Offner's Sentence

IN SENTENCING Carl D. Offner to a year in prison for allegedly shoving Dean Watson during the seizure of University Hall, Judge Edward M. Viola has again demonstrated that people who commit offenses involving Harvard University must expect biased and vicious treatment in Cambridge's courts.

In passing sentence on Offner in East Cambridge District Court on Friday, Viola clearly indicated that it was the political context of Offner's act, rather than the act itself, which produced the extraordinarily harsh penalty. After the Commonwealth had recommended a sentence of six months for the assault and battery conviction, Viola gratuitously doubled the sentence for no apparent reason other than his own outrage at the act and, apparently, at the seizure of University Hall itself. Had Offner shoved a fellow student in the way that he is alleged to have shoved Watson, Viola would never have entertained any notion of sending him to jail for a year: it is therefore clear that Viola's sentence was politically rather than judicially motivated.

Whether Offner actually did assault Watson as charged is still uncertain. Offner himself denied the charge, and the prosecution could produce no one other than Watson himself to testify that Offner was one of the people who evicted the dean from the building. The unfairness of Offner's conviction is underscored by the fact that Watson was unable to identify anyone else involved in evicting him, although he did admit that several other people pushed him. The atmosphere during the seizure was obviously confused and hectic, and it is hard to believe that Watson could have been certain about Offner's identity while being completely unable to identify any of the others involved in his ejection.

Offner's case is now on appeal. In view of both the excessively harsh and politically motivated sentence, and the uncertainties surrounding the charge itself, Judge Viola's decisions should be overruled.