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Where Nassar's Judge Went Wrong
By endorsing vengeance from the bench, the judge sentencing the disgraced Olympic doctor crossed an important line.
In 2001, I went to Xipamanine market, a huge open-air bazaar in Maputo, Mozambique, where you can buy everything from clothes to traditional medicine. A Mozambican friend told me how to keep safe from pickpockets. “If someone takes something from you, yell Ladrão! Ladrão!”—Thief! Thief!—“and point to him.”
“What happens next?” I asked.
“People will grab him,” she said, “and possibly beat him to death.” She said the ultimate punishment was reserved for habitual thieves, and that the hardware section would be especially dangerous for them, because so many heavy objects were available.
I was learning Portuguese at the time. is the only word in any, and knew there was a possibility of brutal punishment being carried out in my name.
