By Marc Klaas

"There is no defense." -- Defense Attorney Barry Collins (5/29/96)

The criminal justice system serves the needs of the criminals much more than the needs of the victims. Only three witnesses took the stand for the defense today: A parole officer and two investigators for the District Attorney. Figuring that there is enough for everybody, the defense team attempted to spread the blame around. On Oct. 15, 1993, two weeks after Polly's death, parole officer Thomas Burns downgraded Davis' parole status from a high control parolee, meaning that there was violence in his background, to control service parolee. Defense attorney Lorena Chandler claimed that the downgraded status proved that the system failed her client.

How dare she make such a statement. The system did not fail Richard Allen Davis. The system failed Polly Klaas. The system allowed a vampire the opportunity to sink his fangs into an innocent. The system put him back onto the streets despite countless warnings from psychiatrists, empirical evidence that he would strike again and the boundaries of common sense. The system then allowed this pervert to slip out of their hands on the very night of the crime. The overburdened parole officer did not even know Polly existed. It is this kind of outrageous conduct that makes me lose all respect for defense attorneys.

The system is designed, legislated, defended, prosecuted, judged, and appealed by lawyers. The system is a full employment act for lawyers. They perpetuate the revolving doors of justice. Richard Allen Davis is representative of perhaps a million predators who have been and will continue to be released back into society only to strike again. This nightmare repeats itself across this land far too often. Almost every day I speak to yet another parent of a child victimized in some way by a recidivist violent offender. If Ms. Chandler wishes to spread the blame around, I suggest she look in the mirror.

The prosecution presented such a fine tuned, meticulously researched and proven case that there were no avenues left to explore. The defense never challenged the one point in dispute, the rape of Polly. The killer's downgraded parole proves that Polly's death meant no more than a forgotten toothbrush, and that Davis is not a human being, but a monster who shows no remorse for a life taken.

Two and a half years and two million dollars and it comes to this. A defense strategy that is nothing more than a fishing expedition. No point raised by the defense had any relationship whatsoever to Polly's tragedy. It is a mirror game designed to spread the blame for a crime that was committed by a single individual. If this incredible waste of time, money, energy and emotion proves anything at all, it is that there is no defense for the indefensible.