By Mansfield Frazier
“We’re gonna give you a fair trial, followed by a first-class hanging.” This somewhat famous line from the 1985 oater Silverado demonstrates that cowboys tried to maintain at least a façade of fairness as they dispensed their rough brand of injustice.
However (no doubt due to the four-year — and still counting — county corruption scandal), no such fig leaf of fairness covers the call emanating from some quarters of the media for the citizenry to rise up en masse and demand that some local business owners (who’ve never committed any crime or even been accused of doing so) be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail. Editorials calling such businesses “tainted” if they are in any way related to one of the convicted members of the cast of characters in the long-running county melodrama amounts to guilt by association … a notion any fair-minded individual should reject out-of-hand. And to bar such companies from bidding on public contracts probably is illegal to boot.
It was easy to predict: with us being citizens of the most punitively-minded country the world has ever known, I knew that sooner rather than later we would overreact to the corruption probe and begin demanding that some kind jury-rigged litmus/morality/blood-relationship test be administered to every businessperson attempting to do business with any governmental entity in the county. Backlashes based on faux moral awakenings usually arise from breaches of the public trust … but they often go too far in the other direction — toward casting aspersions on the innocent as well as the guilty.
Caught up in the feeding frenzy of media-generated hubris, topped-off with an overblown sense of self-righteousness, and exacerbated by politicians hell-bent on demagoguery to further their careers, we now find ourselves once again in danger of being lead down one of those murky, blind paths of false indignation to a dead end where democracy eventually gets mugged.
Of course we all should want to live in a corruption-free society and should make every legitimate effort to do so … but how far do we go, how many rights do we trample on to achieve this admittedly noble goal? When do the legitimate become the illegitimate?
While it’s completely understandable that Ferris Kleem — the convicted former paving contractor from Berea — should be barred from running a company bidding on public works, his wife and three sons should not be castigated for picking up the pieces of their shattered lives by bravely reestablishing some kind of future for their families — that doesn’t entail them going on food stamps — by doing what they know how to do: Forming a new company to do paving and sidewalk contracting work. Again, they’ve never even been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime.
Sadly, we’re among the few countries of the world where the justice system is fond of not only incarcerating the malefactor, but also attempts to insure his/her spouse and progeny are stripped of as many assets as possible and forced into penury, there to forever remain. It’s like schadenfreude on steroids … we just seem to delight in kicking someone — or, better yet, an entire family — when they are down.
And, just in case you’re wondering, no, I’ve never met any of the Kleem family (nor do I care to since this really isn’t about them as much as it’s about basic fair play) … but I damn sure know a thing or two about biased, ill treatment; all minorities in America have, at one time or another, experienced this national proclivity.
Ferris Kleem was referred to in print as the “disgraced” and “crooked” contractor in an effort to set up the reader for what was to come by using pejorative terms. The editors knew that in a few days the paper was going to run an editorial decrying the fact Kleem’s family won a bid (fair and square by the way) for some contracting work for which the county foots part of the bill, and the newspaper wanted the public to go berserk in support of their unfair position on the matter; but what the readership should be going berserk over is the call by the newspaper for businesspersons to be treated in this un-American manner. To suggest the new business established by the members of Kleem’s family is somehow gaming the system when they win bids is unfounded, unfair, and based on total media speculation, conjecture and opinion … not facts.
I guarantee you that if any investigator looked long and hard enough they can find a wrong-doer related to someone in any field or endeavor … including editorial writing for a newspaper. The question is, is it legal (or more importantly, fair) to impinge and potentially debar someone from honest, gainful employment because of a relatives’ conviction? For how many generations should the banning be passed down … to the perpetrator’s grandchildren, or perhaps even their great-grandchildren?
What is the media afraid of … that Kleem’s family might be able to keep a roof over their heads and somehow manage to go on with their lives? Heaven forefend they should be able to maintain strong family ties with their loved one during this period of difficultly, and hold the fort until he returns home from his period of just punishment. He alone did the crime, and he alone will do the time … so why should his family be made to suffer financially also?
The problem is the slippery slope we begin to descend when we attempt to deny someone the right to pursue an honest living sans a criminal conviction. Ferris Kleem was convicted, his family wasn’t. Who’s to decide which businesses we should go after: for what crimes … committed by what relatives … for how far back … and how far into the future are they to be punished … again, all without them having committed any crime?
By way of example, a large Lake County construction company with very close family ties to the Russo clan has regularly been winning all kinds of contracts locally since the scandal broke without the newspaper raising an eyebrow. If the ace PD reporters are not aware of the company I’m referring to they can simply give me a call and I’ll bring them up to speed.
With that said, my question is … what’s the difference between these two companies? Why is one under the microscope and the other is is not? Again, who decides?
The truth of the matter is that neither of these companies — or any others that haven’t broken any laws — deserves to be singled out or subjected to an extra degree of scrutiny due merely to family ties. What’s next, debarring people and companies — preventing them from conducting business — simply because some over-the-top, reform-minded politician simply doesn’t like them? Where does it all end … in a creeping form of totalitarianism?
We do have this pesky notion of due process in this country and its utilization cannot be selectively based on media or political whims; it has to apply equally and fairly to everyone, in every case, without bias … or the rules that govern our society are not worth the paper they’re printed on.
The only thing that stinks worse than the smell of corruption is the stench of blue-nosed hypocrisy, and the scurrilous attempt by the PD to paint anyone — especially elected officials who disagree or won’t meekly go along with their agenda — as somehow being implacably against real reform.
It’s not that they’re against “reform” … it’s just they’re more inclined toward basic fair treatment — for everyone. In a just society the two need not be incompatible. True democracy is not a popularity contest, and it demands that if we err, we err on the side of inclusion, not exclusion … no matter if we “like” the parties involved or not. No one has to “like” the Kleem clan … but, no one has the legal right to dog them out either.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.