At least one book is already in the works. Others may follow. But Thursday, as Judge R. Benjamin Cohen delivered his final instructions to the jury in the Newark courtroom where this tale has played out, he cautioned otherwise. It is not a morality play. Instead, he instructed, they were only to interpret the law.
Some trials shine a bright light on the chasm between morality and legality.
This is such a case. Verdict's Message to the Country While the jurors deliberate the facts against those instructions, inevitably filtered through the prisms of their own lives, many others who have only followed news reports of the case cannot shake the notion that the decision will send a message out across the country. That message is sure to touch on whether the state should legislate sexual behavior in some cases and how mentally handicapped victims are viewed and handled within the court system. We have to see it as a message to the society. And the message may be that we as a society cannot protect our most vulnerable members.