Yet Another Runaway Prosecutor

Before Hollywood turns the story into yet another movie that makes Houston parents look bad, I wanted to get my two cents worth in on the Cheerleader Hazing saga at Katy's Morton Ranch High School. I read with dismay the latest developments in the case of the 7 varsity cheerleaders brought up on criminal charges for hazing some younger cheerleaders by throwing them - bound and blindfolded - into a backyard pool. Granted, the act was cruel, and some kind of punishment was in order, but criminal prosecution, complete with jail time and a Perp Walk? Prosecutorial files "several inches thick"? The same charges against all seven, even though some of them had only minimal involvement?

Well, that's not stopping uber-prosecutor Marc Brown from protecting the good citizens of Harris County from the depredations of Dangerous Cheerleaders. And thank God he's on the job. Had he not heroically stepped in to stop these criminals, who knows where it all might have ended? Packs of roving Cheerleaders ravaging the City? One shudders to think.

Shades of the Duke University LaCrosse saga, where yet another Prosecutor Run Amok ruined the lives of other people in pursuit of his personal ambition. And call me crazy, but once you've got a criminal file "several inches thick", your life is pretty much ruined.

Another important detail: the junior cheerleaders were not innocent victims. They were as much a part of the culture that allowed those senior cheerleaders to think this was a great idea, right up until the moment that they were pushed into the pool. Think about it: nobody forced those bonds and blindfolds onto the Junior cheerleaders, and were they so "innocent" that they thought it OK to be manacled? Of course, that doesn't stop the parents of said JV cheerleaders from their self-righteous Media Moment, portraying the Senior cheerleaders as so very different from their precious babies, demanding "justice", and contemplating the million dollar settlement from the inevitable lawsuit.

Speaking of parents, where was the adult supervision that would have prevented this event? The party was held at "a private residence", surely that of one of the cheerleaders. Doesn't that cry out for criminal prosecution of the homeowners? Mind you, I'm not advocating for it other than in the "Mountains Out Of Molehills" mindset that Prosecutor Brown and the JV parents bring to the table. If this affair needs to be criminalized, let the criminalization begin, and let it begin with adults. And while we're at it, let's have a full investigation of the parents of the so-called "victims", who let their children out of the house at 4:00 a.m. for this adventure.

And let's not forget that the Media is wallowing in the story like so many hogs in a mudhole. Newspapers and TV stations gleefully publish the photos and names of the girls, all 17 and 18, and reveal personal details about their lives. Just because The Media are allowed to publish such personal information regarding girls in high school, does it necessarily follow that they must? Once again, the lack of common sense, good judgment and simple decency is just staggering.

But, back to Marc Brown. What the hell is going on with this prosecution, other than the enthusiastic fulfillment of his career goals? Where is the sense of proportionality, either in the pursuit of prosecution relative to the misdeed, much less in the arguably tens of thousands of dollars the County is spending to pursue this? How many years would one taxpayer have to pay County taxes to pay for this one prosecution? If it costs a hundred grand, the answer is 50 years. It will likely be much more than that, and of course, the families will all go out of pocket at least that much to defend their daughters.

That's a damn high price for taxpayers to pay so Marc Brown can posture for the cameras.

And what of the school district? So paranoid about the inevitable lawsuits from the parents of the "victims", they've been silent on recommending more sensible administrative punishment for the Senior cheerleaders. But, by allowing them to be tried as criminals, they've made a multi-million dollar "settlement" - at taxpayer expense - a virtual inevitability.

Me, I blame the Democrats. From the idiocy of Zero Tolerance, to the criminalization of simple misdeeds, to the gargantuan expenditures of public treasure in pursuit of the ludicrous, this has Liberal fingerprints all over it.

I only wish that they were the only ones who had to pay.