Column

Whom do we blame for this tragedy?

By SUE CARLTON
Published August 22, 2007

You try to make sense of something that makes absolutely none.

A good cop is killed in the night for reasons we may never understand. His 24-year-old killer, shot dead by SWAT team snipers, turns out to be something much more sinister than the longtime two-bit thug he looked like on paper.

So who do you blame for Michael Allen Phillips, the man who murdered Hillsborough sheriff's Sgt. Ronald Harrison?

Do you blame his family? Blame the criminal justice system he entered at the age of 12? Blame the law, the lawyers, the judges?

Last week, blame landed squarely and rather unfairly on Hillsborough Circuit Judge Manuel Lopez.

Phillips was out on bail on traffic charges and felony fleeing from deputies in a chase when he was arrested in February. This time, Phillips was accused of hitting a man with a rake in what his lawyer called a trailer park "melee." Judge Lopez revoked bail.

After four months in jail, his lawyer asked for bail. Prosecutors wanted none.

In truth, Phillips looked like lots of defendants who pass through your local courthouse daily. His record was mostly misdemeanors. Domestic violence charges tended to melt away when victims didn't cooperate.

"He seemed no different," Judge Lopez said Tuesday. "Sometimes you get a feeling for something ... nothing stood out. There was nothing in this case that I saw at that hearing that tipped me this guy would do what he did."

Given that we're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, defendants are generally entitled to bail. A judge can consider the seriousness of the crime and other factors, including the fact that he was already out on bail and arrested again. Local judges make these calls in thousands of cases a year.

Judge Lopez set the amount at $30,000 - $12,000 more, by the way, than called for on a "bail schedule" of charges and corresponding dollar amounts that judges use as a guide.

Two months later, Phillips killed a respected deputy.

"Obviously, in hindsight it was a mistake for which I am very, very sorry," the judge said.

"God forbid," he said. "God forbid this happened."

If we knew the horror Phillips could bring, we would all have agreed to lock him up forever, right? Bury him under the jail, as they say at the courthouse. In fact, bury them all under the jail, right? Just be prepared to pay for some skyscraper-sized facilities pretty quick.

Daily judgment calls in a system crowded with defendants - "that's the gauntlet we walk," Lopez said.

Of course we want hindsight, answers, explanation for something so pointless and sad. The governor himself wondered whether his new "Anti-Murder Act" might have kept Phillips in jail. (Apparently not, since it's aimed at probationers and Phillips wasn't on probation.) When the judge got home from work Monday, a news crew for Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly was camped in his driveway.

Tuesday, the judge seemed to be looking for answers, too. Maybe the Legislature will pass a law revoking bail for anyone arrested while out on bail already. Maybe every case should be scrutinized very, very closely, no matter how it slows and burdens the system.

"If it saves somebody's life," the judge said, "it's well worth it."

[Last modified August 22, 2007, 00:23:17]