{"id":1685,"date":"2008-02-07T11:06:17","date_gmt":"2008-02-07T11:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/defendant-bites-err-punches-la.html"},"modified":"2008-02-07T11:06:17","modified_gmt":"2008-02-07T11:06:17","slug":"defendant-bites-err-punches-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/defendant-bites-err-punches-la.html","title":{"rendered":"A Story of Forgiveness, Humor, and Courtroom Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the more profound news stories of the day surfaced this morning via a clip on the MSNBC website<\/a> and “The Today Show.” I was struck by the ugliness, the beauty, the comic relief, and the missing link. There was quite a bit of cultural revelation going on in this little incident.Ugly<\/strong>. In a Georgetown courtroom earlier this week, inmate Peter Hafer was appearing at a pretrial hearing with his attorney, Doug Crickmer. A they stood just a few feet from the judge and within arms reach of a bailiff and another man, Hafer suddenly cocked his right arm, loaded his body for torque, and delivered a brawny punch that knocked his attorney out cold. NBC shows the punch 11 times in the clip, including several in slow-motion and a couple in super slow-mo. If you only want to see it once, view it here<\/a>.Beauty<\/strong>. Meredith Viera interviewed Mr. Crickmer after proclaiming the piece of the story that made this real news: “The attorney is choosing to forgive his attacker.” How wonderful! A news story about forgiveness! No lawsuit. No accusations. Perhaps it messes with your mind that the attorney is the good guy, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the story. “As a public defender, the majority of my clients have a mental illness,” said Crickmer. “I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fault him or blame him or harbor any ill will.” Levity<\/strong>. Mr. Crickmer turns out to be the ultimate straight man, the master of the understatement. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got some bruising in the face, some swelling, a cut to the cheek, and they took a CT scan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d explained Crickmer, revealing nothing that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be observed by just looking at him. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He definitely one-shotted me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d When assessing Mr. Hafer, Crickmer noted astutely that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got some anger management issues.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And regarding the County\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to assign another attorney: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I definitely think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a conflict of interest there now.\u00e2\u20ac\u009dMissing Link<\/strong>. I was thrilled to see a moral value being raised up as a news story, and the natural question from Viera should have been something like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where do you find it in you to forgive such a person, who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s caused this physical pain and perhaps future emotional pain?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This really seems rare; tell us about the process you went through to choose to forgive this man.\u00e2\u20ac\u009dOur society needs to raise up the morals and values that were popular back when, well, we talked more about morals and values. While I praise MSNBC and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Today Show\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for bringing the story to light, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure we needed to see the punch 11 times, and I wish we could have learned more about his source, whether spiritual or otherwise. Mr. Crickmer got sucker-punched. The remaining question was, “Is he a sucker?”Here’s the “Today Show” clip: