LETTER TO THE EDITOR: London rioters are unabashed

OPINION:

The late Sir John Mortimer’s wryly humorous television series about the antics of a tenacious London criminal defense attorney, “Rumpole of the Bailey,” presupposed the existence of a British criminal class populated by thieves and burglars - not the rioters and looters of today (“Anarchy in the UK; rioters set afire London,” Web, Tuesday).

Horace Rumpole, whose clients never plead guilty, is prone to regaling juries with soaring orations about the presumption of innocence, the “golden thread” of British justice. Alas, a criminal class that boasts of its crimes would surely have sent Rumpole to an early retirement, if not to an early grave.

GREGORY L. LEWIS

Baltimore