Youth, crime and consequences

We’ve received a few calls of concern about our coverage of the Connor Thomas case. Questions raised include: Can you publish the names and photos of minors accused of crimes? How come you never did it before?

The answers to these queries are simple: Yes, we can and yes, we have.

It is perfectly legal to publish names of juveniles involved in or accused of crimes. And it would be remiss of us as a newspaper not to include those names, especially when the crimes are significant enough to warrant serious consequences.

Connor Thomas was hardly singled out.

In recent years we have named a 10-year-old charged with criminal endangerment, a 14-year-old charged for bringing a weapon to school, a 15-year-old charged with resisting arrest, two 17-year-olds charged with vandalism and a 15-year-old charged with arson, just to list a few.

Most recently, we did not hesitate to identify Justine Winter when she was charged, at age 16, with deliberate homicide. It should also be noted that we did not publish the names of either Winter or Thomas until they were charged with crimes, even though we and many other people knew those names.

In the Thomas case, there was a combination of prominence (a well-known star athlete and scholar), severity of accusations (two felony charges of distribution of dangerous drugs) and previous legal history (the lawsuit from the Thomas family last fall challenging the Kalispell school district’s drug suspension policy) that added up to a mandate to let the public know what was going on.

The public interest is not served by protecting alleged lawbreakers or covering up for them. We intend to do neither, although we do consider carefully before we publicize youths’ names in legal matters.

ON A MORE reflective note, the case of Thomas is both sad and instructive.

It’s sad that a young man with a bright future has lost a college scholarship and other opportunities due to apparently self-inflicted legal entanglements.

It’s instructive in that the incidents in which he is alleged to have been involved underscore the life lesson that parents try to impart to their children: There are consequences for your actions.

We hope that one day we can write about Thomas not as the subject of drug charges but instead as someone who dealt with consequences, persevered and became a success.

ONE LOCAL SUCCESS story we are happy to laud is the acquisition of Semitool by Applied Materials.

Although there was some concern when the deal was first announced that the Semitool product line would be manufactured elsewhere, instead Applied Materials has used the great local work force to make a good company even better. Last year the company set a record for revenue, and it looks like the company is on pace to break that record in 2011.

Congratulations to all the employees and management on a job well done.