[meteorite-list] Must've Had Rocks In Their Heads (Editorial)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:00:09 2004
Message-ID: <200207241745.KAA27104_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/1506081

Must've had rocks in their heads
By THOM MARSHALL
Houston Chronicle
July 23, 2002

Houston, we have a problem.

What's the nation to do with those young people
accused of swiping and trying to peddle off pieces of the
moon and Mars?

If these charges are true, what in heaven's name were
they thinking? Did they look at it as some big joke? Did
they envision themselves as actors in a movie -- The
Great Moon Rock Heist -- about how a gang of novices
outsmarts NASA security to make off with a 600-pound
safe containing lunar and meteorite samples?

Or maybe they attempted to rationalize the shortcut to
personal profit as being no worse than shortcuts taken
by top execs of certain bankrupt corporations.

Second thoughts in jail

It might have seemed an exciting lark, right up until they
were arrested over the weekend. But don't you imagine
they started to have second thoughts while sitting in jail
and waiting for their shocked and disappointed folks to
bail them out?

Shae Lynn Saur, 19, an engineering student at Lamar
University. How proud her family must have been of her
summer job at NASA.

Tiffany Brooke Fowler, 22, a recent graduate of Texas
Lutheran University. She landed a NASA internship, no
doubt with plenty of recommendations from professors
who believed in her abilities and potential.

Thad Ryan Roberts, 25, a graduate of the University of
Utah with a triple major. He worked at NASA's Neutral
Buoyancy Lab. Authorities fingered him as the main man
in the moon sample snatch, the leader of the gang.

Gordon Sean McWhorter, 26, a college buddy of
Roberts'. He is the only one who did not work at NASA.

The others no longer work there. They got fired on
Monday. A federal prosecutor in Florida said that
conviction on the charges they face carries up to five
years' hard time and/or a fine of up to $250,000.

But that doesn't balance the scales of justice. Prison
terms and fines punish the perpetrators without repairing
the damage, without setting things right for the victims.
I'm one of the victims, same as every other U.S. citizen. I
want more than mere punishment. I'd like to see some
rehabilitation and some restoration.

I called Tom Russell, a law professor at the University of
Denver and formerly of the University of Texas. He
teaches a course on restorative justice and said that
restorative justice methods could work well in this
national-level case, much as they work when applied to
community-level crimes like home burglaries or graffiti
painting.

He said four questions should be asked:

1. Are they willing to hold themselves accountable? If
not, then we can forget the other three questions and
turn them over to the regular retributive justice system
for the hard time and/or big fine.

2. What was the harm done? In this case, Russell said, it
appears the harm was "the violation of a variety of
relationships of trust." The security breach was a harm
to others who work at NASA. Harm was done to the
relationship between NASA and the public that expects
NASA to protect our moon rocks.

Discussing a breach of trust

3. What can be done to repair the harm? It isn't easy to
answer this one. Russell suggested a meeting of the
people who took the rocks with some people who work
at NASA and some representatives of the American
public, "and maybe a couple of Apollo astronauts," and
have them all discuss "what a large breach of trust this
was and how important these moon rocks are as
symbols of American history."

4. Who should repair the harm? "In this case, it's pretty
clear," Russell said. He said those who took the rocks
should return to their colleges and talk about what they
did. "And they should talk to Americans like me who
watched the first lunar landings."

A restorative justice approach may strike you as a big
change, as thinking outside the box. If so, how fitting.
Making changes and thinking outside of boxes got us up
there in the first place, to gather those rocks, to take that
giant leap for mankind.

Thom Marshall's e-mail address is
thom.marshall_at_chron.com.
Received on Wed 24 Jul 2002 01:45:35 PM PDT