Popejoy entitled to day in court, to tell his story

I would like to respond to your July 17 editorial entitled "It's time for Judge Popejoy to explain." First, the disclosures. I have been an attorney for 33 years. I know Judge Popejoy but, since I do bankruptcy law, I do not practice before him. I write this simply as a private attorney who thinks that your editorial misses the point on a few key issues.

The call for Judge Popejoy to come forth, confess and fall on his sword is premature and smacks of a lynch mob mentality. It is obvious that the editorial board has already pronounced him guilty without the necessity of a trial and the constitutional protections we all are entitled to. The idea that "We know he's guilty. We don't need no stinkin' trial" seems to come right out of one of those old westerns where the mob is ready to hang' em high.

Let's slow down here. Give the man his day in court. This is no more than any of us would want, and be entitled to, for ourselves or one of our family members. He is innocent until found guilty in a court of law by a jury of his fellow citizens.

How important this principal is, yet how quickly we seem to dismiss it in many cases. He has the right to tell his story in court, not in the Daily Herald. He will also have to tell his story to the Judicial Inquiry Board, which disciplines judges in Illinois. All this will happen over the course of the coming months. However, expecting him to speak out now is not a reasonable request from the Daily Herald.

Kent A. Gaertner

Wheaton