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| Foreword |
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Foreword by David L. McGee
Chief Deputy United States Attorney
"United States of America vs.
Yamanis, et. al. and
Donald E. Kirchner"
This is a message I never thought I would write.
The events of this book center on the early 80's. America's war on drugs was just getting into full swing and I and my colleagues were its warriors. Our attitudes were molded by the times, and they were hard. We had seen the havoc that drugs wrought. We had seen individuals destroyed by drugs, our society corrupted by its money, and whole nations come under the control of drug lords. For these wrongs we wanted to exact a high price. We wanted not just to fix a troubled society, we wanted to exact a measure of revenge on those who had created these problems. We routinely sought the harshest possible penalties, yet it is difficult to be involved in the criminal justice system and not be aware of and moved by the human element.
What caused me to pull Don Kirchner from the fire, I cannot say. In my 21 years as a prosecutor I did this from time to time with people who somehow struck me as redeemable, as able to atone for their wrongs in some way other than prison. There was no precise equation for those I selected; it was a very personal decision by me, and one that caused me no small measure of concern. I made efforts to follow the lives of these people from a distance to see if my decision was justified by the conduct of their lives. I lived in fear that I may have been wrong; that this person might be beyond redemption, or that they would cause some untold harm that would ultimately be my fault. I felt that it was important that these people earn the break they had been given, that they redeem me with lives that made a difference. More than 20 years later, I still hear from many of these people. I am proud that in almost every instance my gamble paid off with good and decent lives that did, in fact, make a difference. Don Kirchner is one of these people. He was pulled from the fire on a hunch, on a vague sense of something decent in this man that would ultimately reward society. He has earned his break, and has paid the price a thousand times over.
Having watched his life from afar, and taken silent pride in his accomplishments, I feel like the adventurer in the popular movie who, on making a very difficult and critical choice, is told "You have chosen wisely." |
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$17.95 |
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$23.95 |
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