GUEST COMMENTARY BY PITTSBURGH PLUMBER NOAH SWAYNE - Last month, U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti sentenced former Allegheny County Sheriff Pete DeFazio to serve six months' home confinement following his guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of macing. While on home detention, Mr. DeFazio is permitted to leave the house for Mass, work and some other purposes.Judge Flowers Conti has actually clarified my own situation for me. I do exactly what Mr. DeFazio is now permitted to do. I go to work, I go to church, and that's pretty much it. So it occurred to me . . . I must be serving a sentence of home confinement!
Now, you can imagine how surprising this revelation was to me, given that I haven't been convicted of anything. And, I note, Mr. DeFazio is permitted to retain his hefty county pension (which, I am sure he would tell us, he's "earned"), so he really doesn't even have to work. He can just stay home all day and watch sports on television and sleep while he serves out his "sentence."
If I ever commit a crime, I want Judge Joy Flowers Conti to sentence me. After all, I wouldn't want anything in my life to change.
