Just a note in brief response to my friend Bennett Gershman's comments with respect to the rush to judgment in the Linda Fairstein matter. I was addressing myself to that which was done to Ms. Fairstein. I was not commenting on the Central Park Five case, that matter has been dealt with clearly and definitively. I was not aware that I had to comment in a manner determined by others.

Do two wrongs somehow make a right? For the film Ms. Fairstein was the foil through which all of the ills of the justice system were embodied; Ms. Fairstein is no more guilty of what she is portrayed to have done, in the film, as the exonerated were in reality. The response was visceral and not a dispassionate review of the facts.

If Professor Gershman saw the docudrama or heard the producer's comments, he would have been aware that whole sections of dialogue were made up and events portrayed that did not happen. I understand Professor Gershman's concerns and am sympathetic, but I was not addressing the Central Park Five case, but its portrayal which I said was impactful but not entirely accurate. That's all!

As a criminal law professor he knows that you cannot add to the truth and it still be truth.

This issue need not be repeated ad infinitum.

Murray Richman is a past president of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.