tangents

news & views

by dal mcintire

Judge

Boise has simmered down after last December's anti-homo furore. Of the 16 men arrested, most on charges involving minors, several got stiff sentences. Dillon, Bartlett, Farnsworth, Gough and Sales were given probation of varying terms. Mel Dir, last arrested, pleaded innocent. Case still pending, last we heard. Attorney Paris Martin, first to come to jury trial, acquitted after strong defense by retired Idaho Supreme Court Justice Givens, who said jury must first consider Martin's constitutional rights, and convict him of a specific act, not of a tendency. Young had instructed jury that if any crime was committed, Lloyd Thompson (21, who claimed Martin partner in sex act) was an accomplice and his testimony could not stand without corroboration. After many speeches by psychiatrists and other authorities who said prison can't deal with homosexuality, Boiseans, as a reader tells us, "have had their vocabularies greatly enriched with psychiatric and psychological terms, as well as some not so scientific," and have returned to their normal pursuits of hunting, fishing and politics. But

the reader (who challenges our statement in January that a wave of suicides followed the scandal-the Boise paper did report several suicides at the time in Southern Idaho, but we were unable to judge if the incidence was higher than usual) also predicts that the tone has been set for an overhauling and modernization of the law at the next legislative session.

Baltimore's Pepper Hill Club was closed for four days in February on charges growing out of the big raid last October. . . .The Baltimore Sun a few weeks ago carried a report on ex-P.0. W. John David Provoo, whose famous treason trial had been ensnarled in court irregularities by the prosecution, and in irrelevant charges of homosexuality, and who was finally released after upset of a life sentence, now living in Baltimore, but having a rough time keeping a job because of all the bad publicity given his case. His wife has filed for divorce. "I can't blame her," he said. "After all, I do not have a job and can barely support myself, much less a wife." He has an honorable discharge from the army. . . .A few days later,

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