Columnist Susan Snyder: Future is for you to decide

Friday, Feb. 13, 2004 | 5:37 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

WEEKEND EDITION

Feb. 14 - 15, 2004

Society can learn a lot from the likes of Jeffery Henderson.

Henderson's drug-dealing past earned him a six-year term in federal prison, where he learned about accepting responsibility, setting positive goals and, last but not least, cooking.

Now a celebrated chef at Caesars Palace, Henderson also hits the speaker's circuit, helping adults and youngsters understand that the freedom to make choices means accepting the consequences.

"I've done some things I'm not proud of. My actions destroyed a generation of young men across the country," Henderson said during a speech last weekend at a Lions Club International convention in Primm.

"I grew up in generational poverty, but I'm not jumping on the poverty bandwagon," he said. "At the end of the day, I made the decision to sell drugs."

The story was his own. But he summed up the turning point of any person's life in four words:

"I made the decision."

To sell drugs.

To drive drunk.

To drive sleepy.

"I made the decision."

It really doesn't matter what comes before or after. The neighborhood's best kid or its worst. Stripper or saint.

"I made the decision" levels the playing field.

People own their actions and all the responsibilities and penalties that go with them. And that should be liberating. It's a place from which one can go forward.

But the words have to be heartfelt. And that can't happen when too many attorneys, parents and well-meaning friends are doing the talking.

Members of our community are bickering over whether to treat as an adult a 16-year-old boy who made the decision to drink and drive. A resulting crash killed three of his young friends.

Others are sparring over whether a young woman was wrongfully convicted of driving under the influence in the 2000 crash that killed six youths doing a highway cleanup along Interstate 15.

Prosecutors say Jessica Williams was under the influence of a chemical found in marijuana, which she had smoked hours earlier. Williams' attorney maintains that the chemical in her blood isn't listed as illegal in Nevada laws.

She says she hit the children because she fell asleep at the wheel. She made the decision to continue driving when she was sleepy.

Does a boy deserve to be treated as a man in a courtroom?

Does a sleepy driver deserve to be treated the same as one in the grip of some other consciousness-altering influence?

We may never be able to fully answer these questions. Certainly, we'll find answers in the courtroom. But whether they're the right ones, we may never know.

We do know, however, that life cannot go forward without four simple words.

"I made the decision."

People on all sides need to step back, be quiet and give this teenager and this young woman their first, best chance for reform.

"I made the decision."

No matter what judges and juries decide, that chance is what they truly deserve.