Forum Editorial: Has justice been served?

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That’s the question the NOCOMO Board of Trustees has asked us all to think about since Nicki Samson, former general manager of the local sheltered workshop, was sentenced to five years of probation on Monday for her part in stealing $483,000 from the organization.

If you’re anything like us, you’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a tricky question to answer — but an important one to discuss as a community.

Samson’s scheme was a despicable one that took advantage of some of the most vulnerable people in our community — the people she was supposed to be responsible for. So we certainly understand those who believe that Samson got off with little more than a slap on the wrist since she will not have to serve jail time.

NOCOMO board members are counted among that number. In a prepared statement in court on Monday, board member Debra Hull said, “the punishment for these crimes is not nearly as severe as we believe it should be.” And on Tuesday, NOCOMO’s attorney, Bob Sundell, told The Forum that the board wanted Samson to be punished with “the harshest sentence possible.” Under the original charges, class C felonies, that would have been 10 years in prison.

However, we can just as easily see the other side as well. Nobody was hurt, the money was almost immediately returned (minus the more than $23,000 Samson must pay back in restitution) and NOCOMO’s operations have seemingly gone on without significant hindrance, the board has said. So what good does it do for Samson to sit in prison? And although we wouldn’t hire her to do our taxes, a criminal mastermind or threat to the public she is not.

So we also don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe that Samson’s punishment is just.

It’s natural for us, like the victims at NOCOMO, to want to throw the book at Samson and see her suffer for committing such an indefensible crime that strikes at the heart of a cornerstone of public betterment in our community.

But that’s part of the reason why victims don’t get to decide the punishments for the criminals who have wronged them — in the United States of America, we don’t punish people based on what makes us feel better in the moment.

Instead, we elect someone whose job it is to pursue justice and uphold our community values in as impartial a manner as possible.

Unfortunately, Nodaway County Prosecuting Attorney Tina Deiter has decided not to participate in the discussion that she was elected to lead.

The NOCOMO board members have done right by the community they serve by standing up and saying they believe justice has not been done. We know what they would have liked to see happen to Samson. And it’s not hard to sympathize with their particular frustration that the prosecutor accepted an Alford plea as part of the deal — one in which Samson does not admit she committed the crime, but acknowledges that any reasonable group of 12 of her peers would be likely to look at the evidence and decide that she did, in fact, do it.

And yet, it was NOCOMO’s attorney who has provided the only defense for the plea deal by saying that board members “understand that there’s a risk involved with going to trial. That (it) entails a lot of time, effort, resources and a lot of unknown.”

Even if you don’t agree the tradeoff is worth it, those are nonetheless perfectly acceptable reasons for pursuing a plea deal with the punishment Samson will receive, along with several other reasons that wouldn’t be particularly outrageous.

Why is it left to the victim, then, to explain them?

When a case like Samson’s is over, we as a community want to feel something that lets us know we don’t live in a place where people who take advantage of our most vulnerable get away with it. And she didn’t get away with it. That’s unequivocal.

But did she receive justice? That’s extremely equivocal.

We, perhaps like many of our readers, are not as uncomfortable with the sentence itself as the lack of context around it.

Even Judge Corey Herron expressed his discomfort with the plea deal, saying in court on Monday, “It’s hard to be sympathetic to someone who continues, even today, not really to take responsibility.”

Can it be justice if the criminal doesn’t admit to ever having done anything wrong?

We’re open to the idea that yes, it can be. The explanation, though, must come from the person who made the deal on behalf of this community.

In the most high-profile case of her tenure as prosecutor, the judge said it would have been “more comforting” for the deal to be made without an Alford plea, and the victim stood up in court and questioned whether justice had truly been done. Regardless of whether we agree with the sentence itself, we expect — and deserve — more of our elected prosecutor than to say only “no comment” in response. That is not how justice is served.

We believe NOCOMO’s question for the public is an important one for all of us to discuss. What we consider justice to be is deeply interwoven into the fabric of who we are as a community. It’s not unreasonable for people to be outraged about Samson’s sentence, and it’s not unreasonable for people to be perfectly fine with it.

But if there’s one thing justice can never be, it’s without any reason at all. And if no one will offer up the reasons, how can anyone truly say whether Samson, or anybody else, has been served justice? All that’s left is chaotic punishment, not justice.

By declining to engage with her constituents, Prosecutor Deiter has only made things more complicated as all eyes turn to her treatment of Samson’s alleged accomplice, Margaret Helzer, whose case was continued to Sept. 23. It’s not hard to imagine Helzer agreeing to a similar plea deal. And if that’s what Prosecutor Deiter believes is appropriate, then she should say so. And if the only thing stopping her from giving her explanation is that Helzer’s case is pending, she should say that too.

In the meantime, then, the rest of us are left to ponder whether anyone really has an answer to NOCOMO’s question.

Has justice been served?