I thought I'd make it easier for anyone who wanted to go to the article Miz Patsy references, so CLICK HERE to go there.

Over the past few years, I have become even more cynical than before about "popular opinon" and "police suspicions" of people when there is no hard evidence to support the trial by innuendo that is far too common nowadays. I can't forget a security guard at the Atlanta Olympics site that was the target of a madman bomber. Local law enforcement and FBI officials as well as media outlets around the nation all but tarred the guard, who was in reality a hero, with a cloud of baseless, unsupportable suspicion. No matter what happens for the rest of his life, that genie is forever out of that bottle for that man. He will always be "Richard Jewell, that guard who set that bomb." It doesn't matter that he was cleared. For far too many, the suspicion was enough and will always be enough.

The Keystone Kops of Los Angeles were the subject of numerous proven cases of lying in court to convict hundreds of innocent people just a year or two ago. We have had people on death row proved to be innocent of the crimes of which they were convicted because of prosecutorial and police misconduct. The Elizabeth Smart case was another example of a rush to accuse a man who died in police custody (Richard Ricci) and was subsequently proved to have been innocent of any connection with her disappearance. John and Patsy Ramsey and their son have all been villified by the press and overzealous police busybodies in the Christams death of their daughter, Jon Benet over five years ago.

Has anyone beside me noticed that Mark Furman... the proved liar of the O. J. Simpson/Nicole Simpson investigation and trial... has been a prominent television commentator in each of these cases? As far as I am concerned, nothing serves my mind more to prove a suspect as being innocent than to have Mark Furman pontificate as to the "guilt" of a suspect that not even the local police are willing to label as a "suspect."

The English are more civilized about such matters. They never release the identity of a suspect, even after he or she has been formally charged with a crime. That only happens if, and when, that person is taken to trial. That seems far more acceptable a policy to me than our "hang 'em high, even if they're later proved to be innocent" mentality in the media and public discussions. What if they're wrong? What have they done to the accused who is later cleared? Would you want that to happen to you?

A former member of the Reagan administration was taken to trial on what proved to be trumped up, politically motivated charges. After he was acquitted and the judge publicly lectured and harshly excoriated the prosecutors for their misconduct in the matter, the accused man poignantly asked a reporter who had been particularly vicious in reporting the charges against him, "What room in this courthouse to I go to in order to get my good name back? What television news program must I appear on in order to get back my reputation?"

I am aware of the Laci Peterson case. I am also well aware that - despite a public lynching being staged by the media - police have said repeatedly that Scott Peterson is NOT a suspect in the disappearance and possible death of his wife and unborn child. There's no proof that the body of the woman found just a few miles north of where Peterson launched his boat to go fishing on Christmas Eve is that of Laci Peterson nor that the body of the "fetus" found is that of his child.

All that I seen so far that is certain is that political correctness swooped down and grabbed this story in its vile talons. The body of the infant is a "fetus," not an "infant" or a "child." Should it be determined who is behind its appearance on a northern California beach as a corpse, you can bet the person responsible will be charged with the crime of "HOMICIDE," not "Fetiscide."

The self same groups who will tag the dead infant as a "fetus" today will be quick to move to have the person or persons who are responsible for these two deaths charged with killing a human being... a CHILD and not a "blob of tissue." Those double standards really get to me, you know?

The article Patsy references indicates the only known FACTS so far. The decomposing body of an infant with the umbilical cord still attached was found less than two miles from where the torso of a female was later found washed up on a beachfront in northern California, coincidentally in the general area of where Scott Peterson reportedly went fishing on Christmas Eve. THAT'S IT! It would seem to me that Peterson would not knowingly place himself in the same area as where her body might later appear had he done this heinous crime.

Much has been made of the fact that he went fishing on Christmas Eve. So? I know lots of men who would go fishing on their wedding day, on other holiday that comes along and even on the morning of the same day as the funeral for their wives. I know women who would go shopping on ANY day of the year, holiday or not. She who gave me birth was one such. Men who play golf can often be found on the course on Christmas and Thanksgiving Days trying to get a round in before they go home to do the "family thing." That is proof of nothing whatsoever other than they are avid fishermen, tenis players, golfers, etc.

The supicions of many may be correct in the long run, but we don't know that... not yet. I caution that we give Scott Peterson the benefit of his Constitutionally protected presumption of innocence until such time as he has been actually convicted of a crime. At least, let us wait until he is actually charged with the crime before we jump to a conclusion in the case. It is what we would want for ourselves were fate to place us in similar circumstances, isn't it?

As much as I disagreed with Congressman Gary Condit's political positions in many areas, I truly believe he was pilloried and villified unmercifully and wrongly (to my way of thinking) in the disapearance of the intern who disappeared and whose body was later discovered in the same general area as other bodies had been found in a series of similar assaults and homicides. Sure, Condit was a sexual predator in the mold of William Jefferson Clinton. He obviously behaved reprehensibly in his conduct with the girl, but that only makes him guilty of sleaziness, not murder. He paid the price for his lack of moral character at the polls in the 2002 elections, as he should have. To read, listen and watch the coverage of that hunt for the missing intern during those days, he was directly involved in her death. He will always toil under the burden of that suspicion forever, no matter what happens that may prove he was not involved in her death in any way.

I really don't like a system that does such things to people, however low they may be as human beings. Let's wait for some real facts before we accuse someone of something. We're mature enough as a nation and as a society to do that.

Aren't we?