Blanding sentencing: a missed opportunity?

It’s hard to say whether the guilty pleas in two looting cases in the Four Corners region represented a victory or a loss for cultural heritage. The United States has strong laws designed to protect and preserve its archaeological patrimony, and it is fortunate to have prosecutors and law-enforcement agents capable of doing the research necessary to bring a meaningful case. But the sentencing of Jeanne and Jericca Redd of Blanding, Utah, was so lenient, the case may have an effect quite the opposite of the one legislators hoped for when they wrote those laws, encouraging rather than deterring future thieves.

It’s surprisingly difficult to convince people that looting is wrong, and we fear that despite reading the same, extremely persuasive evidence the grand jury did in charging the Redds, the sentence cemented the mistaken opinion of many, which is that antiquities should be freely bought and sold with no regard for their provenance.

The biggest but, to some, least comprehensible reason antiquities need, first and foremost, local special protection is that they hold information about the common cultural heritage of all humanity, so plunder is tantamount to burglarizing knowledge from each and every person on Earth. Ripping antiquities out of the places they’re found may put aesthetically pleasing pieces in museums and living rooms, but it ruins our chances of ever understanding the intellectual and spiritual context in which they were created. Finally, when American Indian sacred, ceremonial or cultural objects are involved, federal law gives responsibility to tribal communities -- not art dealers.

As part of a series of cases stemming from an investigation that started in 2006 and involved 26 defendants, federal prosecutors brought separate trafficking cases against Jeanne and James Redd, and their daughter Jericca. James Redd committed suicide the day after his indictment in June, and sympathy for their loss was one reason the U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups gave Jeanne 36 months’ probation and a $2,000 fine, and Jericca 24 months’ probation and a $300 fine, instead of the prison time and hundreds of thousands of dollars that federal sentencing guidelines called for.

The other reason was that, in Judge Waddoups’ words, “this is a community where this kind of conduct... has been justified for a number of years.” That makes as much sense as going easy on drug dealers who live in neighborhoods where lots of people deal drugs. It’s precisely because plundering has been tolerated too long, by too many, that strict laws deserve strict enforcement. Looting is a crime. People who do it are criminals. Criminals are supposed to be punished -- not for what they think or feel, but for what they do.

With so many defendants involved in this operation, more sentences likely are on the way. We hope Judge Waddoups does not continue to miss the opportunity to send the important message that the destruction of our shared cultural heritage is a crime that should be punishable to the fullest extent of the law.

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