Op-Ed
Goodbye, George
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If You Can Keep It
November 2, 2006 - 1:00amThe first thing that I ever wrote for this paper was not a column. It was a letter. Two, to be precise, at different points during my freshman year.
A shock I received on Tuesday prompted me to relive the events that inspired the latter.
It was early October of 2005. The Sun had just put out an editorial in which it commended the “Redbuddies,” a group of students who protested the University’s decision to build a parking lot in an area known as the Redbud Woods. These individuals, the editorial read, were to be applauded for “boldly tak[ing] a stand on an issue that most students would turn an oblivious shoulder to.” The fact that they would do so, it continued, made them “highly admirable.”
Of course, in “boldly tak[ing] a stand,” the protesters had, among other things, locked themselves in the President’s office and refused to leave until he agreed to discuss the Woods with them according to their terms. No matter how obvious a violation of the law, however, The Sun wrote that “moving ahead with a trial against these students would have been inappropriate,” giving the thumbs-up to a recent decision by Judge Judith Rossiter to dismiss the charges against them — despite the wishes of then-District Attorney George Dentes.
“ … Rossiter’s decision to dismiss the charges in the interest of justice shows that rational heads prevailed in an otherwise murky situation,” the editorial declared.
I disagreed.
“Whether one favored saving or paving Redbud Woods — for lack of a better
term — is completely irrelevant,” I wrote in a response published the next day. Look past the cause, I urged, and realize that what the protesters did was plainly and obviously criminal.
It should be noted that the administration did not want to take the Redbuddies to court. To be sure, administration officials, in keeping with an unfortunate history of appeasement that goes back a long way at our University, struck a deal with the group and did everything they could to see to it that its members would have to face no charges whatsoever.
“I thus find myself forced to take the decidedly unpopular but just stand,” my letter concluded, “of applauding District Attorney George Dentes for doing what our alma mater should have ideally done on its own — holding protesters who went to radical extremes accountable for their acts and proving that Justice does not see through an ideologically-tinted visor.”
After the letter appeared in The Sun, my inbox, needless to say, got a little fuller than usual. One e-mail was from a very angry protester who censured me for “publicly attacking [him] and [his] movement” and demanded that I apologize. I refused, citing the fact that I had attacked neither him nor his movement — only his methods.
I would soon receive another e-mail, however, and I could tell straightaway that everything about this one would be completely different.
“Many thanks to you,” it began, “for taking the time — and having the courage — to write a letter to the editors of The Sun supporting me and the rule of law.”
It was an e-mail from George Dentes, and it marked what would turn out to be only the first of a couple times we would exchange notes over the World Wide Web.
A little over a month after it had published its editorial on the Redbuddies, The Sun would print another editorial featuring Mr. Dentes, this one about his race for re-election as District Attorney of Tompkins County — a position he had held for some 16 years. As in the first piece, however, the tone of this one would be equally unflattering.
“For students,” the editors roared, “Dentes has proven to be less than an ally.” Their evidence? An excerpt from a guest column the DA had prepared for the Ithaca Journal in which, The Sun decried, “he wrote about prosecuting students and non-students equally.”
In his article, Dentes discussed a theoretical scenario in which he would have to prosecute a DWI charge involving either a student “from an intact, upper middle-class family” or a “non-student,” described specifically as “a local kid, drifting, lacking family support, unemployed and headed nowhere.” He made it clear that, as DA, he would “treat them both alike.”
His reasoning could be described as nothing but admirable. “Otherwise,” the Cornell alum warned, “the fortunate student ends up avoiding consequences of criminal conviction while the less fortunate non-student suffers those consequences. That sort of ‘justice’ is how the poor and under-achieving members of society can be oppressed by the criminal justice system. Unlimited discretion translates into unlimited opportunity for prejudice.”
Sun editors called Dentes’ logic “offensive,” adding that “it is clear that 16 years in the district attorney’s office is enough.” The paper then officially endorsed his opponent.
The rest, of course, is history. Dentes would lose his bid for re-election and head to Albany to go to work for the New York Prosecutors Training Institute.
But not before I got one last e-mail off to him.
“You are,” I wrote, “nothing short of an inspiration to those of us who look to the law as a foundation of liberty and see those who interpret it with impartiality as the guardians of our democracy.”
I thanked him for his integrity, for standing firm to principle and for seeking to preserve the honor of his office, even if that meant the loss of more than a few much-needed votes. It was precisely for those reasons, I added, that he had earned mine.
Two days ago, the world lost George Dentes to a heart attack at age 52.
In what would be the last line I ever sent to him, I said, “If you ever make it down Lone Star way, be sure to drop by and say howdy.”
For the record, the offer’s still open, George. Just be sure to put in a good word with St. Peter for me on the way down.
From all of us at Cornell who supported and admired you, Godspeed. You will be missed.
Mark Coombs is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at mpc39@cornell.edu. If You Can Keep It appears Thursdays.