United States v. William E. Sullivan

MEDINA, Circuit Judge

(dissenting):

I respectfully dissent. In all good conscience I cannot join in affirming this conviction. In my opinion this poor, bedraggled derelict, for many years a chronic alcoholic, should not have been prosecuted. There are and must be times when the strong arm of the law should be stayed out of pure mercy. And I wonder whether, now and then, we do not spin out rules of law with all too fine distinctions of general application, at the expense of that sensitivity to the meting out of justice in the particular case before the Court, which lies at the base of any system of law worthy of the name.