an indication of how deeply we have all absorbed this new understanding of second chances -- not the measly second chance to be able to walk the streets again, but a grand second chance to be restored exactly to what we were before. The second chance not so much as a way to overcome the past as to obliterate it.
Wasn't that what the American Revolution was about? I'll bet if you asked Martha Stewart that, and phrased the question just a bit more subtly, she'd say yes.
What our contemporary notion of second chances lacks is the concept of reciprocity, that the offender do something to earn his second chance, or at least atone for his mistakes. Lost, too, is the understanding that the second chance is granted by others, not inalienable, not bequeathed by the creator.
But those ideas are out of fashion, if not offensive, almost as offensive as the idea that we are the sum of our deeds.
Paul Beston is a writer in New York City.
What was Marv Albert convicted of?
Sexual Harrassment charges. he also has likes wearing ladies panties and singing bway songs.
Dec 1996 Vanessa Perhach hospitalized for attempted suicide. 12 Feb 1997 Sodomizes Vanessa Perhach, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Alexandria VA. He bites the woman on the back, saying "You've been a bad girl... you didn't bring anybody."
27 May 1997 Charged with forcible Sodomy and assault.
11 Aug 1997 DNA tests indicate that the bite mark on accuser Vanessa Perhach is indeed Albert's.
22 Sep 1997 Marv Albert trial begins.
25 Sep 1997 Pleads guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery; Sodomy charge dropped.
24 Oct 1997 Receives a 12 month suspended sentence, expunged from his record if no crimes are committed during that span. "There was some biting and rough sex in the past. I did not realize until her [Perhach's] testimony that she thought I had caused her harm, and for that, I am sorry.
This past May, when charges against Marv Albert became public, Mr. Albert asserted his innocence and assured NBC senior management that there was no basis whatsoever to the charges," NBC said in a statement. "Today, given Marv Albert's plea of guilty to assault and battery, NBC terminated its relationship with Mr. Albert."
Of course, the next part of the accusation was that she wasn't guilty because she sold the stock but was guilty only because she lied to investigators. We all understand the need for people to be truthful with investigations, but there's a point at which most of us still don't think the government should be asking too many questions about our finances. Whether the questions asked were beyond reasonable I don't know. I do know that "legal" and "right" are a little confused in some of those financial issues.
If Martha Stewart had been convicted of something more clearly wrong and more easily understood, she might not find this to be the "land of the mulligan." America gets many things wrong, but we get some things right. OJ Simpson isn't a spokesman for any major companies anymore. Jimmy the Greek made a comment that was considered racially insensitive, and he has never gotten a mulligan on that statement.
Bill
Thanks. When the News Cartel is gaspingly eager for us to pay attention to something----OJ, Martha, Jackson, the celebrity or crisis of the day-----I usually try real hard to ignore it.
Yes, we should always give a second chance to first time murderers, rapists, child abusers, etc. Maybe then they could do better the next time and not get caught! /sarcasm
bttt
The operative point here is that the person "SERVED THEIR SENTENCE" Not let off the hook. Plenty of people have returned to useful productive lives after commiting a crime and doing the time. However, capital crimes must be punished severely.It is one thing to give an embezzler or shoplifter a chance to redeem himself and altogether another to let a murder, rapist or child molester free to roam the streets. BTW the article was not just about Martha Stewart.
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