Judge gets schooled by ex-con
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Scott County Associate Judge Christine Dalton can take small comfort. Pachino Hill made it to church.
Dalton apparently hoped her court order requiring Hill’s Sunday church attendance might send a message to the lifelong criminal. Instead, it looks like Hill schooled the judge.
We hope Dalton is paying close attention.
Dalton included church attendance among several probation requirements for Hill’s guilty plea for running from police. Last Sunday, Hill complied with Dalton’s court order by arriving at Third Missionary Baptist Church just hours after being arrested yet again in connection with a violent crime. Police said he had struck someone in the head with a metal pipe.
The judge’s hopeful action was painfully naive. She was counting on the church to do something that police, probation officers, social workers, and judges before her could not.
Hopefully, Hill taught the judge not to tie a congregation’s faith-inspired service to a criminal’s sentence. That service should be a private matter between congregants and Hill. By putting it in the court order, Dalton damaged the reputation of a fine central Davenport church which never should have been mentioned as part of Hill’s probation.
By picking church attendance over home detention or jail, Dalton also endangered the public.
We hope and expect the faithful at Third Missionary will continue their Christian ministry to Hill. The church’s active outreach program and faith-inspired service to offenders is a godsend for central Davenport.
Christian redemption remains available to all through faith alone. But not by court order.
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