Mirror - Vol. 06, No. 07 - October 07, 1982

              "The Image
of
Fairfield"
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Volume 6, No. 7, Thursday, October 7,1982 Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut 06430 Incorporated 1977
F. Lee Bailey Cross-
Examines Judicial System
by David M. Rothbard
Staff Writer
Expressing his views on the
courts and current controversial
issues, F. Lee Bailey held a sold-out
lecture in the Oak Room in ad-dition
to an interview with the
MIRROR.
"A measure of a society ss
sophistication, culture, anc n-tegrity,
and is usually the extei■. to
which they make it difficult to put
someone in jail," said Bailey when
discussing the present judicial
system in our country.
When asked about the insanity
plea of John Hinckley, Bailey said
that the insanity defense is a good
one, but is misnamed, "The ver-dict
should read: 'guilty but men-tally
ill.' " He adds that the ques-tion
of insanity is not a question of
guilt or innocence but a question
of what sentence should be ad-ministered.
"The criminal should
be put away until he is well even if
it means a life sentence in a men-tal
hospital."
Addressing the Oak Room crowd, F. Lee Bailey charges "Equestrian
Judges think they are horses; they ride over anone In sight with no regard
for their rights." [Photo by Kevin Wolfthai]
Break-Downs, Malfunctions Plague
Townhouse Residents
by Matthew Benedict
Staff Writer
Student residents in the
Townhouses have begun to
scrutinize workmanship of the
new complex.
Since the moving in process be-gan,
the Townhouses have been
plagued with minor and major re-pair
problems, such as over-flowing
toilets, leaky pipes, and
faulty wiring.
According to John Dunigan of
Fairfield University Maintenance,
in a phone interview, the minor
repair problems that are now oc-curring
are "normal." Dunigan
continued, "We even have pro-blems
with the work done and
ging on in Bellarmine."
Dunigan added, "There is no
new job where eveyrthing will be
perfect." Some items that are "not
normal," such as "throwing things
into toilets causing them to clog"
or "not closing a shower curtain
and having the water run out over
the floor," are "not necessarily
workmanship problems." "The
touch-ups are on punch-lists, and
are in the process of being cor-rected/'
Dunigan added, and that
"it will take time to fix these."
: Phyllis Fitzpatrick, Director of
Student Residences, said that
"the damages are minimal in com-parison
to the positive replies I
have had." Fitzpatrick went on to
say, "There have been instances
not to be considered normal, such
as a stove not working, but these
will or have been taken care of."
She also commented, "At home, it
takes a few days, sometimes a
week, to get a repairman to even
come and look at the problem. In
these cases, we feel a week is not
too long of a time to wait... and
the repairs will get done."
Provost John Barone made
similar comments stating that
"these problems are expectable,"
and "there are minor problems
with any new home or office built,
such as we here iq Bellarmine are
trying to chase the contractor to
get the renovations done and
minor repair jobs finished."
Barone said this (the Town-houses)
"is a new experience for
both the University and the stu-dents.
We will have to find out just
what the residents can do on their
own, what the University can do,
and what the contractor can do.
Its an adjustment period of re-sponsibility."
"Overall," Barone added, "I
have been pleased with the Town-houses
so far. It is a good, positive
experience, and I am not unhappy
with this new student-ad-
Contlnued on page 4
Fichter's Lecture Endorses
Religious Toleration
by Tricia Kowalski
Staff Writer
Americans brag that they can
live comfortably in a world of re-ligious
pluralism, tolerating
various religions other than their
own. In reality; however, the coun-try
is experiencing a new crusade
of religious bigotry. These are the
views of Fr. Joseph Fichter,
distinguished Jesuit scholar,
teacher, and author. He presented
his opinions in an Oak Room lec-ture
on Wednesday night,
September 29th.
The main focus of Fichter's
sociological perspective of
religious cults was that the same
people who believe in religious
tolerance are opposed to religious
cults. "We're very tolerant up to a
point," he said, "but we like a cen-tral
conformity to a certain
ethics."
Fichter is of the opinion that to
be tolerant of other religions is to
be able to accept all other
religions, no matter how different
they are from one's own. This in-cludes
the "televangelists," such
as Rex Humbard, Billy Graham,
and Jerry Fallwell, as well as
religious cults such as the Hari
Krishna movement, the Way, and
the Unification Church.
He pointed out that contrary to
popular belief, the religious cults
attract middle-class Americans,
"not hippies and doped-up
dropouts." America is undergoing
a general growth in religion.
In light of the widespread con-demnation
of modern religious
cults, Fichter poses the question,
"What is so different about these
cults?" He feels that all "main
line" religions evolved from cults,
and that a group such as Christ's
twelve disciples can be con-sidered
a cult, and that such acts
as the veneration of the Shroud of
Turin, and the benediction of the
blessed sacrament can be con-sidered
cultist acts.
The term "cult" has become a
derogatory one in society. Any
religious group that is "exotic, de-viant,
or strange" is populaly call-ed
a cult.
Fichter presented a brief history
of the evolution of modern
religious cults. They began in the
sixties, a revolutionary time of
youth turmoil from which evolved
the hippie, the flower child, the
dropout, peace movements, civil
rights movements, sit-ins, protest
marches, and riots.
The late sixties were a period of
transition. It marked the end of
rebellious students, and the
Continued on page 4
In the celebrated Boston
Strangler case in which Bailey was
the defending attorney, Bailey
said that he would have been con-tent
with a verdict of "guilty but
mentally ill," but there was no
such verdict on the books in
Massachusetts. The Boston
Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, receiv-ed
a ten year plus life sentence.
Mr. Bailey feels that allowing
media cameras inside the court-room
would be beneficial, "I can
think of 92 reasons for and about
eight against," and he said that
the television cameras might pre-vent
people from lying under oath.
"They would be afraid of someone
coming forward with the truth," he
claims.
"The media," he continued, "on-ly
affects the outcome of a trial
when one of two things happen.
Either when a paper uses its
editorial opinion to influence a ver-dict
or when a newspaper know-ingly
publishes evidence which
has been suppressed by the court
on the eve of a trial." "Then," he
said, "the press should be held
civilly liable for any damage they
might have caused."
Confronted with the idea of the
lawyer and the "Perry Mason Im-age,"
Bailey said that a reasonable
objective in any case is to get a
good result. "You can't take a guy
who's guilty as hell and set as the
objective winning the case."
Bailey feels that journalists
should not hide behind the First
Amendment to protect a source
because they don't have the legal
right to make such a promise to
their informants. "It would be far
better off if journalists knew they
can't protect their sources if the
evidence was pertinent to a case."
A cashless society was the
basis for Bailey's lecture, and dur-ing
the interview he said that we
must take away the tool of the
criminal which is cash. "Carrying
around large sums of cash is not
necessary to the function of
legitimate people."
135 Hobie Cats participated in the regatta held Sunday at Jennings
Beach. Fleet 208 of Fairfield sponsored this qualifying race for the
1983 national championships. For details see story on page 3.