Isn’t she cute?
Amy Coney Bryant: Butter Wouldn’t Melt ...
Judith Clark in Court Laughing about Cops and Security Officer she Murdered
Cop-hating rag of record the New York Times is once again grotesquely trying to peddle the story that Brinks Robbery cop-killer Judith Clark is now a “reformed person” who deserves the parole Andrew Cuomo just orchestrated for her. “Ms. Clark, 69 . . . evolved during her long incarceration from a left-wing extremist to a model prisoner known for good works,” the Times lied today. ...
(Hat tip to Max)
Vicious two-time (at least) murderer and rapist-torturer Robert Waterhouse was put to death in Florida last week. He took his first life 45 years ago. To say merely that the wheels of justice move slowly is a repugnant understatement in this case. ...
Courtwatcher Orlando’s Laura Williams brings attention to the case of Loc Buu Tran:
2006-CF-014820-O In custody since 10/19/06 ~ Trial now scheduled for 11/16/09 with Judge John Adams. 1st Degree Murder. Allegedly stabbed a UCF student to death 10/06 when she tried to break up with him. Also was convicted 8 years ago in Clearwater for rape. Mistrial was declared 8/12/09 after Judge Jenifer Davis realized during the first witness’ testimony that she had worked on the case when in the PD’s office.
Why can’t we seem to get this guy tried? ...
What’s the matter with the Atlanta Journal Constitution?
In the last year, the residents of Atlanta stood up and declared that they do not want their city to be a place known for crime, where murders and muggings are taken in stride. They declared that one murder, one home invasion, is one too many. They partnered with the police — ignoring the headline-grabbing anti-cop types who perennially try to sow divisiveness. ...
What do you say to the judge in Athens, Georgia to justify kidnapping somebody, stabbing them repeatedly with a screwdriver, and leaving them for dead?
Well, your honor, she’s mine, and she deserved it: ...
From a City Journal article by Heather Mac Donald. How the murder of 17-year old Lily Burk could have been prevented:
The recent arrest of a vicious murderer in Los Angeles vindicates—tragically, only after-the-fact—several policing and sentencing policies that anti-law-enforcement advocates have fought for years. . . ...
If the genius of democracy is the peaceful transfer of power through elections, the tragedy of democracy is the exploitation of this public goodwill by elected and appointed officials who treat their last year or so in office (sometimes, their entire time in office) like a tin pot dictatorship, holing up and divvying the spoils while behaving as if the needs of the people are beneath their concern.
There’s little the public can do about a lame duck elected official who treats them with contempt. Little, that is, except doing their homework for the next election, noting who is aligned with whom, voting accordingly — and carefully counting the towels after each transfer of power is complete. ...
On Sunday, May 10, the Atlanta Journal Constitution published an article by Bill Torpy that raises troubling questions about what is going on in Atlanta’s courtrooms. Like this April 10 story by Steve Visser, Torpy’s story focuses on an element of the justice system that receives less attention than policing but is arguably far more responsible for the presence of dangerous felons on Atlanta’s streets: the choices, both legal and administrative, made by Atlanta’s judges.
We invest judges with extraordinary power. We allow judicial discretion in all sorts of sentencing and administrative decisions. Legislators have tried to limit judges’ discretion in recent years by imposing minimum mandatory sentence guidelines and repeat offender laws. But Georgia’s sentencing guidelines still give judges far too much latitude to let criminals go free. Also, far too many judges have responded to this legislative oversight (aka, the will of the people) by simply ignoring the intent, and even the letter, of those laws. ...
The theme this week is punitive attitudes towards victims of crime. At the most primal level, the mere existence of victims threatens to spoil all the fun that can be had as you lift your glass from the tray, turn to Professor Ponytail (who could dress better at these things), and say: “When I was mentoring at the federal pen last weekend I met the most inspirational young author — wrongly convicted, of course — we must do something about getting his poetry published. We must!”
Oh, the headiness. That Seventies Susan Sarandon vibe, edgy alchemy of righteousness and rebellion — what a shame if it were all interrupted by flashing on the pensioner in her wheelchair in ugly tan compression stockings, rope scars on her wrists from where the young poet had bound her so tightly the paramedics had to peel the phone cord out from under layers of swollen skin. ...
Apparently, while it may be hard to be a pimp, as the popular song goes, it isn’t particularly hard to be a defendant in a child molestation case:
DragonCon founder’s health might keep him from standing trial
Edward Kramer was charged in 2000 with molestation children
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ...
Last week, I wrote about Lavelle McNutt, a serial rapist given many second chances. His Georgia Department of Corrections record is a record of something else, as well: our failure to imprison repeat offenders, even after the 1994 sentencing reform law was passed.
As the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported a few weeks ago, McNutt’s first adult rape conviction, for two separate rapes in New York State, occurred in 1976, just after he turned 18. When you see an 18-year old convicted of a serious offense, you have to wonder about the contents of his sealed juvenile record: 18-year olds don’t wake up one day, break into the first house they see, and rape the occupant. They usually start experimenting with sexual abuse early in adolescence, victimizing their siblings, peers, and other easy targets. How many children and young women had already been sexually assaulted by McNutt by the time he aged out of the juvenile system? ...
(Many criminologists don’t have far to go if they want to study the habits of domestic terrorists and other convicted felons. A quick stroll to the faculty lounge is all that’s needed. Students with criminal records probably have a harder time gaining access to the university than professors with the same.)
*** ...
For years, I’ve kept a file inelegantly titled “Just Not Putting the B******s Away.” Unfortunately, it is a thick file. Here is the latest entry.
The St. Petersburg Times reported this morning that fugitive Tampa Bay area physician Rory P. Doyle has surfaced in Ireland, where he fled after being permitted to bail out on a double child-molestation charge in Florida in 2001. Dr. Doyle somehow obtained permission to re-register to practice medicine in Ireland under his own name and then somehow received permission to change his name to Dr. David West. In addition to the largesse demonstrated by these serial “benefits of the doubt,” an Irish judge now refuses to imprison him prior to his extradition to the United States. ...
A really interesting article in U.S.A. Today on the national push to get prisoners out of jail and into community programs.
In a hushed conference room overlooking the town’s main drag, eight convicted felons, including an aspiring amateur fighter, brandish bright Crayola markers.Their goal is to match their personalities to one of four colors. Tim Witte, 27, on probation for evading arrest, eyes the task as if sizing up a fellow middle-weight on Kansas’ gritty cage-fighting circuit. Witte and two drug offenders settle on orange. ...
An unholy alliance between politicians and bureaucrats who want to keep prison costs to a minimum, and liberal intellectuals who pretend to see in crime a natural and understandable response to social injustice — which it would be a further injustice to punish — has engendered a prolonged and so far unfinished experiment in leniency that has debased the quality of life of millions of people, especially the poor.
Theodore Dalrymple, in Not With A Bang But A Whimper ...