I read with regret the sad commentary by Jim and Jean Gervais about “mindset” as it applies to Craig Platt, candidate for the Superior Court bench.

Their own mind-set posits the uninformed and apparently intractable belief that a defense attorney’s job is “trying to help the guilty go free.”

Centuries of western jurisprudence hold sacrosanct the premise that guilt is established only by confession from the accused, or after a trial either summary or by jury.

The entitlement to defense requires that a competent attorney exert maximal diligence to defeat the charges of the prosecution. If an attorney is incompetent, the result may be a mistrial and censure or disbarment of the attorney.

Craig Platt’s resume includes his tenure as a federal prosecutor in the employ of a district attorney. Might this disclosure to the Gervaises admit a ray of informed intelligence sufficient to relieve their curse of mindset upon the man?

I would be relieved if it did. But somehow, I doubt it.

Cyril L. Greig

Oak Harbor