l-low long since you read of a court granting probation to a defendant who had confessed to manslaughter in a bludgeoning death? That happened Friday in Third District Court in Salt Lake City and we believe the public deserves an explanation from the judge on all factors involved in the decision. Maybe the circumstances were so unusual as to warrant the sentence, but from the facts reported by the Salt Lake news media, the probation certainly raises questions. Even the defense attorney, Steven L. Hansen, was quoted as being surprised, saying it’s the first time he’s ever seen a judge grant probation to a person who has confessed to manslaughter. The 67-year-old defendant was sentenced to serve one to 15 years in the Utah Prison, but the probation was granted in lieu. Originally charged with second degree murder in the bludgeoning death of a 56 – year – old Salt Lake man, the defendant later pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a plea bargaining agreement. The victim was found in his room and law officers recovered a two-pound bloodstained hammer. Judge G. Hal Taylor said in court the convicted man’s sister agreed to let him live with her in New Mexico where he will be under supervision of authorities in that state. Lufer by the Second For years the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has featured a “doomsday clock,” This is a printed representation of a clock measuring how close, in the scientists’ opinion, mankind is to a nuclear holocaust. (The hands have usually hovered around five minutes to midnight.) Now people who worry about the world’s growing population have their own doomsday clock, although the Environmental Fund, which just unveiled it outside its headquarters in Washington, D.C., doesn’t call it that. Appropriately for these fast changing times, however, the 10foot by 3-foot clock is a digital counter, whose flashing flourescent figures tell us that there is a net addition of three new human beings in the world every second. Like the atomic scientists’ clock, the Environmental Fund clock doesn’t tell time. it just tells how late it is.