Evening Sun reporters love to argue. In this feature, sides of the argument were chosen arbitrarily and do not necessarily reflect the author’s true viewpoints. This week, Nicholas Simonds pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence and was sentenced to six months in the local jail beginning in January. Simonds helped his neighbor and close friend Robert R. Reynolds move the body of Joshua D. Richheimer, whom Reynolds killed in self defense. Some felt that this was a weak sentence for such a crime while others felt it was in the best interest of justice. Here is our debate on the subject.

It’s hard to understand the crime without knowing the specifics. You can try and making sweeping generalities about law all you want, but they will be fundamentally flawed because each situation is different. Being able to account for those differences is how one develops a fair legal system. Thankfully our system has such mechanisms built into it and adjusted itself properly when determining Simonds’ punishment. The crime on the surface sounds bad: helping your neighbor “hide a body.” That sound is probably the strongest part of your argument, not logic, not circumstance and certainly not justice – but simply the virgin shock of the crime. Like the flash of a camera, the light blinds you at first, but after a few moments that original burst wears off. One’s eyes and mind adjust as the finer details of the situation come into clearer focus. As we look deeper, past the blinding surface, we see this was not a homicide, but self-defense. Mr. Richheimer was not a victim, but a violent predator. Simonds is not a monster, but a close friend who made a single mistake. – TDM

Well, this one should be over fast. He buried a body! Moved it, hid it, buried it ... the details don’t particularly interest me. Here is a man who knew that his good buddy killed someone, and he helped him cover it up and dispose of the body. The body ... a human being ... Joshua D. Richheimer. I don’t care what Mr. Richheimer’s alleged crimes were, or what he had done in the past or on the night he was killed. All I know is that he was a human being. Someone’s son, brother, father, uncle, friend, whatever ... and he deserved, at the very least, a decent burial -- something which the defendant helped deprive him of. Six months in jail for that? “Lenient” is too lenient of a word to describe that sentence. I’d pick “despicable.” – JMG