Last Friday former Master of Yale’s Saybrook College Antonio C. Lasaga, a notable geologist, was sentenced in state court to serve 20 years in prison for molesting a young boy whom he was mentoring. Yet the real surprise came prior to the sentencing, when Lasaga was defended by three of his eminent professorial peers, including Harvard’s own Dudley Professor of Economic Geology Heinrich D. Holland.

These erudite and eloquent men claimed that Lasaga should receive a lenient prison term because his prolonged incarceration would deny the world the benefit of his astonishing geological expertise. Fortunately Superior Court Judge Roland D. Fasano was able to look beyond their impressive academic credentials and realize that such arguments are fundamentally antithetical to the principles of the American justice system.

Doubtless Holland had to hurry down to New Haven in order to deliver his testimony, but if he had crossed over from his offices on Oxford Street and paused a moment to look up at the inscription above Langdell Library, he surely would have reconsidered his misguided journey. Etched into the stone, the maxim of Harvard Law School reads “Non sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege”—“not under man but under God and law.” The notion that all people are equal before the law is a bedrock of the American judicial system. All defendants have the same degree of accountability for their actions, whether they are rich or poor, whether they are male or female, whether they have spent their lives studying rocks or quarrying for stones. Being an eminent professor gives no special license to break the law, and a dangerous precedent would be have been set if Holland’s arguments had been accepted.

Before sentencing, criminals often call witnesses to testify that their incarceration would hurt society more than it would help it. But these claims rightly tend to focus on the harm that would be done to the defendant’s family, not to the world of academia. The scientific consequences of a person’s incarceration pale in comparison to the damage that can be done by, for example, splitting apart a family.

Moreover, Lasaga should receive the same treatment as other prisoners. His requests for reading material and scientific supplies should be considered according to the pre-existing rules of the prison where he is to be imprisoned. To make exceptions based on his admittedly keen intellect would be unfair to the other inmates. With any luck Lasaga will use his extended incarceration to think about the severe consequences of his crimes. He should reflect that the tragedy in this case is, of course, not that the American justice system has dashed his glittering geological career, but that a young man has had his innocence stolen by a sinister and selfish pedophile.

Lasaga is an intelligent man who may still have important intellectual contributions to make. His heinous crimes do not invalidate his earlier research, nor do they prevent him from making worthy discoveries in the future. Journals must consider according to their own standards whether or not to publish any new papers he may write.

The principle that all Americans are equal before the law is far more valuable to society than any findings Lasaga might have been able to make if he had been given a shorter sentence. It is rather surprising and distinctly disturbing that a Harvard professor was not able to grasp this basic concept.