Free Republic

James Breedin cannot keep track of how often he has been admitted to Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., for heart problems. "It's been so many," said Breedin, a 75-year-old disabled truck driver. One reason for his frequent returns, he says, is that he often can't afford the medications his doctor prescribes to keep his heart problems in check, "so I have to do without." And though his doctors recommend regular physical activity -- a lifestyle change that could also cut the chances he will find himself in the hospital again -- he said he fears exercising outside because of...

A judge tossed out California's newly adopted lethal injection procedure on Friday, throwing the state's already stalled capital punishment system into further doubt. Marin County Superior Court Judge Faye D'Opal, finalizing a tentative ruling she issued a day earlier, said prison officials failed to properly explain why they rejected a one-drug process using only a barbiturate when one of their experts recommended it as being superior to the three-drug mixture that was adopted to execute inmates. *** Prison officials will now either have to appeal or again revise their lethal injection procedures and submit them to public comment, a process...

Iran, worried by possible sabotage or an attack at the hands of Israel, has raised to five years the jail term for the crime of visiting Israel. State television reported on Monday that the parliament approved an amendment that ups the jail term to 2-5 years from the current three months. The original ban on traveling to the Jewish state, usually referred to by Iran as the "Zionist regime,” was inaugurated by the Shah in 1972, who did not want Iranians to visit communist countries. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime has arrested a number of Iranians, executing some of them,...

A 17-year-old girl who died in a gruesome home invasion that also killed her sister and mother likely took up to several minutes to die of smoke inhalation after her house was doused in gasoline and set on fire, a medical examiner testified Monday. Dr. Malka Shah could not say if burns found on Hayley Petit's body occurred before or after she died. Shah testified in the trial of Joshua Komisarjevsky, who faces a possible death sentence if he's convicted. His co-defendant, Steven Hayes, was convicted last year and is on death row. Hayley had been tied in her bed...

Wells, like many attorneys who plunge into this protracted and rewarding but frustrating legal venture, is morally and philosophically opposed to the death penalty. Although 34 states have it, there are other reasons Minnesota should continue to oppose it. Several credible national studies conclude, and nearly 90 percent of the nation's top criminologists in a recent survey agree, that the death penalty has very little, if any, effect at all on deterring violent crime. So agrees the law enforcement community. A national poll of police chiefs placed it dead last, pun intended, on ways to reduce violent crime. The chiefs...

The man allegedly behind Norway's devastating terror attacks, Anders Behring Breivik, is now under arrest. And he should count himself lucky for—if entirely undeserving of—a penal system in that country that is among the cushiest in the world. There's no capital punishment, and the longest jail term allowed is 21 years (a caveat: if a prisoner is deemed to still be a threat, his sentence can be extended in five-year blocks indefinitely, though it's highly unlikely, according to Norwegian officials). In Norway, rehabilitation is the guiding principle, not punishment—a somewhat difficult notion to swallow given the gravity and callousness of...

SPRINGFIELD — Gov. Pat Quinn today signed into law a historic ban on the death penalty in Illinois and commuted the sentences of 15 death row inmates to life without parole. The governor said he followed his conscience. He said he believed in signing the bill he also should "abolish the death penalty for everyone," including those already on death row. "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history," Quinn told reporters afterward. “I think it’s the right, just thing to abolish the death penalty.”

Analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau Under this resolution, a senator who is absent without leave from two or more session days is subject to a penalty equal to $100 for each day that the senator is absent without leave. In addition, the senator must reimburse the senate for the actual costs incurred to compel his or her attendance. The penalties and costs are imposed by adopting a privileged resolution that identifies the senator who has been absent without leave. A senator who is subject to the penalties and costs imposed by the resolution may only be heard on the...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Ohio says it's switching its lethal injection drug to an anesthetic commonly used to euthanize pets as a shortage of the drug normally used for executions has worsened.

Prior to the passage of the health-care law, President Obama was at his most emphatic and condescending in insisting the penalty for defying the mandate to buy health insurance is not a tax. In an ABC News interview in September 2009, Obama scoffed when George Stephanopoulos resorted to the dictionary to argue that the penalty must be a tax. An irritated Obama waved it all off as another unfair charge by his unhinged opponents. So you reject the notion that it's a tax increase? Stephanopoulos persisted. "I absolutely reject that notion," Obama declared. In retrospect, the former law-school lecturer should...

The state of Oklahoma is planning to execute death row inmates with drugs intended for use on animals. Lawmakers want to switch away from the only brand of anaesthetic that has been used in the US for lethal injections because there is not enough to go around. The replacement is likely to attract controversy because it is currently used by vets to anesthetise animals for operations. Other states are watching closely and may well follow suit, but such a move is likely to face a challenge from human rights groups to ensure that it is safe to use.

In 2005 the Supreme Court said the federal government's power to "regulate commerce…among the several states" extends to the tiniest speck of marijuana wherever it may be found, even in the home of a patient who grows it for her own medical use in compliance with state law. "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause," Justice Clarence Thomas warned in his dissent, "then it can regulate virtually anything—and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers." The Obama administration, which was in court this week defending the new federal requirement that every American obtain...

One of the most controversial provisions of the Obama health care reform legislation is the individual health care mandate. This is a requirement that individuals maintain essential health care insurance coverage beginning in 2014 or face an excise tax enforced by the Internal Revenue Service. This provision has already spawned numerous court challenges by individual states challenging whether the federal government has the constitutional authority to compel Americans to buy something they may not want to buy.

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the death sentence for a man convicted for the rape and murder of Ana Maria Angel, who was kidnapped along with her boyfriend during a stroll on South Beach in 2002. Victor Caraballo, 42, was one of five men accused in the brutal attack on Angel, 18, and her boyfriend, Nelson Portobanco, in April 2002. The couple, high-school sweethearts, were snatched from a Miami Beach street corner after they had taken a midnight stroll on the beach. Caraballo and the other four men drove the couple north on Interstate 95, taking turns raping...

Q. Despite being an Obama supporter and a strong proponent of health care reform, I think this plan is awful and I want to demonstrate my displeasure by boycotting it. My attitude is that you can tax me all you want for a single-payer system, but I will be damned if I pay a penny to a private company that I don’t wish to pay. Given that attitude, it seems likely that I will be subject to the nonpayment penalties, which I also do not plan on paying. Other than seizing my tax refund (something I will avoid, since I...

Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck will seek the death penalty against two men and one woman accused of torturing and killing a mentally disabled Greensburg woman. Peck filed notice yesterday that he will ask jurors to sentence Ricky V. Smyrnes, 24; Melvin L. Knight, 20; and Amber C. Meidinger, 20, to death by lethal injection, if convicted, because they tortured the victim. The three — along with Peggy Darlene Miller, 27; Robert Loren Masters, 36; and Angela Marinucci, 17 — are charged with first- and second-degree homicide in the stabbing death of Jennifer Daugherty, 30, in a Greensburg apartment...

A transient with a long criminal history pleaded guilty Friday to kidnapping and murdering a 17-year-old girl who was killed after failed attempts to withdraw cash from an automated teller machine with a credit card. The plea spared Charlie Samuel a possible death sentence for the killing of Lily Burk, whose body was found inside her car in a downtown Los Angeles parking lot. Her neck and been slashed and her head beaten. As part of his plea agreement with prosecutors, Samuel will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. Samuel, 50, was on...

MEMORANDUM April 30, 2010 To: Hon. Tom Coburn Attention: Josh Trent From: Carol A. Pettit, Legislative Attorney, 7-9496 Edward C. Liu, Legislative Attorney, 7-9166 Subject: The PPACA Penalty Provision and the Internal Revenue Service This memorandum responds to your request for information regarding the penalty imposed on those who fail to maintain minimum essential health benefits coverage. The requirement for coverage and the penalty for noncompliance, beginning in tax year 2014, were established by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, in new section 5000A of the Internal...

It couldn't have happened to a nicer country. On March 18, with very little pomp and circumstance, president Obama passed the most recent stimulus act, the $17.5 billion Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (H.R. 2487), brilliantly goalseeked by the administration's millionaire cronies to abbreviate as HIRE. As it was merely the latest in an endless stream of acts destined to expand the government payroll to infinity, nobody cared about it, or actually read it. Because if anyone had read it, the act would have been known as the Capital Controls Act, as one of the lesser, but infinitely more...

Marriage Penalty Hidden in Health Care Reform by Kim Trobee, editor Higher premiums may discourage people from getting married. A closer look at premium payments in both the House and Senate health care bills shows higher premiums that might discourage couples tying the knot. For instance, in the House version, an unmarried couple each making $30,000 a year would pay $1,320 combined each year for private health insurance. If that couple chose to marry, their premium would jump to $12,000 a year, a difference of $10,680. Allen Quist, a former Minnesota State legislator and current candidate for Congress, discovered the...

Senate Democrats' health care bill would create a new marriage penalty by imposing a tax on individuals who make $200,000 annually but hitting married couples making just $50,000 more. That's one of 17 new taxes imposed by the bill, which also creates a levy on elective plastic surgery - some call it "botax" - and places a 40 percent excise tax on those who have generous health care plans. "If you have insurance, you get taxed. If you don't have insurance, you get taxed. If you need a life-saving medical device, you get taxed. If you need prescription medicines, you...

Germans don't want KSM or the other turds to die.

Capital punishment is back in the news. There were actually those who protested the execution of mass-murdering Islamic terrorist John Muhammad, just as there will, no doubt, be those who protest the execution of mass-murdering Islamic terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan. More alarming to me is what appears to be an increase in people saying that capital punishment doesn't square with their "Christian faith." Let's get something straight: There are few things the Bible is more clear about than the fact that God commands us to put murderers to death. Not only does he command it, but he says that failure...

Man could face death penalty for slaying of soldier in ArkansasBy The Associated Press Story Updated: Aug 1, 2009 at 3:30 PM CDT LITTLE ROCK, Ark., -- Prosecutors say they'll seek a death penalty against a man accused of killing a soldier outside an Army recruiting center. Abdulhakim Muhammad pleaded not guilty on Friday at a Pulaski County court hearing to charges that he shot and killed Pvt. William Andrew Long. The judge set a trial date of Feb. 15. Muhammad's lawyer says his client is in good spirits but wouldn't say whether his client's calls to reporters to claim...

Chump change for a billionaire, but embarrassing still. Uber wealthy New York investment czar George Soros has agreed to pay an $8,000 penalty to California's Fair Political Practices Commission for breaching the state's campaign finance rules five years ago. The payment is part of a proposed settlement between Soros and FPPC, whose members will either approve or reject the settlement at a May 21 public meeting. The FPPC says that in October 2004, Soros made a $350,000 late contribution to the Drug Policy Action Network. However, he failed to disclose it in a timely way by reporting it as required...

A condemned Texas inmate who removed his only eye and ate it in a bizarre outburst several months ago on death row is “crazy,” yet sane under state law, a judge wrote in an appellate court ruling on Wednesday that rejected his appeals. Here’s the story, from the Associated Press. According to the story, Andre Thomas challenged his conviction and death sentence for the murder of his estranged wife’s 13-month-old daughter five years ago in Grayson County in North Texas. His wife and their 4-year-old son were killed in the same attack. The victims were stabbed and their hearts were...

Phillip Cherney has represented some notorious clients in his time, notably infamous Oakland drug czar Felix Mitchell Jr. in the mid '80s and Joel Radovcich, whom Fresno social climber Dana Ewell hired to murder his sister and wealthy parents in 1992. *** Cherney has the unenviable task of going before the California Supreme Court on Tuesday during oral arguments in San Francisco to plead for the ignominious death row inmate's life. Cherney knows he has his work cut out for him, noting in court papers that Davis, 54, is "one of the most reviled defendants" in recent California history, a...

Even amid the real-estate bust, waterfront property in the San Francisco Bay area is a luxury few can afford. That's why some California lawmakers want to sell San Quentin State Prison -- which houses more than 5,300 inmates on prime land with stunning views of the bay -- to developers who might pay as much as $2 billion. State Sen. Jeff Denham, who has sponsored a bill to sell the complex of historic buildings for private development, thinks the proceeds could help replenish California's recession-depleted coffers. "I believe maximum-security inmates shouldn't have waterfront property," said Mr. Denham, a Republican from...

In many states, cost is slowly killing death penaltyPrice tag of trial and execution is driving many to repeal law By Steve Mills | Tribune reporter 6:32 PM CST, March 7, 2009 The case New Mexico Atty. Gen. Gary King was prosecuting seemed made for the death penalty: a murder of a prison guard by inmates who stabbed him two dozen times. But when the defense ran out of money, the state Supreme Court ruled that King could not seek a death sentence until the lawyers were paid — approximately $200,000 for each of the three defendants, King said. When...

It's been three years since the night a federal judge blocked an execution at San Quentin State Prison because of concerns that the state's haphazard lethal injection methods could inflict prolonged and excruciating pain on a condemned inmate, violating the U.S. Constitution. Today, the state is no closer to executing the Stockton murderer-rapist who was to have died that night, Michael Morales, or any of the other 679 prisoners on the nation's largest death row. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration says it's trying to break the logjam by agreeing to let the public comment on proposed new procedures for executing convicts,...

Examples of possible voter fraud in Ohio stretch from the farmlands to the West Coast. In Highland County, 95-year-old Mildred Meddock registered and voted for the first time in her life despite her advanced Alzheimer's disease. Her granddaughters learned of her newfound patriotism when they visited the nursing home where Meddock lives and saw an "I voted today" sticker on her clothing. Records show that Meddock registered Sept. 26 when two Highland County Board of Elections employees visited the home, Heartland of Hillsboro, about 65 miles south of Columbus. Four other residents also were registered and voted that day. "I'm...

OMAHA (KPTM) - The voting booth is supposed to be a sacred spot. The right to vote is considered the cornerstone of American democracy. But there always seems to be someone trying to take advantage of the system. The long line outside the Douglas County Election Office isn't moving fast. But Eileen Tighe is on an early voting mission. "If I had to sit on the concrete I would do that." She re-registered to vote at the County Treasurers office two weeks ago when she moved. "The box was open, it didn't have a slot in it and I didn't...

Falsely attesting or being attested for is registration fraud and is a class D felony, punishable by a fine of up to $7,500 and five years in prison. Registration fraud also includes falsely registering to vote, attempting to falsely register to vote and registering to vote in more than one precinct. Emmet County Auditor Bev Juhl said any poll worker, poll watcher or member of the public can challenge a voter's qualifications to vote at the polls. The voter who is challenged can still file a provisional ballot and has until 2 p.m. Thursday the week of the election to...

An Alexandria woman who apparently had been abducted from a shopping mall and forced into her own car by robbers was killed yesterday in Prince William County when the car crashed as the robbers fled from pursuers, authorities said. The woman was identified as Barbara Jean Bosworth, 61, of White Post Court. She was killed about 3 p.m. near Route 1 in the Woodbridge area when the speeding car went out of control and crashed into trees, according to Prince William County police. Police said two men who were in the car with Bosworth were critically injured and flown to...

Southern states execute two killers HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- Texas executed a man Wednesday who was convicted of killing a woman and her child, while Mississippi put to death a man who took part in the fatal beating of another man. Derrick Sonnier shook his head "no" when asked if he had any final statements. he was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m., eight minutes after the lethal dose was administered. Sonnier was convicted of murdering Melody Flowers, 27, and her 2-year-old son, Patrick, in their Houston apartment in 1991. Flowers was raped, stabbed, strangled and beaten with a hammer until...

Court Backs Texas in Dispute With Bush Tuesday, March 25, 2008 10:04 AM WASHINGTON -- President Bush overstepped his authority when he ordered a Texas court to reopen the case of a Mexican on death row for rape and murder, the Supreme Court said Tuesday. In a case that mixes presidential power, international relations and the death penalty, the court sided with Texas 6-3. Bush was in the unusual position of siding with death row prisoner Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican citizen whom police prevented from consulting with Mexican diplomats, as provided by international treaty. An international court ruled in...

Death penalty: Your verdict [UK]ALMOST 100,000 Sun readers unite today to call for the return of the death penalty. Monster Mark Dixie, Suffolk Strangler Steve Wright and the teenage killers of hero dad Garry Newlove have sickened the nation in recent weeks as details emerged of their vile crimes. All received jail sentences. But as the clamour grew for the return of capital punishment, The Sun on Saturday dared to ask the burning question: “Do we really want it back?” And a staggering 99 per cent of the 95,000 readers who responded to our You The Jury poll said the...

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether the Constitution allows the death penalty for the rape of a child. --New York Times, January 5, 2008 The best case for the death penalty--or, at least, the best explanation of it--was made, paradoxically, by one of the most famous of its opponents, Albert Camus, the French novelist. Others complained of the alleged unusual cruelty of the death penalty, or insisted that it was not, as claimed, a better deterrent of murder than, say, life imprisonment, and Americans especially complained of the manner in which it was imposed by judge or...

Penalties for Massachusetts residents who can afford health insurance but do not purchase it in 2008 could quadruple compared with the maximum penalty in 2007, according to draft regulations released by the Department of Revenue yesterday. The maximum penalty for those who flout the law and do not buy health insurance would be $912 a year, compared to $219 in 2007. The higher penalty is intended to get those who are on the fence to buy health insurance. For those wavering, it could make more sense to pay for insurance than to pay the penalty.

No right to a painless death penaltyPosted: October 3, 2007 1:00 a.m. Eastern When Michael Anthony Taylor kidnapped 15-year-old Ann Harrison while she was waiting for her school bus, then raped and brutally murdered her, he didn't seem to care about the pain and agony she suffered at his hand. But now that Taylor has been convicted and sentenced to capital punishment by lethal injection, he's suddenly concerned with how much pain he might feel at his deserved death. Taylor claims that Missouri's triple-chemical process of lethal injection exposes him to a risk that if he is not sufficiently unconscious...

By LUKE SALKELD - More by this author » Last updated at 01:12am on 4th September 2007 When a pedestrian was hit by a police car which mounted the pavement, it was obvious who was going to come off worse. After suffering a broken foot in the collision, however, Daniel Horne thought all the damage had been done. Until he received an £80 fine - for denting the vehicle. Yesterday the 28-year-old businessman told of his shock at being penalised for being hit by the marked car. Mr Horne had been walking home in June when the marked police car...

WASHINGTON - Once again, Florida is embroiled in a dispute over vote counting in the presidential election. Seven years after Democrats lost a fight over recounting Florida votes in the disputed 2000 election, the national Democratic Party is poised to strip the state of delegate votes in the 2008 nomination battle. The problem: State Democrats want to hold their primary too early. Other states are rushing to get to the start of the primaries pack, too, and Florida will be the first test of the Democratic National Committee's resolve to restore order to the schedule it set last year. Michigan...

Tehran, 30 April (AKI) - The culture committee of the Iranian parliament approved on Monday a bill sentencing to death producers of 'pornography', videos and films deemed vulgar by the country's censorship. The draft law will now go to parliament where it is expected to be approved by an ample majority. Amateur porn films have a properous market in Iran and can fetch up to 30 euros each. The market, tolerated for a long time, became a nationwide issue earlier this year after a porn film of popular television actress, Zohre Mir Ebrahimi, having sex with her partner, was released.

Saddam Hussein deserves no one’s pity. But as anyone who has seen the graphic cellphone video of his hanging can testify, his execution bore little resemblance to dispassionate, state-administered justice. The condemned dictator appeared to have been delivered from United States military custody into the hands of a Shiite lynch mob. For the Bush administration, which insists it went to war in Iraq to implant democracy and justice, those globally viewed images were a shaming embarrassment. Unfortunately, all Americans will be blamed, while the Iraqi people are now likely to suffer still more. What should have been a symbolic passage...

(IsraelNN.com) A court in Bangladesh is scheduled to try a Muslim journalist for writing articles favorable to Israel. The country's laws state that the journalist, Salah Uddin Choudhury, could receive a death sentence. He is editor of an English weekly printed in Dakha, in which he has been critical of Muslim extremism while writing favorably of Israel. He was arrested in 2003 at the Dhaka airport before boarding a flight to Israel where he was to speak on promoting Muslim-Jewish relations. Bangladesh, ruled by Muslims, did not press charges but re-arrested Choudhury after he printed articles warning of Muslim terrorists...

Iraq has executed 27 "terrorists" convicted by Iraqi courts of killings and rapes in several provinces, the government said Thursday. They were executed in Baghdad on Wednesday, the government's media office said in a brief statement. It did not provide further details. A senior justice official said all 27 were Iraqis, and two had been convicted of terrorism-related charges. The other 25, including one woman, were convicted of murder and kidnappings. The sentences were carried out by hanging, the official said, requesting that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak to the media about the...

The energy demands of Britain's obsession with flat televisions could require two nuclear plants Our insatiable appetite for the big picture is threatening the planet. A scientist has warned that if half of British homes buy a plasma-screen TV, two nuclear power stations would have to be built to meet the extra energy demand. Britons were buying flat-screen TVs every 15 seconds from Currys and its online sister company Dixons during the build-up to the World Cup, and subsequent price reductions have ensured they remain hugely popular. Article continues But plasma sets can use up to four times as much...

The disciplinary arm of the N.C. State Bar dropped charges of felonious misconduct against two former Union County prosecutors Friday because of a 1999 clerical error at the state Supreme Court. The State Bar had charged Kenneth Honeycutt and Scott Brewer with lying, cheating and withholding evidence in a 1996 death penalty case. The ruling Friday marks the second time that Honeycutt and Brewer won on procedural grounds before the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission, which sits as judge and jury in disciplinary cases. . . . Prosecutors around the state are concerned that the case is damaging their reputation and...

RICHMOND, Va. - New DNA tests confirmed the guilt of a man who went to his death in Virginia's electric chair in 1992 proclaiming his innocence, the governor said Thursday. The case had been closely watched by both sides in the death penalty debate because no executed convict in the United States has ever been exonerated by scientific testing.

Folks in California have the best of all possible worlds: warm weather ... and the death penalty, too. As a frigid New York pays its final respects today to Police Officer Daniel Enchautegui, Californians know their most famous killer got his just deserts. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected clemency for Stanley (Tookie) Williams, and the convicted murderer was executed by lethal injection in San Quentin prison early yesterday. Please, spare me the tears for Williams. A founder of the brutal Crips crime gang, he killed four people in cold blood during robberies that got him $200, then laughed about it, according...