Public appeals, too, for DA’s ‘better nature’

The exploitation of Christmas isn’t anything new, but using it as a means to an end for a woman accused of stealing nearly $21,000 from the Unicoi County School System puts it at a new low.
Angie Williams entered a plea of “not guilty” last week as her case finally made its way into court.
Rather than getting on with the business at hand, Williams’ defense attorney, Jim Bowman, asked Judge Lynn Brown for a December court date. Surprised at the attorney’s request to extend court proceedings for nearly five months, Bowman explained it was his attempt to “appeal to the better nature of the district attorney.”
“In other words,” the judge said, “you want the date closest to Christmas.”
Appealing to District Attorney Tony Clark’s “better nature” is a good idea – in particular for the nearly 17,000 residents of Unicoi County who haven’t been accused of stealing money from the workers and children of a school system. At Christmastime, many residents, having done all they could to honestly get by, may still struggle and come up painfully short.
Let’s hope the DA’s “better nature” extends to all the victims – in this case, the taxpayers of Unicoi County.