Last week we got a quadruple-dose of what justice looks like in "the city the never sleeps" — New York City.
None of it's pretty — at all.
Case One:
A week ago to the day a tall, disheveled man with a long, mangy beard named Ramon Rivera launched what CNN called "an urban nightmare."
He used a kitchen knife to commit a series of random murders of three total strangers.
Despite severe mental health issues and a lengthy criminal history, beginning in Florida, then Ohio, New Jersey, and finally at least eight arrests in New York within the last year, Rivera received an early release from Rikers Island prison a month before the murders.
He was promptly rearrested for stealing a $1,500 item from a high-end Manhattan home goods store after his release, and was promptly released on his own recognizance at his arraignment — no cash bail.
That enabled Rivera to go on his killing spree.
Case Two:
If there was one thing in life that Luis Gabriel Santamaria loved, it was his two-year-old pit bull named Kith, which he had raised from a puppy.
"I had him since he was a baby, since he was one-month old," Santamaria told The New York Post. "He was literally my best friend."
On Nov. 1, Santamaria got into an argument at a Halloween party with Alberto Morris, a migrant he’d befriended. Morris ended the dispute by snatching Santamaria’s keys to storm into his apartment, grab his dog and throw it out the 14th story balcony.
By the time Santamaria was able to get home it was too late.
Kith was lying dead on the sidewalk.
"I never would have thought he would do what he did, murder my dog for no reason," Santamaria said.
Morris was arrested and charged on Nov. 18 with aggravated cruelty to animals, grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, criminal mischief, and torturing an animal.
Despite the horrific nature of his crime, and the string of charges, some of them felonies, Morris was released from custody immediately after his arraignment a few days later.
But that doesn’t mean everyone gets off easy in New York.
Case Three:
Everyone should be familiar with the Daniel Penny case.
He’s the clean-cut decorated former Marine who’s charged in the death of Jordan Neely.
Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with severe mental health issues and a long criminal record, entered a New York subway car and threatened to kill everyone there.
Penny placed Neely in a choke hold to protect himself and his fellow passengers.
When police arrived:
- Bodycam footage showed the other passengers praising Penny for protecting them from a "drugged out" Neely, with one stating, "The guy in the tan (Penny) did take him down really respectfully. . . he didn't choke him."
- This was confirmed by the police themselves. They checked Neely’s vital signs and announced that he still had a pulse — he was alive, as confirmed by video taken at the scene.
Despite the evidence, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose election was supported by the George Soros family, indicted Penny for second degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
Penny has spent nearly the past month in a courtroom defending his actions.
A pathologist called by the defense last week confirmed what the responding officers discovered — that "Jordan Neely’s cause of death wasn’t Daniel Penny chokehold — but 'combined effects' of drugs, struggle and schizophrenia."
Case Four:
A Manhattan jury found former (and future) President Donald J. Trump guilty of 34 felony charges in late May, and Trump lawyers moved to have the case dismissed on the basis of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that as president, he was immune from such prosecution.
Instead, Alvin Bragg said he would agree to pause sentencing until Trump finishes his second term, a decision that disgusted former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz.
This way, "every time that President Trump travels abroad, he is the president who has a jury conviction hanging over him," he told Newsmax Sunday.
Additionally, Trump can’t appeal the convictions until after sentencing.
Conclusion:
In New York’s revolving door justice system, you can commit all the crimes you want, including breaking into someone else’s apartment and throwing their pet off a 14th-story balcony, and be released without bail.
But if you’re a Good Samaritan coming to the aid of a subway car of frightened passengers, or a president whose politics you disagree with, look out.
In either case they’re gonna throw the book at you, even if — in Trump’s case — they have to invent the charges.
In the Big Apple, nobody wins: Instead of " . . . and justice for all," it’s " . . . and justice for none."
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and a Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.