The Guilty Project: Who Let Child Rapist John Speights Escape on Bond? And What About Those Other 30 Arrests?

This is John Speights. He strolled out of a Tampa courthouse last week during his trial for raping a 12-year old child and disappeared.  The sheriff couldn’t stop him because a judge had let him bond out back in 2008, when he was originally charged with ten counts of child rape.  And, oh yeah, he’s been arrested at least 30 other times in Tampa alone for charges including battery, bigamy, aggravated assault, cruelty to a child and domestic violence, yet he has no state prison record, which means that prosecutors had to drop some or all of those charges, or other judges cut him serial breaks for multiple violent crimes . . . or all of these things happened, enabling him to remain free to rape children.

The police catch ’em and the courts let ’em go: ... 

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Richard Elliot Reports on Catch and Release in Atlanta: Who Needs a Plea Bargain When The Police Aren’t Even Allowed to Detain Youths For Breaking into Your House?

What happens when you strip away consequences for holding a gun to somebody’s head, or kicking in somebody’s back door?  What happens when you tell a 16-year old that the worst thing that will happen to him if he commits a serious crime is a few months behind bars, hardly a threat to a child who views incarceration as a sign of street cred?  And what happens when you prevent police from even detaining the kids who just broke into your neighbor’s house?

This is what happens to the offender: ... 

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James Ferrell: A Rap Sheet Too Long to Repeat, Shoots A Cop Now

DeKalb Officers blog pulled up James Ferrell’s arrest record after Ferrell shot a cop last week, an attempted murder already reduced to an aggravated assault charge.

How is shooting an officer, even if you only hit him in the leg, not attempted murder?  If the sentencing code of Georgia is so incoherent that it is better to charge someone with a lesser crime in order to circumvent the possibility of a shorter sentence, why doesn’t the legislature fix that terrible problem?  Or is it the District Attorney’s office that is being incoherent on the “shooting a cop isn’t attempted murder” thing?  Would Ferrell be charged with attempted murder if he had shot a cop in some other county? ... 

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Atlanta Unfiltered Explains the Murder Defendants

The Georgia investigative blog — news, not opinion — Atlanta Unfiltered has information about some of the 45 murder defendants reported to be free on bond.  Apparently, there are some inaccuracies — two remain in jail, four are facing manslaughter or other charges, and two had charges dropped.

That still leaves 37 murder defendants walking the streets (and who knows how many defendants who shot or raped somebody but didn’t kill them). ... 

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Judges Are Not Reclusive Woodland Creatures, Shy, Moss-Tripping Fauns

When are judges who let murderers out on bond and release other violent offenders going to stop hiding from the public and start answering some questions?  From today’s (on-line only?)  AJC:

District Attorney Paul Howard . . . wants to determine why indicted murder defendants in Fulton County are being released on bond and why non-elected magistrate judges have been the ones granting bond.  Howard said 43 indicted murder defendants are out on bond. . . Fulton County magistrate Judge Karen Woodson granted [Antoine] Wimes $250,000 bond in March, even though the District Attorney’s Office and Pretrial Services officers opposed it.  Wimes was charged with murder in the July 2008 shooting death of a convenience store clerk. ... 

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