THE GUILTY MUST ALWAYS PAY

Re: "Justice for Mr. Garrett?" (Letters, Oct. 25).

I am disturbed that not one letter out of five wanted to hold Charles
Garrett accountable for his crime. The liberal views of these letters
only subvert the order that the government and people have worked to
establish.

One of the flawed ideas presented was that Mr. Garrett is a victim.
That is true in that he is a victim of his own bad choices. He is an
adult who made a conscious decision to do wrong and then fled the
consequences.

Another misconception in the letters is that jail is for
rehabilitation. Jail is for punishment; rehabilitation can be a side
effect. I think it is great that Mr. Garrett became a law-abiding
citizen while he was running from the law (does anybody see the
contradiction here?), but what other choice did he have? To misbehave
would mean being caught.

Everyone has a personal responsibility to obey the law, so to me the
real injustice in this case is a society that thinks consequences are
irrelevant once the lesson has been learned.

KATIE DAVIS, Mesquite

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady