As one person told a Longview News-Journal reporter, blame for the slaying of Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper James Scott Burns should sit squarely on the shoulders of the man that authorities believe killed him.

Although former lawman Brandon Wayne Robertson will never face charges after apparently taking his own life as authorities scoured East Texas, he was the person authorities believe made the decision to kill an officer rather than face possible arrest the evening of April 29.

Even though authorities arrested a woman believed to have been with Robertson at the time of Burns' slaying, the public has few details about exactly what happened and why it happened along a rural Marion County road near Lake O' the Pines.

What has become known is that Robertson was free after being paroled less than a year into a four-year sentence handed down in September 2006 by retiring Gregg County District Judge Alvin Khoury.

As the details of Robertson's involvement in Burns' death became known, Khoury expressed outrage that the suspect had served less than a quarter of his sentence for a conviction on methamphetamine possession charges. That alone was enough to anger many East Texans mourning the loss of a young trooper, whose family included a young wife and a 5-month-old daughter.

Then, this past week, the Longview News-Journal reported Robertson had been arrested early in April on drug charge and firearm charges in Cherokee County. After a day in jail, he was released on a total of $15,000 in bonds.

The fact that the municipal judge might not have been made aware of Robertson's parole status could well have spelled the difference between the suspect's release and his return to state custody. One must also wonder what might have happened if Robertson's parole officer had been informed he was in jail.

In this era of nearly instant communications, the state's justice system somehow failed to get important information to the right officials.

Khoury said he intended to write to state officials about his concerns, but he held out little hope his complaints would stir much action. He may be right, but perhaps the combination Robertson's quick parole along with the gaps in the system that allowed him to make easy bail just weeks before his deadly encounter with Burns will spur enought public outcry to get attention in Austin.

It's obvious that flaws in the Texas criminal justice system played a factor in the events that led up to Burns' death.

Yes, the fact remains that the person who pulled the trigger, launching the fusillade that took the trooper's life, did and does bear the ultimate responsibility.

But as we said a week ago, even though Burns knew the perils of his job in law enforcement, he surely went on duty each day believing he had the skills and the training to protect his life, plus the backing of a system designed to protect not only the public safety, but also the officer's.

By allowing Robertson to leave prison so early in his sentence and by missing the connections when he was picked up and charged with similar offenses less than a year after his parole, the system let down its guard, leaving a trooper exposed to lethal danger.

Texas officials owe it to Burns' memory and to his family to examine that breakdown and to seek ways to avoid putting future officers in the same kind of peril.