Life and death jobs can happen in the strangest ways

I'm not sure why this came to mind today, but I was thinking about life and death jobs.

Not jobs where you're putting your life at risk by working there, but jobs where you can have an effect on whether people live or die.

During the five years I wrote a newspaper column, from 1996 to 2001, there were several times when something I wrote might actually have had something to do with keeping someone alive. On one occasion I helped someone find a compatible donor for a liver transplant, and on several others I helped people in desperate straits find the help they needed.

But until today, one thing that never occurred to me was that a column I didn't write may have resulted in someone not being alive today.

And I don't feel bad about it at all.

To tell this story, I have to keep all the names out of it, but in the late '90s I became aware of someone who had been arrested on numerous charges of pedophilia. There was quite a bit of evidence against him, but a parent of one of the victims called to tell me that the district attorney was considering dropping the case and not pressing charges at all.

I had no idea how that was possible, but I was told that since no intercourse had been involved, and it would be quite stressful for the victims to testify, pressing charges might not be the best thing to do.

That seemed wrong to me, so I told the person who had notified me that I would call and see what I could learn.

I called and identified myself as a metro columnist for a local newspaper (I was more specific than that, but this is without names at all) and said I had learned that they were considering not prosecuting someone who had allegedly molested numerous children.

I didn't have to say anything else. The assistant district attorney with whom I spoke said that I was misinformed, that of course they would be prosecuting this case and it would not be plea bargained away.

They prosecuted him. They convicted him. They sentenced him to state prison, I forget how long.

Of course the length of the sentence didn't matter. A high percentage of child molesters are killed by other inmates, who tend to hate pedophiles worse than any other type of criminals. Which is exactly what happened to this man some months into his sentence.

When I heard the news, I felt nothing. I didn't even consider the role I had played in his death.

You may I ask why I wasn't upset, since I have been strongly opposed to the death penalty for most of my life. Well, there was no death penalty in play here. What happened here was a predator found himself prey for a bigger predator. Game over.

One thing I haven't mentioned is that I had met the guy several times. I certainly never would have seen in advance that he was a pedophile, but he did give me the creeps.

It's still funny, though, that a column I never wrote may have had a greater effect than anything I actually did write.

Go figure.