Normally, I'm not a big fan of newspaper letters columns (nor am I a big fan of newspaper editorial pages, either, no offense to my pals over at Friendly Fire). But today's lead letter brings up a very interesting point. Read on:

Re "Victim's family awarded $12 million" (Jan 19):

Chatsworth

I explored the case in an earlier blog post, but I'll admit, that's not an angle I considered. And Mr. Reeves makes a very good point: if someone's done their time for a past crime, at what point can we stop penalizing them? Mr. Rodriguez, the sort-of-accused, served his earlier sentence and registered as a sex offender, so at what point are is he or his ex-boss still liable for his past misdeeds?

Certainly, there are plenty of instances where people's crimes should prohibit them from future employment. You don't want child molesters working as teachers or habitual drunk drivers sitting behind the wheels of city buses. And if a guy's got a few battery beefs in the past, you probably don't want to issue him a badge and gun and tell him to go protect and serve.

But how far do you go with this? It's a little easier to point the finger in the Scott Villa case, since Rodriguez allegedly re-offended to crimes similar to the ones he'd committed before he took the job. And the jury did, to the tune of 10.8 million bucks. If I were a property owner right now, I'd be pretty damn hesitant to hire a guy with a shady past, looking at a multi-million dollar bill for an employee's supposed misdeeds.

The hard part is -- and this is what makes covering this stuff so interesting -- is that our justice system is based around the notion of rehabilitation. If you serve out your sentence and demonstrate that you're no longer a threat to society, you're supposed to be able to transition back into it. Employment plays a big role in that, allowing the ex-con to return to supporting themselves and interacting with people in a positive manner.

Heck, that's not just the justice system, that's a big part of our society. Listen to the lyrics of "Amazing Grace" sometime, you'll see what I mean.

As I was saying before, you don't want to just to open the prison door, boot the convict out after their sentence and say, "Adios, pal, now run wild." In hindsight, it's easy to say that Mr. Rodriguez shouldn't have been hired for a job where he had access to people's apartments or contact with women. Given the sexual battery and burglary charges, unrelated to the civil case against Scott Villa, that sent him to prison, he makes a good case for the lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key crowd.

But there's plenty of people who've gone on from a rough past to productive lives-- one of them (albeit for much lesser problems and with much greater success) happens to live in the Getty Mansion now and occupies a rather prominent office in City Hall. If we're going to say that a criminal past should bar you from working as a handyman, then there's gonna be a whole lot of people whose jobs, perhaps the only thing preventing them from returning to crime, evaporate. And trust me, if you can't get a job fixing people's pipes and changing lightbulbs, it's not like Microsoft is going to come calling to offer you a gig as a software engineer.

As is usually the case, I don't have the answer, but I'm glad Mr. Reeves brought this up. It's certainly given me something to think about, and I hope for you, dear readers, as well.