Greater Atlantans and interested others elsewhere will be watching how justice manifests itself Monday in a Fulton County courtroom when 10 former educators learn the price to be paid for their roles in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter has the unenviable task of meting out sentences to the defendants convicted April 1 of conspiracy to commit racketeering and other charges stemming from widespread cheating on standardized tests at APS schools.
The no-nonsense Baxter has strongly suggested that wrist-tap leniency will not be forthcoming. The latest telegraphing of that sentiment came when he ordered 10 of the APS 11 jailed immediately after the verdict as defense attorneys protested the handcuffing and walking-off of former practitioners of an honorable calling. A pregnant defendant remains free, to be sentenced later.
The law here backs a throw-the-book outcome. A felony racketeering charge common among the convictions carries a maximum prison term of 20 years. Add in incarceration allowed for other, related counts of theft, false statements and the like, and decades in prison are a possibility for these disgraced ex-educators. Stiff sentences indeed for what were, in essence, white-collar crimes — admittedly ones that disgracefully assaulted community ideals and vulnerable young minds.
In the dozen days between the verdict and sentencing, the jury’s decision and the punishment to follow have been discussed at length by community leaders and ordinary citizens alike. A rally has been held, and op-eds distributed.
All are a natural reflection of the uniqueness, tragedy and infamy of this case. Unlike more-typical crimes committed by unsympathetic criminals, the allegations raised in the APS case shocked polite, law-abiding society. With good reason, considering well-educated professionals, for whatever reasons, set aside their calling’s obligation to educate often-poor children and acted to falsify test results for personal benefit. That is a shock against a well-ordered society. And a hard blow to the psyche and life prospects of the vulnerable minors entrusted to these educators’ care.
Such an offense to this community’s whole understandably draws forth anger and a desire for harsh retribution. It’s a natural response, especially for those whose instinct is to safeguard our children, particularly those already at high risk for poor outcomes in this life.
Yet, the primal craving for raw vengeance should not overtake the day, we believe. Judge Baxter, despite his courtroom bluster at times, must serve a greater, higher calling Monday when he pronounces sentence. Doing that will require a Solomonic divination of how to blend punishment, wisdom, equity and, yes, mercy, in a manner such that the sentence fits the crime. Nothing more, and no less. That will be far harder to achieve in reality than it is to describe in theory. But it is what should happen.
Playwright William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” offers an oft-quoted summation that’s relevant here: “And earthly power doth then show likest God’s When mercy seasons justice.”
This Editorial Board’s urging of compassion at sentencing should not be taken as dialing down the severity of what a jury has now found to be a reprehensible, far-reaching conspiracy of wrongdoing. Far from it. Vulnerable children were harmed by this cheating and, short of divine intervention, there seems no way to fully address the damage done. The full sweep of the injury visited on children, APS, public education in general and society is hard to fathom, or adequately put into words.
Yet, all of that taken together does not make for an offense worthy of sending wayward educators to prison for decades, where they would unproductively fester alongside violent offenders whose sentences more-aptly fit their crimes.
We won’t condemn Baxter if he deems the APS defendants worthy of spending some additional period of time in jumpsuits and behind bars. The call of justice would seem to demand, though, that prison sentences be measured at most in months or single-digit sums of years. Decades of incarceration would be cruelly excessive in our view, and out of proportion with sentences routinely handed down for similar offenses. Especially when considering also that public humiliation, financial decimation, loss of career livelihood and forfeiting of pensions are significant punishments in their own right.
And in the real-life-is-stranger-than-fiction category, we might well be recommending exactly the opposite of mercy had former APS Superintendent Beverly Hall lived long enough to stand trial. Had she been convicted of similar crimes, we would have no quarrel with urging Judge Baxter to impose a stiff prison sentence, perhaps the longest allowable under law. Such would have been appropriate for a leader of APS who remained steadfast in unrepentance while this sorry chapter unfolded, besmirching a city and a profession in the process.
Providence ruled that such a trial was not to take place within earthly courts. About that, we can do nothing. And the APS 11, by proxy, should not bear punishment that might have been visited upon Hall, had she been convicted.
All of which amounts to a heavy bar for Judge Baxter to meet on Monday. Justice, though, demands nothing less.
Andre Jackson, for the Editorial Board.
