The Prosecutor as Jihadist: Andrew Thomas vs. Justice

Margaret Vitale is a 57-year-old nurse who lives with her daughter Tina in Glendale, Arizona. A while ago, Tina decided to move out, and – concerned for her mother's safety – she urged Margaret to purchase a handgun.

After Margaret tried many different handguns and found them to be unsuitable, her son John suggested that a revolver would be a good choice, and he brought an unloaded one to her apartment. With Tina and John looking on, Margaret dry-fired the revolver several times to see if its action agreed with her. When she had satisfied her concerns, Margaret put the weapon aside and had a brief conversation with Tina.

Inexplicably, John took this opportunity to load the revolver – without telling Margaret that he had done so. This was a potentially lethal violation of rudimentary gun safety protocols. Thankfully, on this occasion the worst didn't happen when – a minute later – Margaret picked up the revolver, pointed it down at a neutral location, and pulled the trigger.

The round Margaret discharged hit an appliance; the ricochet sent it through the fleshy part of Tina's calf, leaving a small but clean exit wound.

As a 20-year veteran nurse, Margaret wanted to take Tina to the hospital, and she knew that the gunshot wound would be reported to the police. So after making sure that her daughter was all right, she called 911. When the policeman arrived, he took statements from Tina (the “victim”), Margaret and John. Satisfied that no crime had been committed, the policeman left without confiscating the firearm. He did, however, write a report, which – at the insistence of the officer's supervisor -- was sent to the County Attorney's office.

That report offered an accurate and detailed account of the accident that took place in Margaret's apartment. No reasonable human being could misunderstand what happened on that occasion, or consider it a crime – particularly in light of the fact that the “victim” wasn't pressing charges, and had told the officer that her immediate concern was for the supposed offender, who suffers from high blood pressure.

Unfortunately, the Maricopa County Attorney's office is headed by the execrable Andrew Peyton Thomas, who is among the most zealous practitioners of the Republican Party's proprietary brand of paternalistic totalitarianism. Like the Grand and Glorious Decider who leads the GOP, Thomas is determined to rip up “evil” by the roots. Unlike Bush, however, Thomas has been brutally candid about what this would mean.

“The root of our crime problem,” wrote Thomas about a decade ago, “is a rights-happy radical individualism.” The solution to crime, therefore, would be to destroy individual rights – and to the extent he has been given power to do so, Thomas has made remarkable progress in that direction. His most effective weapon in the war against individualism has been to overcharge criminal defendants and use the threat of mandatory sentences to extort draconian plea bargains.

“They're overcharging for felonies that should be misdemeanors,” observes Tempe defense attorney David Cantor of Thomas's office. “Then [defendants] plead to the lead charge, but their lead charge is too stiff. This means everything goes to trial” -- unless defendants simply give up and take a deal.

This approach has been politically profitable for Thomas and his clique, and financially lucrative for defense attorneys. It has been a disaster for individual rights, of course – but then again, Thomas insists that individual rights are the enemy of the orderly society he seeks to create.

Thus when the Maricopa County Attorney's office was informed of the incident involving Margaret and Tina Vitale, it filed -- “per policy,” as one of Thomas's drones insisted – a charge of “dangerous disorderly conduct” against the 57-year-old nurse, who had done nothing wrong. This charge is a felony that would involve a mandatory prison term.

The only option offered by Thomas's office – once again, “per policy” -- was for Margaret to plead to a “designated felony” that would involve probation and a time in the County Jail system, which is operated by the squalid, senile publicity whore Joe Arpaio. Since it's not uncommon for non-violent offenders to die in Arpaio's jails, Margaret might be safer in state prison.

No crime was committed here. Margaret and Tina were involved in a bizarre accident that, thankfully, involved nothing more than a trivial flesh wound – until the State became involved.

Recounting this episode with Margaret and Tina on the Charles Goyette radio program (listen here), defense attorney Marc Victor pointed out that “Not every wrong needs to be a crime.” This is obvious for those of us who understand and cherish individual rights. Andrew Thomas, once again, is not found in that number.

Thomas's totalitarian impulses were displayed to good effect just three days ago (April 3) when his office filed terrorism charges against a 14-year-old middle school student from Mesa who allegedly pulled a knife on a female class. After being threatened, the girl ran home and called the police. When the alleged assailant didn't show up at school the next morning, the police visited his home, reportedly finding a backpack containing a handgun, chains, and a rope.

The police recommended that the youth be tried as an adult on charges of kidnapping (attempted kidnapping would be a more plausible charge, given that the girl wasn't actually abducted) and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Surely this would be sufficient to address this outrage against the person and individual rights of the traumatized young girl.

But remember – individual rights are the problem, from Thomas's perspective. Order is all that matters. And under Section 802 of the PATRIOT [sic] Act, any act of kidnapping can be defined as a form of domestic terrorism. All that was necessary to do so in this case was utter shamelessness and degenerate ambition. Andrew Thomas was up to that challenge.

Thomas is obviously a depraved fanatic. But he's also something of a pioneer: He has created what could be a self-perpetuating lawyers' cartel in Maricopa County.

“Business for Valley defense attorneys is booming,” reported the February 18 East Valley Tribune. “Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has been cracking down on criminals since 2004, and public defenders have scrambled to keep up as prison populations have swelled.” As Phoenix criminal defense attorney Larry Debus points out: “We charge 50 percent higher fees because we have to go to trial, and trials are expensive.... I say he's a great county attorney. We charge higher fees and we go to trial more, which is what we do best.”

Marc Victor, who is representing Margaret Vitale, offers a much different view: “Andrew Thomas has been good for business, but bad for justice.” Noting that he can charge $15,000 for the same services for which his brother, a defense attorney in Massachusetts, can charge $2,500, Victor declares: “I would prefer to make less money and have more justice.”

But for Thomas, justice – the effort to vindicate individual rights – isn't the point; the point, rather, is to expand the power of the State and to uphold the interests of the political class. This is demonstrated not only by his perverse, sadistic insistence on overcharging petty criminals or – as with Margaret Vitale – manufacturing “crimes” where none exist, but also by one case in which his zeal for prosecution mysteriously evaporated.

In mid-March, Thomas announced that he was discontinuing the prosecution of the “Glendale Four,” three City Council members and a county clerk accused of felonious misconduct by falsifying some public records and destroying others in order to conceal suspected financial misconduct.

This was an authentic crime against public order of the kind only government officials can commit. Which is precisely why Thomas had no interest in the case. He is indecently eager to send innocent 57-year-old nurses to prison, and to threaten concupiscent teenage boys with life in prison for the purported crime of looking at dirty pictures. But criminals who misuse the power of the State? Well, here the totalitarian Thomas would agree with the constitutionalist Marc Victor: "Not every wrong needs to be a crime."

The Scum Also Rises

Those are supposed to go on beneath your slacks, idiot.

Sewage, like water, seeks its own level. A suitable illustration of this principle is found in the recent agreement between the Homeland Security Department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division and Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona's Maricopa County.

Doubtless there are many honorable and conscientious people among the deputies who serve under Arpaio, just as there are thousands of dutiful field officers employed by ICE. But Arpaio has become properly notorious for his proprietary brand of arrogance, authoritarianism, self-promotion, and petty corruption, and the agreement with ICE would effectively federalize one of the most scandal-ridden “local” law enforcement agencies in the nation.

Tucson's NBC affiliate KVOA reports:

“Federal immigration officials and the Maricopa County Sheriff's office signed an agreement Monday [February 26] to allow trained deputies to enforce immigration laws. Under the agreement, [ICE officials] will begin training 160 Maricopa County deputies ... to be authorized to detain and arrest suspected illegal immigrants both in the county jail and on the streets.... The agreement that Sheriff Joe Arpaio signed makes Maricopa County's participation the largest one-time addition to the effort.”

Query the first: If the suspected illegal immigrants are already in jail for alleged violations of local laws, why would Sheriff Joe need federal help to “arrest” them on immigration charges?

Query the second: Why can't local police and sheriffs arrest suspected illegal immigrants without federal “permission”? Although border security is a federal responsibility, there are ways that local law enforcement agencies can deal with the issue. For example: Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, frustrated with federal inaction, began to arrest illegal immigrants on criminal trespass charges. (Chief Chamberlain appears to be that rarest of specimens, a police chief willing to confront the Feds on behalf of his community over a matter of principle.)

I grant that this is not the optimal way of dealing with the matter. I cite Chief Chamberlain's example simply to illustrate the fact that there are better options than entrenching federal control over “local” law enforcement.

In fact, about a year ago, Sheriff Arpaio – working in tandem with County Prosecutor Andy Thomas, who yields to nobody in his implacable greed for publicity – devised another inventive approach to border security: As the Washington Post recounts, Thomas “issued an interpretation of a new state anti-smuggling law that said illegal immigrants could be arrested if they were party to a deal to smuggle themselves into the United States. Punishment could be up to two years in jail.” Arpaio promptly assembled a posse to sweep up as many illegal immigrants as they could find.

This may or may not be a good idea, but it demonstrates, once again, that federal "permission" is not necessary to deal with the issue of illegal immigration. Yet Arizona -- which is suffering tremendously as a result of the collapse of our southern border -- has been primed for a federal "solution" that will make matters even worse, as all such "solutions" invariably do. (I find myself wondering if this is an outgrowth of Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon's plea last December for additional Homeland Security funding.)

In a report published yesterday (March 1), KVOA observed that four more Arizona police departments “are considering possible deals with the federal government that would give a limited number of local and state officers training in immigration law. If the four departments ultimately get the training, they would join two other agencies in Arizona that have already ... inked agreements with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to carry out certain federal immigration duties.”

Once again, if the federal government were carrying out its duties with respect to border security, the “need” to expand its control over nominally local police agencies. But we must remember that the Feds don't expand their powers to deal with problems – they create or exacerbate problems in order to enhance their powers. This is true whether the “problem” in question is poverty, terrorism, narcotics use, or illegal immigration.

What makes the last issue so dangerous is the fact that the entire conservative movement – from the Bu'ushist media mullahs at Fox to the leaders of the John Birch Society (this fellow being a worthy exception) – has become monomaniacal on the subject of illegal immigration. Most conservatives abandoned their skepticism of federal power in the aftermath of 9-11; too many of those who held out in defense of the Bill of Rights have displayed a willingness to set aside such scruples to deal with the “border crisis.”

Sheriff Arpaio may be the single most appropriate living symbol of the conservative movement's unabashed authoritarianism.

Joe Arpaio, who appointed himself the “Nation's Toughest Sheriff” upon being elected to the position in 1992, spent several decades working for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, both in domestically and in Mexico and Turkey.

From his experience with the DEA -- during which time he was known as "Nickel-Bag Joe" for his habit of running up stats through picayune drug busts -- Arpaio apparently learned how to exploit the “war on drugs.” It's tempting to think that his time in Mexico and Turkey inspired him to create a county jail system that has become infamous for petty corruption, abuse, torture, and lethal mistreatment of non-violent offenders.

Roughly a decade ago, a federal investigation of Arpaio's county jails conducted by Oregon corrections consultant George Sullivan concluded (as summarized by the Phoenix New Times) that “an unwise abundance of stun guns, pepper spray, restraint chairs and the practice of hog-tying, combined with Arpaio's macho rhetoric about getting tough on inmates--70 percent of whom await trial under an assumption of innocence--has led to an environment where Arpaio's employees have made `unprovoked, unnecessary and, consequently, unjustified and excessive' use of force.” Nearly identical findings were reported in a separate federal inquiry two years earlier.

The Sheriff himself has compiled a record heavily laden with odd instances of hypocrisy and casual corruption:

*Five years ago, under the threat of a federal lawsuit, Arpaio was compelled to shut down a live webcast of female inmates using the bathroom.

*During a 2004 Republican primary against former Mesa Police Chief, Daniel Saban, Arpaio leaked unsubstantiated rape allegations against his political rival to a local television station.

*In the course of a prostitution sting four years ago, Arpaio authorized undercover deputies and members of his volunteer “posse” to disrobe and even engage in sexual contact with prostitutes as part of their “investigation” -- conduct that, if carried out by private citizens, would have earned them a stay in Arpaio's tent city. In fact, although most of the 70 people arrested in the “sting” were released without charges, but a handful of customers were prosecuted for conduct more or less identical to that of Arpaio's “investigators.”

Hypocrisy and corruption are good and sufficient reasons for Arpaio to be removed from office. The lethal treatment occasionally handed out by his hired thugs is a more serious matter.

In 1996, a small-time drug offender named Scott Norberg was killed while in the custody of Arpaio's deputies. An investigation by Amnesty International documented that Norberg, who had supposedly “attacked” the deputies, was handcuffed with his face shoved into the floor when he was dragged to a “restraint chair,” where he died of “positional asphyxia.” The County eventually reached an $8 million settlement with Crenshaw's family.

Philip Wilson, who was arrested and sentenced to two months in Tent City on a parole violation, was lethally beaten with a blunt object five days after being incarcerated in July 2003; he died after several months in a coma. His mother Pearl, founder of an advocacy group called “Mothers Against Arpaio,” is a former prison guard who believes – on the basis of her experience and knowledge of Arpaio's facility – that her son was “set up” by camp guards after he had complained about conditions at the jail. According to a lawsuit filed by Pearl, the inmates who killed Philip (with the alleged connivance of guards) beat him so severely by “his blood was sprayed across the tent.”

Just a few weeks ago, the County offered $1.3 million to settle lawsuits filed by Pearl Wilson and the family of Deborah Ann Braillard, a 46-year-old diabetic woman who died of medical neglect in 2005 after being jailed on a drug charge. The lawsuit on behalf of Braillard points out that since she was a repeat offender, Tent City officials knew that she was a diabetic, but they denied her appropriate treatment for two days.

The Arpaio body count also includes Brian Crenshaw, jailed on drug and petty robbery charges, who was beaten into a fatal coma shortly after being put behind bars, and Charles Agster, a mentally handicapped man who was killed in the County Jail shortly after being arrested on misdemeanor loitering charges.

Brian Crenshaw (l.), Charles Agster (r.).

Let me repeat: Arpaio's squad of degenerate bullies killed a mentally handicapped man who had been arrested for loitering.The official story was that Crenshaw somehow suffered his fatal injuries by falling off his bunk.

I am of the opinion that drug use should not be a criminal offense; honorable people can disagree in good faith. Obviously, theft of any sort is a crime. Loitering might be considered an offense against public order, or perhaps a form of harassment in some circumstances. But obviously none of these behaviors merits the equivalent of a death sentence, particularly death through torture.

Over the past decade, Maricopa County has paid more than $13 million in legal settlements arising from incidents of this type.

As the County has absorbed the costs of his maladministration and suffocated beneath the stench of his corruption, Arpaio has withdrawn into a dictatorial cocoon: He created a “Threat Assessment Squad” -- essentially an armed praetorian guard – to insulate himself from the handful of journalists who ask him pointed questions; he has repeatedly refused to comply with requests for information he is compelled to provide under Arizona law; and last December he and his allies threatened the staff of the New Times with felony charges for publishing his home address.

The rationale offered by Arpaio is a familiar one to anyone who understands the significance of the phrase “Reichstag Fire”: The valiant Sheriff insists that his enemies are trying to kill him, as illustrated by a purported attempt to plant a bomb in his car in 1999. As it happens, the alleged bomber, a small-bore street crook named James Saville, was paid $2,000 by an undercover agent to create a dud bomb, and then led by the same undercover agent to the Sheriff's parked car. Saville was acquitted of charges in 2003.

Arpaio has never worked an honest day in his life; every cent he has been paid he has received from the taxpayers. He has been marinated for decades in statist assumptions, and as age-related dementia claims what little rationality he once possessed, he has blossomed into an undisguised megalomaniac.

Given all of this, is it any wonder that Arpaio and his Sheriff's Department would find themselves working hand-in-mailed-fist with the Homeland Security Leviathan?

Just days ago, Mitt Romney – whose presidential bid has received the blessings of the Bush crime family -- appointed Arpaio to his campaign committee in Arizona. Should Romney make it to the White House, it's likely that Arpaio would be given an elevated post – perhaps even more than a sinecure – in the Homeland Security bureaucracy.

Obiter dicta

For those who are interested in hearing my interview yesterday on Chris Arzen's program "Iron Sharpens Iron" (thanks, Chris), it is archived at the website of the Christian Liberty Party, here.

The wonderful CLP site has a huge and very valuable audio and video archive well worth your time.

A Commissar Arises

Commissar Andrew Thomas addressing his neo-totalitarian comrades at a gathering of the artfully misnamed Federalist Society.

A little more than two years ago, Matthew Bandy of Phoenix, Arizona was a well-mannered and unremarkable 16-year-old boy who displayed a defect common to males of his age: An undisciplined adolescent libido.

A little more than two years ago, Andrew Peyton Thomas of Phoenix, Arizona was a 39-year-old County Attorney who displayed numerous defects common to those who eschew honest work and instead place themselves on a public payroll. For the purpose of this discussion, we'll limit our inventory to just one of those failings: Thomas was indecently eager to use the power of his office to stage high-profile prosecutions for reasons of ambition and ideology.

On December 16, 2004, the Bandy family was rudely awakened by a 6 am knock on the door. Armed policemen, their guns drawn and their game faces on, shouldered their way into the home and handed Greg Bandy a search warrant, telling him that his son Matthew was suspected of possessing child pornography.

Greg adamantly denied any interest in, or possession of, erotic images of children. He did grudgingly admit to downloading more conventional smut from the Web. The police confiscated the computer; a cursory investigation found nine child porn images on the hard drive. This confirmed a report to the Phoenix police from Yahoo monitors, via the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, that nine child porn photos had been uploaded to a chat room from the Bandy family's household computer.

Arizona's child porn laws are draconian and inflexible, and Maricopa County Attorney Thomas, borrowing a favorite trope of Bill O'Reilly, had campaigned as the scourge of child exploiters. He charged 16-year-old Matthew Bandy with nine counts of possession and distribution of child pornography, each of which was a class 2 felony with a mandatory ten-year sentence.

Those sentences would have run consecutively, not concurrently. Which means Matthew Bandy would have died in prison – either of old age, prison violence (most likely involving some form of sexual degradation), or suicide.

Thomas, in effect, was prepared to steal a 16-year-old's life from him as punishment for a sex crime in which he never laid a hand on another human being.

Now, compare the sentences Matt Bandy faced with the wrist-slap – no, more like wrist-caress – given to 18-year-old Clifton Bennett, son of Arizona State Senate President Ken Bennett, for molesting 18 young kids with a broomstick at summer camp. The judge in Bennett's case – with the support of the prosecution – consolidated the 18 counts to one for the express purpose of helping the privileged teenager avoid jail time. Dear young Cliffy's powerful Daddy complained that a felony would prevent his son from serving a mission for the Mormon Church.

In this, as in so much else, we see that in our feudalist system of “justice,” mercy is for the powerful.

Immediately after being charged, Matthew was confined to virtual house arrest and forced to wear an electronic tracking device on his ankle. His family hired a high-octane defense attorney named Ed Novak, who demanded to have the hard drive tested by independent forensic experts. On Novak's initiative, Matt took and passed polygraph tests and psychiatric evaluations.

Thomas's office, instead of providing the hard drive for inspection, offered another deal: Matthew could spent up to 15 years in prison, and be a registered sex offender for life. The latter would mean he could have no contact of any kind with children or be in proximity to minors in any setting.

Novak again demanded to see the hard drive. Thomas again refused to provide it, even ignoring court orders to do so. Eventually the Bandy family took the matter to the state Supreme Court and forced the intransigent Thomas to turn over the drive for examination.

When it was presented for inspection by computer forensic specialist Tammi Loehrs, the hard drive was found to contain more than 200 infected files, including "backdoor Trojans" (I heard that -- stop snickering, Beavis) that apparently permitted a hacker to use the Bandy computer to store the child porn and upload it to the Yahoo chatroom. Remote infestation of home computers by child porn is horrifyingly common.

Even so, prosecutor Thomas, displaying a vicious tenacity that would make Shylock look like the very soul of reasonable compromise by comparison, insisted on a deal in which Matt would plead guilty to one charge of distributing obscene material to minors – by taking a copy of Playboy to school and showing it to three of his friends. No jail time would have resulted from this charge. However, Matthew – unlike, say, those who corrupt youth with the State's blessing via “sex education” -- would still be labeled a sex offender and serve 18 months' probation.

Amazing as it may seem, this matter was heard by a judge who possessed a particle of rationality and a smidgen of common sense. He accepted the guilty plea, but threw out the sex offender designation.

It is not my intention to say that peddling pornography is a victimless act. (There's an interesting discussion of that claim in – of all things – Hundred-Dollar Baby, the current Spenser novel by Robert Parker. The novelist, who is by no means a conservative, appears to believe, as I do, that pornography inflicts severe damage on both the consumers and producers, and that its collateral damage is substantial as well.) The facts of the Matthew Bandy case are these: He was accused of a crime the government couldn't prove, and then blackmailed into pleading guilty to an act that has not been prosecuted as a crime within living memory.

Behind this lurks the smirking, self-satisfied figure of Andrew Peyton Thomas, the bland, artfully coiffed personification of the new totalitarianism (and, perhaps not coincidentally, a near ringer for David Duke when seen from certain angles). After doing his considerable best to steal the life of a predictably misbehaving teenage boy, Thomas still insists that he has done nothing wrong, that he had actually performed some variety of public service by teaching Matt that "you know, these kids really shouldn't be takin' [nervous chuckle] Playboys to school."

If Thomas wants to sermonize, he should resign as prosecutor and pastor a church. In fact, he should resign anyway, or be forced out of office, before he mutates into a more consequential brand of career criminal, on the order of Alberto "Habeas Corpus isn't a fundamental right" Gonzalez, or John "Child Sexual Torture is a presidential prerogative" Yoo.

Before oozing his way into his current office, Thomas wrote extensively about his views of crime, punishment, and public order. He is one of those writers (I suspect I may be another) who confuse prolixity with profundity. The Phoenix New Times dipped a hand into the raging stream of Thomas's literary output and withdrew observations like the following:

*“The root of our crime problem is a rights-happy radical individualism.”

It makes much more sense to say that the root of crime is insufficient respect for the rights of others, but this view isn't easy to reconcile with what Thomas describes as his “Hobbesian view of government.”

Here's another:

* “All able-bodied men without a criminal record should once again be subject to obligatory service for community crime surveillance.... Their sole duty would be to inform police of crimes in progress. Women should not be subject to such conscription for the same reason that they have traditionally been spared combat duty.... Properly strong criminal penalties would deter those who might be tempted to dodge the draft [to serve in these neighborhood patrols] by committing a crime and acquiring a criminal record.”

What Thomas is describing here is hardly novel; it's a system akin to “block committees” set up in National Socialist Germany, as well as similar snitch-and-bully arrangements found in such enlightened societies as Castro's Cuba, Mao's China, Revolutionary Iran, and Saudi Arabia. What is somewhat original in Thomas's version is the idea of conscripting men into such service, on pain of severe criminal penalties should they rebel at the prospect of serving as neighborhood snitches.

In light of Thomas's truly perverse desire to lock up Matt Bandy for the rest of his life, it's worth wondering what "strong criminal penalties" he would prescribe for those who dodged his proposed "draft."

Questions of this sort aren't entirely academic. Thomas is probably fairly typical of the commissars coughed up by the neo-conservative legal culture. He's entirely of a piece with the Bu'ushists who are demolishing our Anglo-Saxon system of liberty under law, and there are doubtless thousands more like him gestating in the movement's womb even now.

Video bonus

As I've admitted elsewhere, I'm an incorrigible sci-fi geek. Among my favorite programs of the past decade was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (the first reader to identify the connection between that program and the novel mentioned above gets ... well, an enthusiastic "Atta-boy!")

During the its last three seasons, DS9 featured a lengthy war between the Federation and a multi-layered enemy called The Dominion. At the top of The Dominion's power structure was a cunning race of devious shape-shifters called the Founders; their orders were carried out by a genetically engineered warrior race called the Jem'Hadar, who were controlled through their dependence on a narcotic called Ketrecel White.

The Dominion's intermediaries were drawn from a race of unctuous, officious bureaucrats called the Vorta; they control the Jem'Hadar, and defer slavishly to the Founders, whom they revere as "gods." I've come to think of them as a race composed entirely of amoral, vicious lawyers ... you know, people like Andrew Peyton Thomas.

In this clip, two Federation Good Guys -- the valiant Klingon Worf and Ezri Dax -- are offered a plea bargain by a Vorta "prosecutor" named Weyoun. I can't bring myself to disapprove of Worf's reaction.