Some semblance of sanity finally returned to the Tracy McIntosh trial this week.
The former Neurology professor and convicted sex offender had - up until this point - gotten away with his crimes with little more than a slap on the wrist.
After promising to show the niece of his friend around the Penn area, McIntosh took the 23-year-old to various local bars and then back to his office, where he allegedly raped her.
But after pleading no contest in court, Judge Rayford Means made a mockery of the Philadelphia justice system when he let McIntosh off with house arrest and probation.
"He's too important for jail," the Philadelphia Daily News headline read the next day. District Attorney Lynne Abraham's office had advocated 5 1/2 to 11 years in jail for the prominent brain-trauma scientist.
Then this spring, Means went from a light sentence to a ludicrous sentence, allowing McIntosh to leave the country for a job in Italy.
McIntosh wasn't just too good for jail -he was too good for any punishment whatsoever.
But, after years of embarassment for the courts, justice finally won a victory. On Monday, the Pennsylvania Superior Court voted to resentence McIntosh under a new judge.
We applaud the decision, and it should serve as a reminder that justice can be served, even if it's four years late in coming. Superior Court Judge Debra Todd wrote that Means treated McIntosh like "a schoolboy requiring direction and supervision" and less like a criminal.
District Attorney Abraham's office also deserves a large amount of praise for the resentencing.
Hopefully, the new judge will take our justice system and finally give McIntosh the sentence he deserves. Nobody is above the law.
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