To the editor:

The article, “Appeals court: 13-year-old’s rapists must be resentenced” (Journal-World, Aug. 6), and the editorial, “Correctable error” (J-W, Aug. 11), provide some interesting contrasts. According to the article, the Kansas Court of Appeals found that a sentencing deviation by Judge Paula Martin was “an abuse of judicial discretion.” According to the editorial, it was a “mistake.”

According to the article, the appeals court said, “We conclude no reasonable person would have departed from the presumptive sentence to such an extent when considering only the valid departure factors stated within.” According to the editorial, “Even the most conscientious judge can have a lapse.”

According to the editorial, “our legal system doesn’t depend on judges or attorneys to be infallible.” It does, however, depend on them to be just. The absence of that quality in a judge is not a “correctable error.”

Michael Riley,

Lawrence