For more than 20 years as a columnist, I’ve kept my mouth shut whenever a judge or a jury makes a decision that I don’t believe is right. Even when every opinionizer in the country was fuming over the jury’s acquittal of O.J. Simpson of murder charges, I didn’t write in disagreement, although I was mightily shocked.

The reason is that I wasn’t in the courtroom, hearing all the facts and law. I wasn’t in the jury room, listening to peers shift through the evidence. Second guessing the justice system is a dangerous sport, weakening our respect for the law and criminal proceedings.

This self-imposed silence on my part is now challenged by one Cook County Circuit Judge John J. Fleming, who sentenced a big cop to two years probation for beating up a tiny woman bartender, as shown on a security camera tape that circulated digitally around the world. The 250-pound cop, Anthony Abbate, also was ordered to perform 130 hours of community service at a homeless shelter, attend anger management classes, observe a strict 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew during the probation period and undergo drug and alcohol evaluations.

Sounds like a lot, but it’s not much compared with the licking he handed out to the bartender, Karolina Obrycka. Fleming could have sentenced Abbate to as much as five years in prison, but the judge said, “If I believed sentencing Anthony Abbate to prison would stop people from getting drunk and hitting people, I’d give him the maximum sentence. But I don’t believe that’s the case.” Well, judge, deterrence, is supposed to be a part of it.

Abbate is the guy who claimed that that he was only defending himself against the Obrycka, who was the “aggressor” in the incident, according to his likely story. He should have been laughed out of court with chants of “wimp, wimp, wimp” for claiming that he was getting his nuggets handed to him by a woman half his size.

But Fleming lent Abbate a sympathetic ear, acknowledging that he might have been acting “drunk and stupid.” Nonetheless, Fleming argued that the law required him to take into account the fact that he had no prior record and that he didn’t cause Obrycka serious harm. (Her victim impact statement, delivered to the judge and copied below, indicates that the emotional and psychological scars remain.)

So, if a cop pulls me over for driving under the influence, I’ll tell him that he shouldn’t write me up because I was “drunk and stupid.” Arresting me, wouldn’t stop other people from becoming “drunk and stupid.”

Stupid may just as aptly apply to Fleming who, judging from news reports, failed to consider that Abbate wasn’t just another barfly who needed to be tossed onto the sidewalk. He was an off-duty cop. As University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman told the Tribune, Fleming should have considered “the breach of public faith and public trust” created by Abbate case. “It’s something that requires an even sterner sentence when our officers act as if they’re above the law.” A heavier sentence also would have served as a caution to the Chicago Police Department that first tried to charge Abbate with a misdemeanor before the video became public.

Abbate’s attorney said the cop had already been punished for his “act of unbelievable stupidity” which will “ruin his life.” Indeed, he faces firing and public scorn. And he won’t be hanging out in bars any night soon.

Maybe Fleming doesn’t know what the rest of us think we know; maybe he’s seen a tape that the rest of us haven’t, showing the cop getting pummeled by Obrycka. Maybe Fleming regards Abbate as just one big cuddly teddy bear who is a weak moment made a bad mistake.

But credibility is the key to an effective judicial system and in a county like Cook, government in is short supply of that commodity. Fleming will have to forgive the rest of us if we fear that he has chipped away some more of it.

Here is Karolina Obrycka’s “victim-impact statement” that apparently didn’t get much attention from Judge Fleming, who appeared to have more sympathy for the beater than the beaten.

On February 19, 2007, my life changed. I was working as a bartender and I was beaten by an off-duty Chicago police officer.

I’m working very hard to recover from this beating, but it is harder than I could ever imagine.

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Dennis Byrne is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer