"The Rich are Different from You and Me" [View All]

[question everything]

wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald.

For more than 20 years, WSJ reporter Dorothy Rabinowitz had exposed the witch hunts of accused child molesters in day care centers, detailing how over zealot prosecutors and hysteric moms encouraged small children to concoct stories.

Yesterday, summarizing the end of the John Karr's arrest and release, she concluded with these words:

In the end, no case was made against the Ramseys or any member of their family. It was impossible, during the last weeks of the John Karr drama, not to be reminded of the bitterness of this saga -- the books written, the libel suits filed and, not least, the unsolved murder. Impossible not to be reminded, too, of what the prosperous and influential Ramseys could achieve, by way of legal protection. Impossible to imagine, either, any one of those scores of accused citizens of modest means, facing investigations of child abuse filed by ambitious prosecutors, doing what the Ramseys could do -- namely, refuse to meet with police and submit to questioning other than on their own terms.

It is possible no one will ever know who killed JonBenet Ramsey. We can know, with certainty, as that case among others has proved, how much legal protection enough money can buy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115689742197749019.html?mod=todays_us_opinion (subscription)