Toss decides justice

Press, 10 February 1982, Page 15

Toss decides justice

NZPA New York Heads you go to jail for 30 days and tails you go for only 20. That, in effect, is how a Criminal Court Judge in New York meted out a sentence recently to an 18-year-old pickpocket. After Jeffrey Jones pleaded guilty, Judge Alan Friess said he would send him to jail for 30 days. Jones

objected to the sentence, telling the Judge he thought 20 days would be more suitable. “Is your client a gambling man?” Judge Friess then asked Jones’ lawyer/ Without waiting for a reply, the Judge asked the astonished prosecutor to produce a coin. He then handed the coin to Jones. “What do you have, a twoheaded coin?” Jones asked Judge Friess, who had come

under fire last year when he released a woman murder suspect without bail and permitted her to spend the night in his apartment. “Call heads or tails,” ordered Judge Freiss. Jones called tails and “won” a 20-day sentence. Manhattan District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, when asked to comment on the incident, said: “I think it is outrageous.”