05.24.2008 1:27 am
Plain talk about a complicated city
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The Post-Dispatch editorial page welcomed St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce to The Platform.
4 comments
Nice embrace of web 2.0. But it’s not just racial unrest, it’s civil unrest in response to the criminal justice system. Joyce recognized it but failed to mention the underpinnings justifying the unrest. When society can’t trust the court system to protect them, democracy is just another word. And juries respond accordingly.
Well done. Very good insight into Jennifer Joyce and the problems facing our city and the criminal justice system.
Harder to get a conviction? Dramatically lower level of trust for law enforcement? I guess that would be why the crime rate in the city is so high. Crooks aren’t as dumb as some people think - they know that if you do the crime in the city, there’s a good change you WON’T do the time.
Eddie Roth writes about education, social justice, public safety, transportation, legal affairs and historic preservation. He joined the Post-Dispatch editorial page in 2008 after six years as an editorial writer with the Dayton Daily News. But he is not new to St. Louis. Eddie grew up in Webster Groves and south St. Louis County. He's a lawyer who for many years practiced with a downtown firm, and was active in civic affairs, including serving a term on the St. Louis Police Board. He and his wife, Jeanne, and their three daughters, Emily, Julia and Alice, live in the Shaw Neighborhood.
When it comes to community organizing, he endorses Quentin Crisp's advice: Rather than keeping up with the Joneses, it's better to pull them down to your level. 
Very fair and level-headed comments by Jennifer Joyce. One cause of the law enforcement problem in the city of St. Louis is that some juries are so reverse-racially biased that criminals go free.