Dying Girl Denied Chance To Visit Father

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by jsarno

We all know this is a society of pointing to someone that preceded us in any venture. This case WILL come up again for someone's client to use as a reason to allow them to see a dying loved one...the question will then be, do we have the proper people in place to make a "common sense" decision regarding THIER "extraordinary situation"?

Legal precedent has varying applicablility in various situations. In this case, any precedent would be to the non-binding informal policy of the BOP that is EXTREMELY discretionary in the first place. The fact that attorneys may reference this case does not mean they will be successful. In fact, based on my 16 years of experience as a regulatory enforcement attorney, such attempts will be unsuccessful unless the exact same situation arises again. This case is simply not the get-out-of-jail-free card you are trying to make it out to be.

Further, and more importantly, the mere fact that someone may try to use the gov'ts actions against it in the future is simply no reason for the gov't not to do the right thing now. Governance by fear leads to more bad results than this decision ever would.