I CANNOT share Jackie Knight's unqualified reverence for the judiciary ("Should life mean life?" September 30).

Homer sometimes nods, and judges sometimes nod off.

At my trial, the judge turned up without the relevant papers, referred to evidence which had not been given, and attributed to the defendant a statement made by the claimant.

I don't often mention this, in case people suspect he also blundered in acquitting me.

Like wigs, other legal innovations are commonly mistaken for tradition. Sentences were more victim-oriented in medieval times than they are today.

People see that present-day law is unduly lenient towards the criminal, and unsympathetic, sometimes harsh, towards the victim. People perceive a divergence between justice and the law, and they don't like it.

Judges are as prone to error and prejudice as anyone else, and perhaps more so.

It is curious, is it not, that judges are generally credited with characteristics not particularly evident in the fraternity from which they are drawn? Their power and arrogance is enormous. Victims, on the other hand, united only in their grief, plead for no more than the solace that a condign sentence would bring.

Jackie Knights, in her final tribute, argues that a judge is "best placed to make a decision, because he is the person who has heard all the evidence".

However, I must remind her that for the moment, in criminal trials at least, 12 other people are accorded the same facility.

William Dixon-Smith,

Welland Rise,

Acomb,

York.

Updated: 09:11 Tuesday, October 11, 2005