The Case Of Anthony Taliana

Having spent 12 years of my life at the Corradino Correctional Facility working in the field of the education and rehabilitation of persons who break the law, I cannot but state that I am very worried about the fact that it is becoming common for several citizens to take on the mantle of judge and jury and pass judgment on people who are accused of breaking the law before these are sentenced or acquitted of the charges brought against them.

A case in point is that of Anthony Taliana. Here we have a case of a person who is accused of involuntary homicide, driving in a dangerous manner when drunk, failing to stop at an accident, driving without insurance, and relapsing after being convicted for dangerous driving and fined. These are the facts, everything else is superfluous. Mr Taliana will now have to answer to these charges, the due process of law will be followed and justice will be done.

The lifestyle of the accused is nobody's business and has nothing to do with the matter in question. Likewise, the good qualities of the person killed should not enter into the equation. Let me ask a simple question : "How would those people who want to crucify Anthony Taliana have reacted had an older and more respected person done the same thing and had the person killed been somebody with a bad reputation instead of a very good one?"

I would also like to state that I consider as very unfortunate the timing and the title of the Sedqa press release of August 11, 2009 entitled "Zero tolerance to drinking and driving". Sedqa should stick to its work, which I will be the first to commend, and not issue a press release with a title which is bound to influence people in the light of the recent events associated with the Anthony Taliana case. When citizens start interfering with the course of justice as in the case of the spiteful e-mail which I also received to try and influence me against Anthony Taliana, then the very basis of our legal system will be under threat. Believe me, it is no idle matter.