Free Republic

On the eve of his execution, a Texas death row is saying that he does not want to be the state’s guinea pig for the use of a new drug for lethal injection. Cleve Foster, who is accused of murdering Sudanese refugee Nyaneur Pal in 2002, is set to be executed on Tuesday, but he doesn’t want to be the first Texan to be executed with the new drug pentobarbital.

The state of Arizona executed a convicted murderer on Tuesday night despite objections from attorneys that the state would use a non-approved drug from overseas for the lethal injection. Just hours before Jeffrey Landrigan's death, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to lift a stay issued by a federal judge to halt the execution. "There is no evidence in the record to suggest that the drug obtained from a foreign source is unsafe," the Supreme Court said Due to a U.S. shortage, the state turned to a non-FDA approved drug. It was later revealed that the source was the U.K., although...

Is there a competency problem at the White House?Remember this recent photo of Obama trotting out three unemployed persons to use as props as he demanded that Congress increase the budget deficit and pass a further extension of unemployment benefits without paying for it? Well, turns out the reason the woman on the right is unemployed is that she was convicted of prescription drug fraud charges in 2009 and is currently serving her sentence: Leslie Macko, a Charlottesville resident, stood next to President Obama as his example of the need to extend jobless benefits. "We need to extend unemployment compensation...

In a 2007 study, it was determined that Sweden was the least religious country in the world. Another words up to 85% of the Swedish citizens were either a non-believer, atheist, or an agnostic. Which explains the lack of sexual morals in the way the Swedish people live their lives. Culturally, Sweden is one of the most sexually immoral countries in the world. An accusation they claim to be unfair, because in their eyes they are just being sexually free. However, I am now convinced that the criminally insane perverts are now running things in Sweden. What else can...

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida fugitive Paula Eileen Carroll got an unpleasant birthday surprise this morning when she was arrested by Brevard County Sheriff’s Officers at her home for escaping from the Florida prison system more than three decades ago. Carroll escaped 34 years ago from a Florida prison where she was serving a five year sentence for buying, receiving or concealing stolen property. She was sentenced on July 18, 1975 for the Osceola county offense, and escaped less than two months later, on September 3, 1975. A tipster had contacted Fugitive Coordinator Rita Hall with the Department of Corrections’ Fugitive Unit...

A defense lawyer is calling for calm after death threats have been made against teenagers charged in the death of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide after she was allegedly bullied by schoolmates. "Not to minimize what happened to Phoebe Prince in any way, but translating this into death threats and public harassment has got to stop," says Colin Keefe, who represents Sharon Chanon Velazquez, accused of tormenting Prince, who hanged herself on Jan. 14. "It's gotten way out of control," adds Keefe, who says Velazquez has been driven temporarily from her home.

Neighbors are in shock after a shooting rampage in Chicago's Marquette Park neighborhood left a woman and three children dead overnight. Two others were hospitalized. Chicago Police picked up the suspect on foot without incident a few miles away at 59th Street and Racine Avenue. A weapon was recovered from a car nearby. Family members said the suspect was visiting from Madison, Wis. The big question is what made him open fire on his whole family. "He just went crazy. He shot everybody in the house," said Ella Smith, an aunt of one of the victims. She says while her...

Why don't we start a letter writing campaign to the court to encourage them to give solid, real sentences to these monsters and not give them a slap on the wrist? By doing that we'll ensure that justice is done.

The attorney for one of six South Hadley High School students accused of bullying Phoebe Prince in the months leading up to her suicide is asking for highly personal information about her, a move decried by a former prosecutor and victims advocates as “unconscionable.” In a six-page motion filed in Northampton Superior Court, Terrence M. Dunphy, the lawyer for Austin Renaud, asks for the names of any physicians, psychologists or rape counselors Prince saw; any medical and psychological records viewed by the prosecutor; details of any prior allegations of rape or abuse by Prince; and a statement as to whether...

Convicted felon Robert Creamer, who wrote the blueprint for the Democrats’ health care reform campaign, attended official health care signing celebrations in Washington, D.C. yesterday. He was joined by numerous activists and “community organizers” who have had their sights set on nationalizing health care and have finally achieved it. Creamer’s spouse, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, was one of the bill’s most vociferous proponents. Creamer’s attendance was leaked by a fellow partygoer who blogged: “I just got back from the post-signing ceremony celebration at the Interior Department. It was like a family reunion–young Obama staffers mixing with warriors from the ’93-’94 health...

Pelosi: We are the most ethical Congress By Jordan Fabian - 02/26/10 11:46 AM ET House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday said that she is running the most ethical Congress in history. Asked at a press conference whether or not her Congress is the most ethical in light of new findings that Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) broke House rules, Pelosi responded "We are." But Pelosi dodged on whether or not she would officially discipline Rangel, who helms the powerful Ways and Means Committee. After Democrats reclaimed the majority in the House of Representatives in 2006, Pelosi, who at the...

HACKENSACK, N.J. – A jury convicted a Florida man Friday of murdering his former son-in-law, rejecting the man's defense that he was too fat to have run up and down a flight of stairs to commit the crime and make a quick getaway. Edward Ates looked down and shook his head in court as he was found guilty of murder and weapons counts for killing Paul Duncsak, who was shot six times at his home in Ramsey, about 25 miles northwest of New York. Ates' "too fat to kill" defense provided an angle to the trial that attracted attention from...

t was a memorable moment in the run-up to the corruption trial of Antoin "Tony" Rezko when the onetime political high roller complained to a judge that he had to share underwear at Chicago's federal jail. Rezko, used to a cushy life in his Wilmette mansion, had been locked in solitary confinement 23 hours a day in the downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center. His attorneys called conditions at the high-rise jail "disgusting" and said Rezko never got to breathe fresh air. So now that word has circulated that Rezko is considering cooperating in the federal probe of corruption in state government,...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A 39-year-old Yemeni accused of being an aide to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was sentenced to life in prison Monday by a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a Pentagon spokesman said. Ali Hamza Ahmad al-Bahlul, an alleged aide and media secretary to Bin Laden, was convicted Friday by a military panel of charges of conspiracy, solicitation to murder and terrorist acts, and providing material support for terrorism, said Commander Jeffrey Gordon. It was the second trial of a "war on terror" detainee at Guantanamo Bay under a specially created system of military commissions that has...

In a Hollywood-style breakout, a 21-year-old inmate stole a 10,000-pound firetruck and rammed his way out of a state prison in southeastern South Dakota, authorities said. Jesse Oliver blasted the 2007 International white pumper truck through two sets of gates at the Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield about 1:45 p.m. Monday, the state Department of Corrections said. To the south in Nebraska, the Knox County Sheriff's Office is investigating a report that two people saw a truck matching the description of the one taken from the prison heading south near the Niobrara Bridge and toward Santee, Neb., shortly after...

Michael Sneed Rezko redux The fed bed . . . September 26, 2008 BY MICHAEL SNEED Sun-Times Columnist Tipsville: Sneed hears rumbles that convicted influence peddler Tony Rezko, whose dealings have been linked to Barack Obama and Gov. Blagojevich, is singing to the feds. • • To wit: "I'm told by a close friend of Rezko that he's cooperating with the feds," said a Sneed source. "I don't know whether he's talking about Gov. Blagojevich or Barack Obama or anyone else," the source said. • • The shocker: Rezko, a Wilmette businessman who was a top adviser and fund-raiser for...

Prisoners who go on the run could have the time cut from their sentence, internal Government papers revealed last night. Convicts will be able to count both the day they absconded and the day they were caught as time spent behind bars. A criminal could walk out of an open jail in the morning and hand himself in the next day, and both days would count as time served. The Tories accused the Government of 'rewarding bad behaviour'.

When Sen. Barack Obama decided to buy a stately $1.65 million home last year on Chicago's South Side, Antoin "Tony" Rezko and his wife wasted no time. The same day the Obamas closed on the house, the Rezkos closed on the purchase of the adjoining vacant lot, which once was the estate's lush side yard.

The Supreme Court said Tuesday that a Muslim inmate cannot sue the government over the disappearance of the prisoner's copies of the Koran and a prayer rug.Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia joined Thomas. The dissenters were Justices Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

DALLAS — A man convicted of raping a woman in 1981 and sentenced to life in prison has been cleared by DNA evidence and will be released, according to attorneys who have helped free 14 other wrongfully convicted inmates in Dallas County. Charles Chatman, 47, is expected to be released Thursday after spending more than 26 years behind bars, said Natalie Roetzel of the Innocence Project of Texas. "I never lost hope," Chatman told The Associated Press. "I always believed I would get out. I didn't know when or how, but I kept believing."

A prisoner is suing the Macomb County Jail for not allowing him to sign his marriage certificate after tying the knot with his fiance. Waukeen Spraggins said his vows through a glass window in the visitor's room with a minister present in February. But deputies refused to let him sign because high-security inmates are barred from marrying in jail. Spraggins was considered a high risk after he escaped from jail in 1999.

Oregon child killer Ward Weaver stabbed during haircut Posted by The Associated Press May 08, 2007 06:18AM Categories: Breaking News Ward Weaver ONTARIO -- Convicted child killer Ward Weaver survived a stabbing by an inmate barber at the Snake River Correctional Institution, authorities said. Weaver, 44, is serving two life sentences at the Eastern Oregon prison. He pleaded guilty in 2004 to killing two Oregon City girls whose bodies were found in 2002 at his home -- one under a concrete slab and the other in a bag in a storage shed. The barber, Marvin Lee Taylor, 44, was charged...

Jimmy Lee Smith, the notorious, lifelong criminal whose role in the 1963 kidnapping and killing of a police officer inspired Joseph Wambaugh's true-life crime novel "The Onion Field," has died in jail at age 76, a state prisons official said Saturday. Smith died Friday at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, where he was being held for failing to report to a parole officer, said Bill Sessa, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman. The cause of death was under investigation, according to the county coroner's office, although foul play was not suspected. Smith was once sentenced to death...

One of two men convicted of the "Onion Field" kidnap.m.urder of a police officer in 1963 has violated parole and is being sought by authorities. Jimmy Lee Smith, 76, has been at large since Dec. 22, said California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Jonathan Parsley. Although Parsley couldn't specify what parole condition was violated, but Smith went back to prison in June 2005 after admitting that he had violated parole by possessing heroin. Smith and Gregory Powell were convicted of abducting two Los Angeles policemen from a Hollywood street on March 6, 1963. The officers were driven 75 miles...

Release from Prison Equivalent to Death Sentence for Some By Neil Osterweil, Senior Associate Editor, MedPage Today Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco January 10, 2007 SEATTLE, Jan. 10 -- Persons newly released from prison, within their first two weeks of freedom, have a nearly 13-fold higher risk of death than those in the general population. And even two years after release, former inmates have a 3.5-fold greater risk of dying than others in the community, found Ingrid A. Binswanger, M.D., of the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues in...

Marth Stewarts Holiday Recipes

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A convicted murderer who escaped from a Michigan psychiatric facility in 1976 was back behind bars Thursday after living most of his 30 years on the run as an otherwise law-abiding family man in Tennessee, authorities said. Thomas Ball, 76, was arrested at his Nashville home Wednesday morning, Deputy U.S. Marshal Danny Shelton said. Ball had been using the name Thomas Fry and had run a storage business near Nashville for years with a woman he called his wife, Shelton said. After she died last year, he turned to the government for financial help, and that led...

CARROLL, N.Y. (AP) - A fugitive who once threatened to "splatter pig meat all over Chautauqua County" in upstate New York surrendered without firing a shot, ending a five-month manhunt for a career criminal suspected of shooting three state troopers, one fatally. With helicopters circling above a field just over the Pennsylvania state line and SWAT teams and U.S. Marshals closing in, a gaunt and exhausted Ralph "Bucky" Phillips threw up his hands. Police ordered him to the ground, handcuffed him and sped him to New York state to face charges of attempted murder. "The bottom line is the pressure...

FREDONIA - They stood shoulder to shoulder - in the gray uniforms and camouflage fatigues of the State Police - as the American flag was lowered to half staff. One sang "Amazing Grace." With those simple acts, the mourning for Trooper Joseph A. Longobardo began. Shortly after a Sunday evening news conference in which he announced Longobardo's death, State Police Superintendent Wayne E. Bennett asked reporters to cover a brief ceremony conducted outside the Fredonia substation of the State Police. "I think without any words being spoken, that sends a very powerful message to the public about what has gone...

An Islamic militant jailed in connection with the 2002 Bali bombings was released from prison Thursday while 11 others linked to the blasts received sentence reductions. The militants had their sentences cut by four months to mark Indonesia's independence day. The reduction allowed one of the men to walk free after completing his jail term. Officials say the 12 militants carried out robberies, financed the attacks and sheltered key figures in the nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists. Indonesia often reduces prison terms on holidays, but the move is likely to draw protests from Australia...

Australia accused of returning to convict ship era By Nick Squires in Cairns (Filed: 04/08/2006) Australia plans to use an armed prison ship to hold illegal fishermen and "boat people" in a move that critics say smacks of the country's convict origins. Under the plan, naval and customs patrol boats will no longer have to return to port to deposit asylum seekers and poachers detained at sea. "The vessel will have the capability to remain at sea for extended periods and operate independently in waters around Australia," said Chris Ellison, the customs minister. Terry O'Gorman, the president of the Australian...

UN defends Rwanda tribunal By Mike Pflanz in Arusha (Filed: 24/06/2006) The United Nations court prosecuting the ringleaders of Rwanda's genocide has had to defend itself after taking 12 years and spending almost £550 million to convict only 25 people.The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) promised at its inception in 1994 to indict some 700 senior politicians, government officials, clergymen and journalists accused of orchestrating the genocide. As the full scale of the task became obvious, and amid repeated claims of inefficiency, that figure was reduced to 300. Only 72 people have been arrested and 25 convicted. A further...

ATLANTA - Lawyers for convicted killer Wayne Williams, blamed for the murders of two dozen boys and young men in the Atlanta area during the 1970s and '80s, are casting suspicion on a child molester they say lived or worked near where many of the bodies were found. In court papers made public Friday, the defense asked a federal judge for access to police files on the molester. The papers do not identify the man by name but say he is a multiple child molester serving time in a Georgia prison. They also allege that investigators knew the man was...

President Victor Yushchenko’s bloc, Our Ukraine, on Tuesday attacked its main rival at the upcoming parliamentary election by bringing up an issue of jail sentences apparently served by former Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych, Ukrainian journal reported. The attack focusing on Yanukovych’s jail sentences, apparently in 1969 and 1970, and apparently for robbery and assault, may shatter the party’s rating ahead of the vote, analysts said. Roman Zvarych, the chief of Our Ukraine’s legal department and former Justice Minister, said his group had filed an inquiry with law enforcement agencies whether Yanukovych’s jail sentences had been canceled legally. Internal Affairs Minister...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sunday, December 18, 2005 PRESS CONTACT: Jasmyne Cannick (Local Media) (323) 839-0216 jasmynecannick@hotmail.com LaNiece Jones (Int’l and Nat’l Media) (510) 568-5899 lajpr@aol.com Viewing to Take Place on Monday, Memorial Service Slated for Tuesday LOS ANGELES - There will be a public viewing of Stanley Tookie Williams on Monday, December 19, 2005 from 3 p.m. until 9 p.m. at the House of Winston Mortuary located at 9501 South Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles. The memorial service for peacemaker Stanley Tookie Williams will take place Tuesday, December 20, 2005 at 12 noon. The service will take place at Bethel...

Pushing Sex Offenders May Increase Dangers By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press Writer ALBANY, N.Y. - The clamps are coming down on released sex offenders like never before. But some experts wonder sex offenders are being pushed so far to the fringes that they could actually become more dangerous to society. Laws restrict where they can live, Web sites list their names, satellites track their steps. Neighbors and bosses force them from their homes and jobs. The tightening of restrictions around the country comes after several recent slayings of children, allegedly by released sex offenders. The crackdown is aimed at protecting...

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) - Lawyers for the first person convicted in the Sept. 11 plot say they believe new evidence from the U.S. will allow him to beat charges that he helped the Hamburg al-Qaida cell plan the attacks - but fear acquittal here may put Mounir el Motassadeq in U.S. custody. If el Motassadeq is found not guilty after a yearlong retrial that ends this summer, German authorities say they'll send him to his native Morocco - a move defense attorneys say could result in his transfer to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or elsewhere. El Motassadeq's...

Martha Stewart, in prison for one of her favorite holidays, says she is "safe, fit and healthy" and grateful this Thanksgiving for the support of her fans. In a new message on her personal Web site, the homemaking expert also says she is being treated fairly by staff and other inmates at the federal women's prison in Alderson, W.Va. "As you would expect, the loss of freedom and the lack of privacy are extremely difficult," the message says. "Visits from my friends, family and colleagues - together with your goodwill and best wishes - will get me through this chapter...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - A driver stopped on an Iowa highway this month was found with flight-training manuals, Arabic documents and night-vision goggles, and he told troopers he knew of terrorist plans to shoot up trains in San Diego, according to court papers. Michael Wagner, 44, of San Diego, said he had knowledge of terrorist activities and people and groups tied to al-Qaida and the Taliban. Wagner also said that he knew about things in the Muslim communities in San Diego that would interest federal authorities.

George Crossley of Deltona talks to people after a rally for restoration of voting rights for ex-felons Tuesday in front of the Volusia County Courthouse in DeLand DELAND -- For 19-year-old Robert Keys, the matter that landed him outside the Volusia County Courthouse on Tuesday was dead serious. It had to do with some arrests -- but not his. Neither Keys' father nor his uncle can vote in November because Florida law does not automatically restore convicted felons' civil rights. "Get hyped. Let's go," he shouted, as he thrust a protest sign skyward. Like about 40 others who showed up...

NYC police on watch for Port courthouse bomber By Andy Smith and Stephanie Akin Staff writers New York City police are targeting a man who bombed Newburyport Superior Court 28 years ago, saying he poses a threat to next week's Republican National Convention. But an anti-war activist group has accused police of trying to "smear" their reputation by linking the group with the convicted radical who terrorized New England with a series of bombings in the 1970s. New York City police say Richard J. Picariello, 55, is among 50 activists whose criminal histories will earn them extra attention next week....

Seattle police detectives are on the verge of solving a killing in 1968 that sickened the community and have found their suspect sitting in a state prison cell, where he is serving time for killing two other women. The death of 16-year-old Sandra Bowman, a pregnant newlywed at the time, could soon be one of the longest-unsolved slayings brought to a Washington courtroom and is believed to be one of the oldest cases in the nation showing such promise.... ... Police have tied the Bowman slaying to a man serving more than 100 years in prison for two 1969 murders...

Three rounds of gunfire and three misses. Before his afternoon arrest in the bathroom of a coffeehouse at 49th and Dodge Streets, Michael E. McGuire acquired a hostage, two guns, a rental car and cash. McGuire stayed in the hostage's apartment at 4810 Capitol Ave., taking the man out when he needed help and, at other times, leaving him there, handcuffed so he couldn't escape. Five days of stolen freedom ended Saturday afternoon in dramatic fashion with a capture involving gunshots and a chase. And in a way that McGuire's lawyer says the escapee never wanted: with the target of...

LONDON (AP) - A man who claimed to have cancer in order to con the equivalent of more than $450,000 Cdn from family, friends and well-wishers was jailed for four years Friday. Judge John Burke told former air steward Glenn Rycroft that his actions had been "mean, wicked and indeed heartless." "Your victims, who parted with in some case their life savings, entrusted you with their money and included members of your own family and close friends," the judge said. "If that were not mean enough, you later pretended you were suffering from cancer and went to ingenious lengths to...

hillary clinton's martha-stewart fixation continues... by Mia T, 7.8.03       "I liked the traditional duties of keeping a house. ..." "I'm not the greatest at it in the world," Mrs. Clinton told the BBC. "But I loved doing it. I mean, it was inviting people to come to your home and therefore it mattered to me what china we used, what the flowers looked like, what the menu was." hausfrau hillaryHillary: I Loved Being a Homemaker by Mia T   Hillary Clinton's equal and inapposite reactions seem to be, at first blush, instances of the immutable First Law...

<p>The U.S. appeals court in Richmond says a Roanoke federal judge should not have dismissed the case of a transsexual state prison inmate seeking to resume estrogen treatments.</p> <p>A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously yesterday to reverse the lower court and send the case back for further proceedings.</p>

Abilene second-guesses heroism He was hailed after a brave rescue, then called a suspect in the blaze05/06/2003 By DAVID SEDEÑO / The Dallas Morning News ABILENE – Hero. Goat. Arson suspect. As Kris Leija rode his bicycle to a cousin's home in the middle of the night a little more than a week ago, he saw people fleeing the burning 21/21 Apartments, with flames leaping from the far side of the blocklong complex. He dumped his bicycle and furiously began knocking on residents' doors. Camera crews captured Mr. Leija's heroic efforts amid the blaze – one of this city's largest...

Early last month, Dave Laspisa, a Poway businessman, opened his mail and discovered a holiday card from his old friend David Westerfield. "Greetings of the Seasons," the card announced, and inside was a handwritten note of thanks for Laspisa's support. Van Dams file lawsuit against Westerfield During the past year, Laspisa has been fairly vocal in his belief that Westerfield, his camping buddy, had nothing to do with the murder of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam. "Please know that I was not involved in the death of this child," Westerfield wrote. "I'm saying this to you not to solicit more help...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey's most popular politician, the leader of an Islamic-oriented party, was barred Friday from running in November elections, the Anatolia news agency reported. The High Electoral Board ruled that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the head of the Justice and Development Party, cannot run on Nov. 3 because he was convicted of reading a poem that the court said incited religious hatred. Turkish laws disqualify candidates with criminal records from running for office. Also barred from running were former pro-Islamic premier Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of the country's pro-Kurdish party, Murat Bozlak, and the most prominent Turkish human...

Lipscomb 'free and clear' Bribery retrial wouldn't serve justice, U.S. attorney says 08/31/2002 By TODD BENSMAN / The Dallas Morning News U.S. Attorney Jane Boyle announced Friday that she would not retry former Dallas City Council member Al Lipscomb on bribery charges, in spite of what she called overwhelming evidence of corruption. A second trial would "not serve the interests of justice," she said in a prepared statement. The decision not to retry Mr. Lipscomb, 77, comes six weeks after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his 1999 conviction on 65 charges of accepting bribes from a...