Church Arson Case To Go Before Grand Jury

nbc13.com ^ | 03-23-06 | NBC13 Staff

[Eternal Sea]

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The case of three men accused in a recent string of church arsons is set to go before a grand jury next week.

Ben Moseley, Matthew Cloyd and Russell Debusk are being held in the Shelby County Jail on arson charges. They are accused of setting fire to nine churches in western Alabama last month.

Next week, a grand jury will hear the facts of the case and decide if the trio should be charged, and if so, with what.

[Always Right]

DUmmies have lost three of their finests for a long long long time.

[rocksblues]

should be charged?

WTF.

[Eternal Sea]

Let's hope so if they are found guilty.

[Eternal Sea]

That is indeed bizarre.

[rocksblues]

From the reports I have seen they confessed that it started out as joke and got out of hand.

Until the last leftist, hippie, draft dodger etc is dead we are in trouble!

[Alex Murphy]

Next week, a grand jury will hear the facts of the case and decide if the trio should be charged, and if so, with what.

should be charged?

I just did the same double-take that you did. They're caught, confessed, and a grand jury needs to decide whether to charge them with a crime?????

[AnAmericanMother]

It's just that they don't want to acknowledge what everybody knows -- that these guys are going down. It isn't considered polite to publicly call a grand jury's verdict a foregone conclusion.

The DA is probably poring over the lawbooks deciding how many different crimes he can include in his presentment to the GJ.

I'm sure the GJ will throw the book at these no-goodniks.

[Irene Adler]

Why do they need a Grand Jury for this????

[Rte66]

"In addition to the federal charges, each man is charged with state arson and burglary charges. The state arson charges mean that if released, the suspects would spend time in Bibb County Jail. All men currently reside in federal custody in the Shelby County Jail. Moseley and Cloyd also face arrest warrants in Pickens County.

If convicted on all state counts, each suspect will face between 15 and 150 years in state prison. As for federal charges, each man faces between seven and 40 years in federal prison."

[pepsionice]

If this had been a case of strictly one church...alot of people could look the other way and just three years. But these guys were pretty busy...and if the cops hadn't been that smart...there would have been more churches down the road. My guess is that they will get 15 years at the state level, and the federal judge will let his 7 years concurrently with the state sentence...and the boys all get to stay within the state prison system. If they are "good"...then they could all walk free in 10 years. Its going to be awful hard to explain on their resumes...what they were doing in the prime of their life.

[Rte66]

It was actually simpler than I thought. I knew there was a "secret witness" they've talked about in the news who *isn't* Cloyd's mother. It was someone else that one of the boys said "we've done something stupid" to. I thought perhaps that was the reason - grand jury witness secrecy.

But even that wasn't it. Heh heh.

"No felony case in Alabama can be tried without an indictment returned by a grand jury."

There ya go!