State District Judge Albert Murdock was arrested yesterday
and charged with rape, link. He joins a troubling long list of
public servants who have fallen from grace.
Is anyone surprised? There is surprise that it is Murdock.
Those who knew him personally are apparently very surprised.
There should be little surprise beyond that; power corrupts
after all. The greater the power, the greater the temptation to
abuse it, and the easier it is to abuse it without accountability
and consequence; creating more temptation still.
How many examples of public corruption and incompetence does
one need see, to conclude that corruption and incompetence
are endemic in politics and public service? They are endemic
because "trust" is the only arrow in the quiver for protecting
public trust and treasure from abuse.
The answer is not to continue to look for human beings who are
immune to temptation. There may not be as many as one.
The answer is to make incompetence and corruption impossibly
difficult to hide. The answer is transparent accountability.
The answer is casino security on the spending of public
resources and on the wielding of the people's power.
Casinos don't avoid corruption by hiring a better class of people,
they do it by making it impossibly difficult to get away with.
Politics and public service could and should do the same.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Another public figure falls
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
He is the criminal court Chief District Judge of the states busiest district. He is accused for now of prostitution, criminal sexual contact, and intimidation of a witness.
Hopefully people will reserve judgment for the trial if there ever is one (I doubt it), but our hysterical society will more likely tar and feather him long before that - as they do anyone accused of a crime in the age of media sensationalism. It is amazing that with many Americans, the strongest patriots and lovers of the constitution, are usually the loudest about disregarding the presumption of innocence it supposedly guarantees.
Not to be a paranoid, but what are the chances Gary King set up the judge to pay him back for exposing King’s personal conflict of interest in the Vigil-Giron case. King thought he had everyone fooled on that one until the plucky judge put the brakes on him.
Post a Comment