Posted on 06/30/2006 6:47:31 AM PDT by lunarbicep
The confession of a man charged with kidnapping, raping and killing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford isn't admissible in court, but the discovery of her body can be used as evidence, a judge ruled today.
John Evander Couey, a 47-year-old convicted sex offender, gave the confession to detectives, but also told them that he wanted to consult a lawyer. He wasn't given the opportunity to do so.
Jessica Marie Lunsford was found kneeling and clutching a stuffed animal, hands tied with speaker wire and fingers poking through the garbage bags in which she was buried alive in March 2005. Two days earlier, Couey told detectives he kidnapped, raped and killed the 9-year-old girl.
no.freakin.way O'Reilly is going to have a stroke. I may well join him.
Bush's fault, no doubt. Set this fine gentleman free at once! Make him featured speaker at the next ACLU banquet!
Cops made a real mess in this one.
this guy is a scumbag of the highest degree. It is the police and detectives who screwed this one up, not the judge. Flame me if you want, but a coupla detectives should lose their jobs, for their actions may very well help aquit an admitted murdered.
First of all - this guy should be strung up.
Second of all - the premise of having an attorney present is something all law enforcement should be aware of. If some scumbag - and this guy is certainly a scumbag - is asking for a lawyer, halt the freakin' questioning and get him a lawyer, because otherwise it's going to be more difficult to prove his guilt now that the confession gets tossed out.
Let's hope the DNA evidance makes his confession unnessessary.
Prayers for the poor girl.
Take the guy out to a public place in the Florida panhandle and announce where he will be, then release him. I'm certain he will find quick justice.
Oh my God ! I can't begin to imagine what she went through, I hope God took her before she suffered too much.
Let's just save the expense and put the ****er in General Population with a Blue Outfit saying on the front: "I assulted and murdered a 9-year-old-girl."
damn
It is unfortunate that his confession is going to be thrown out. But if they questioned him and he had requested his lawyer, it was bound to happen. Nonethless, I believe that he is going to be convicted and given the death sentence.
This is the result of a Warren-era SCOTUS. There is nothing in the Constitution that requires the suppression of evidence if an accused confesses or makes a damning admission after he has said he wants an attorney but before he can speak with one. SCOTUS made this remedy up whole cloth, just some more judicial legislating beyond their authority.
There is something wrong with our laws and with this judge. The animal confessed after he was given his Miranda warning. He should no longer be breathing (the animal, that is). The judge should be disbarred.
Perhaps they should just free him now, you have a huge media event and call the whole thing off and let him go on the court house steps.
And let him go home....
(I'm kidding of course, but at this rate they might as well.)
This "rule" is the result of Escobedo and Miranda decisions in the sixties. You know, there is NOTHING about that decade that is worth keeping.
What about the two? women? living in the same TRAILER that said they didn't know anything about it...even tho the child was IN the trailer???
It would have been a lot easier if he had been shot while resisting arrest. That should happen also to those terrorist rather than being shipped to Gitmo. Save the ACLU a lot of trouble. Ha!
LOL - Howard the Duck (Dean) wants to take us back to the sixties!
Here in Georgia, "home" is probably near a school-bus stop. A Clinton-appointed federal judge has tossed out our new state law barring sex offenders from living near places where kids congregate. Here, at least, sex offenders are a protected class.
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