Price of getting away with murder, $7,500; punishment for making the deal, nothing

We have to wonder what was going through the mind of U.S. District Judge Kathleen O'Malley as she listened to Stuart J. Banks testify in her courtroom Tuesday about paying a bribe to get a reduced charge in a murder case in Mahoning County common Pleas Court.
One courtroom observer told us that she looked surprised. Well, surprised is better than nothing but it doesn't come close to our reaction. We are outraged.
Until now, the public was under the impression that Banks and other crooked Youngstown lawyers had been in the business of fixing DUI cases and the like. Even at that, they debased the justice system and put the public at risk, but DUI is one thing, murder, obviously, quite another.
Reasons for outrage: Our outrage is not confined to the fact that case fixing in Mahoning County under former Prosecutor James A. Philomena reached to the very top of the criminal statute ladder.
It isn't even confined to the fact that the murder case that Banks fixed involved a young female victim in a drive-by shooting. In his testimony, Banks referred to the victim being three-years old, but a check of our files shows that the defendant involved in the case, Dwayne Oliver, was charged with murder in the 1995 death of Shanikki Speller, 16, who was shot in neck while sitting in a car on Hillman Street. Two others were wounded.
A charge of murder and two counts of felonious assault against Oliver were reduced to involuntary manslaughter. Banks said he gave Philomena $7,500 to get the charges reduced.
Our highest level of outrage is reserved for the fact that the same Stuart Banks who sat in Judge O'Malley's courtroom Tuesday testifying to his misdeeds had been before the judge just about a year ago, and she treated him with kid gloves.
Banks, briber extraordinaire, a disgrace to his profession and a man willing to pay a corrupt prosecutor to get a break for a child killer, received from Judge O'Malley a sentence of eight months in a halfway house and eight months of house arrest for his misdeeds. Another crooked Youngstown lawyer, Lawrence Seidita, got the same sentence and a third lawyer, Jack V. Campbell, got off with even less.
At the time, we said: "We are hard-pressed to understand why federal judges and prosecutors continue to ignore the demand from honest residents of the Mahoning Valley that the maximum penalty under law be given to this vermin."
Questions: Now, knowing the full extent of Banks' criminality, we understand even less. Just how much of Banks' file did Judge O'Malley have at hand before she passed sentence? Was his role in fixing a murder case part of his presentence report?
The official line on Banks at the time was that his high level of cooperation with federal investigators warranted the lenient sentence he received. Without doubt, he played a key role in bringing to justice many of those whom he bribed. He even wore a recording device to help gather evidence against one judge.
But the day Banks placed a price tag of $7,500 on justice for a girl who lost her life, he should have lost at least a few of his bargaining chips in federal court. It is a sad commentary on justice that no attorney and no judge had the guts to look Stuart Banks in the eye and tell him: "We can cut a deal on most of this stuff, but the murder charge, no, you've got to do some time for that one."
It's more than sad. It's outrageous.