Tipped scales

In case you still had any doubt that the scales of justice are more than just a little tipped.

Flandreau, S.D. (AP, January 22) - Bill Janklow, who dominated South Dakota politics for three decades as governor and then congressman, was sentenced to 100 days in jail Thursday for a car crash that killed a motorcyclist and ended Janklow's career in disgrace.

This is a man with a clear record of speeding: Between 1990 and the fall of 1994, he got 12 speeding tickets. A month later he was reelected governor and, interestingly, never got another ticket - even though he admitted in a 1999 speech to the Legislature that "Bill Janklow speeds when he drives - shouldn't, but he does." He also admitted to the judge "While I was governor, I drove fast - really fast."

Last August 16, he was going 71 in a 55 zone. He blasted through a stop sign and smashed into 55-year-old motorcyclist Randy Scott, propelling his dead, mangled body into a roadside field. Convicted of second-degree manslaughter, he could have gotten 11 years.

Instead, he got 100 days. Three and one-third months. One hundred days. And after 30 of those days, he'll be allowed out for 10 hours a day for "community service."

We keep getting told that justice is blind, but I for one am damned sure that she peeks out under that blindfold and checks out who's on trial before she sets the weights in her scales.