Free Republic

JOLIET, Ill. — Drew Peterson, the swaggering former suburban Chicago police officer who generated a media storm after his much-younger fourth wife vanished in 2007, was convicted Thursday of murdering his third wife in a case based mainly on secondhand hearsay statements from the two women. Peterson, 58, sat stoically looking straight ahead and did not react as the verdict was read, but several of Savio's family members gasped before hugging each other as they cried quietly in the courtroom. Illinois has no death penalty, and Peterson now faces a maximum 60-year prison term when sentenced on Nov. 26. The...

p>I won't run through the usual litany of misdeeds. If you don't already know them by heart, you'll commit them to memory eventually when you finally tire of liberals screeching at you for "hating women" while holding this guy up as a secular saint. (Chappaquiddick material is abundant online, but this post will get you up to speed on another legendary incident.) I've got to say, in all sincerity: I appreciate their brazenness in building a convention around the theme of a "war on women" while not only inviting Bill Clinton to be a headline speaker but having a video...

L.A mayor’s party will glam uptownBy Tim Funk Posted: Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012 An army of A-list celebs and politicos are expected to show up at the N.C. Music Factory on Sept. 5 for a Hollywood-themed gala hosted by L.A. Mayor – and Dem convention chairman – Antonio Villaraigosa. The Dish has learned that the Factory’s Fountain Plaza and Osso Restaurant will get a one-night make-over. Picture palm trees, classic L.A. architecture and lots of California wine. **SNIP** Grandson Joseph Kennedy III, a candidate for Congress, will introduce a video salute to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy on the convention’s...

“Membership of the species Homo sapiens is not enough to confer a right to life.” To the ears of us ordinary people, it sounds like the ravings of some fringe group of European neo-fascists or Communists, but the man who made that statement in a Scottish newspaper today is perhaps the most acclaimed and respected ethical philosopher alive, toasted by liberal academic and political elites around the world. Philosopher and Bioethicist Peter Singer defended abortion in an op-ed in the Scotsman today. “Opponents will respond that abortion is, by its very nature, unsafe – for the fetus,” he wrote. “They...

The FBI recovered a package that apparently was mailed by James Eagan Holmes after the shooting suspect told investigators to look for the item on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, a senior law enforcement official told NBC News on Wednesday. The source told NBC that the package contained writings about killing people, but could not go into more detail.

The man accused of going on a deadly shooting rampage at the opening of the new Batman movie appeared Monday in court for the first time. James Holmes, 24, who is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 58 others inside a packed movie theater in Aurora, Colo., will be formally charged next Monday. He is being held without bond. Holmes, who did not speak, sat in a maroon jailhouse jumpsuit as the judge advised him of the case. He appeared wide-eyed with bright reddish orange hair. Holmes has been held in solitary confinement at an Arapahoe County detention facility...

Pardo’s flick, aptly titled, “The Unpromotable,” is derived from more than 70 hours of real footage of Simpson traveling to events from 2001 until he was sent to the slammer in 2008 in an armed kidnapping case. . . “It’s him with girls all over him in clubs,” said Pardo, who joined Simpson at appearances in 35 states including New York. “It doesn’t show him in a great light, (but) in both lights. . . Like the trials of Simpson themselves, the film has a racial undertone, so the Hall of Fame running back has given him strict instructions...

An Associated Press photographer finds Chief Justice John Roberts in Malta — where he's spending some time after the

To save the imperiled spotted owl, the Obama administration is moving forward with a controversial plan to shoot barred owls, rival birds that have shoved their smaller cousins aside. The plan is the latest federal attempt to protect the northern spotted owl, the passive, 1-pound bird that sparked an epic battle over logging in the Pacific Northwest two decades ago. The government set aside millions of acres of forest to protect the owl, but the bird's population continues to decline - a 40 percent slide in 25 years.

In 2011, death row inmate Abdul Awkal sued an Ohio prison because he was receiving non-halal food while in prison. As a consequence, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction banned all pork products in prison. This year, prisoner James Rivers filed a lawsuit arguing that pork should not be outright banned. He reasoned that, should Muslims not want to eat pork, they had the right to, but that it was discriminatory to ban pork for everyone. Additionally, the prison did offer meals without pork products in them before the ban. To reinforce Rivers's lawsuit, prison authorities argued that the...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The suspect in last week's slayings of five people in San Francisco was ordered deported in 2006 after he served a prison term for robbery and assault, but because his native Vietnam would not issue travel documents for him, immigration officials had to let him go free, officials said Monday. Binh Thai Luc, 35, of San Francisco was released under the terms of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said undocumented immigrants must be released after six months if their country of origin won't take them back, according to officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement...

TORONTO, Ontario, March 22, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An Ontario Court of Justice judge erupted in a lengthy, angry tirade against pro-life activist Mary Wagner – and ejected a spectator from the public gallery – in a downtown Toronto courtroom Wednesday. The judge then sent Wagner to jail for an additional 92 days, added to 88 days already served prior to trial, after finding her guilty of mischief and two counts of failing to comply with probation orders. The charges related to Wagner’s November 8 arrest at the site of the Bloor West Village “Women’s Clinic.” Wagner has been arrested on...

After a siege which continued for nearly 24 hours, police in France have captured Mohammad Merah, the gunman believed to be behind a string of shootings including this week's attack at the Otzar HaTorah school in Toulouse, Kol Yisrael radio reported. The raid on on Merah's home began shortly before 1:00 a.m. (Israel time) on Thursday, according to local media reports. Three explosions had reportedly been heard in the area. The BBC quoted Toulouse's deputy mayor as having confirmed an assault had begun on the home, but an unnamed source close to the operation later told AFP that the explosions...

The president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood abortion business in Lubbock, Texas was arrested yesterday for indecent exposure at a local baseball field where children play. As KCBD reports, “According to Lubbock Police, Tony Ray Thornton, 56, was arrested at the baseball fields inside of Mackenzie Park. According to the incident report, Thornton was taken into custody at 3:25 Monday afternoon. He was booked into the Lubbock County Detention Center and released from jail Tuesday morning around 11 a.m.” The news station reports that Thornton has worked with the abortion business for several years and the Lubbock Planned Parenthood...

For 13 hours after they watched an Orange County sheriff’s deputy fatally shoot their father, the traumatized daughters of Marine Sgt. Manuel Loggins were held for questioning and not allowed to join their mother The accusation is contained in a claim Dunn said he would file Wednesday with the county, giving notice that the Loggins family plans to file suit in Superior Court against the Sheriff’s Department and the deputy for wrongful death. An attorney representing Darren Sandberg, identified as the deputy who shot Loggins, declined comment. Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens declined to comment on the facts of the...

A female police officer interrogating one of the murderers of the Fogel family was so revolted by his “defiant” smile, she slapped him across the face. Just days ago, Amjad Awad, one of the two Palestinian cousins who murdered five members of the young Israeli family last March was sentenced to five life sentences. According to Israel’s Channel 2, which reported the incident exclusively [Hebrew link], killer Amjad Awad’s smile “from ear to ear” made the 52-year-old officer lose control: A senior investigator with the Judea and Samaria police district could not control herself when she was faced with the...

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Friday he's "very comfortable" with his decision to grant pardons or other clemency to more than 200 people, including convicted killers, in his last days in office, telling Fox News that Mississippi is predominantly Christian and believes in forgiveness. The pardons have set off outrage among some victims' families and prompted a judge to block the release of some of the pardoned inmates out of concern that proper notification rules were not followed. Barbour told Fox News that any problem with paperwork was an accident on the part of corrections officials, who needed to...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's pardon of a convicted murderer who worked as an inmate trusty at the Governor's Mansion came two weeks after the man was denied parole by a state board. A letter to one of the victims in the case said the Mississippi Parole Board turned down 40-year-old David Gatlin on Dec. 27. The letter, dated Jan. 4 and obtained by The Associated Press, did not explain why the Parole Board rejected Gatlin's parole request. It said he was due for another parole hearing in October. Shannon Warnock, chair of the parole board, didn't...

The madman who burned an elderly Prospect Heights woman to death had been doing odd jobs for her - but was fired after she caught him stealing, her nephew said today. “He was doing more stealing than cleaning,” said a distraught Rickey Causey, 52, about the man in custody for allegedly setting 64-year-old victim Delores Gillespie on fire Saturday. Causey said the unidentified suspect - who turned himself into cops at Brooklyn’s 32nd transit district early today reeking of gasoline - had left a note on Gillespie’s door with a list of chores he was demanding payment for.

And to think thatAttorney General Eric Holder is getting testy about congressional calls for his resignation. After all, the Justice Department has nothing to hide, right?: The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico. This means information will now be kept from the public as well as the media. Could this be a cover-up on the part of the “most transparent” administration in history? After all, the rifle used...