Free Republic

A repeat criminal whose case inspired calls for longer prison stays in Maryland was sentenced Wednesday to life without the possibility of parole for shooting a Montgomery County woman in the back of the head last year, a killing he committed after serving barely half of a previous sentence for armed robberies in which he slashed two of the victims' throats. In addition to the life term on charges of first-degree murder and robbery, Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Terrence J. McGann also gave Shawn M. Henderson 20 years for a gun charge and told him that he would have given...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Preliminary intelligence assessments show more than 14 percent of detainees released from Guantanamo Bay have returned or are suspected of having returned to terrorism activities, an administration official with knowledge of the Defense Department's information told CNN. That number, which reflects data through the beginning of 2009, has gone up slightly from statistics compiled through the end of 2008, when the recidivism rate was considered to be 11 percent, according to the administration official. It had been at 7 percent in earlier years, but the Pentagon has not disclosed what time frame that encompasses. The official emphasized...

Israeli Minister: "Two-Thirds of Freed Hamas Prisoners Returned to Terror and Murdered Israelis" Voice of Israel Radio-Hebrew - via dailyalert.org

Three suspected robbers were beaten to death by a mob at Baligaon village in Kaliganj upazila of Gazipur Friday night. The deceased were identified as Shukur Ali, 32, Mona, 28, and Mehedi, 28. Locals said a gang of 8-10 robbers entered the house of Harmuz Ali at about 11:00pm and tried to loot valuables. Hearing cries of the family members for help, local people went there and caught four bandits. The angry people then beat up the robbers, killing three on the spot and injuring another robber, Hasan, 28. Meanwhile, Kaliganj police arrested four alleged robbers -- Sarwar, 25, Rana,...

I dropped Pluchinsky's data into a spreadsheet. He estimated that outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, roughly 5,000 jihadis had been imprisoned in the years following 9-11, and identified a bit less than 500 of them. While many of the jihadis are serving indeterminate sentences, making it difficult to calculate exactly when they will get out, it seemed to me that most would end up serving 5 years in prison. If one assumes that it will take a little while after release for them to reestablish contact with peers, or that they will have to wait on the release of imprisoned...

Kimberly Coulter remembers riding her bike all over St. Paul’s east side as a kid, not a worry on her mind. These days she’s a Cottage Grove mother of two, and though she says she feels safe raising her kids in their quiet neighborhood near Grey Cloud Elementary School, Coulter said the knowledge a convicted sex offender lives nearby leaves her wary of letting her 10- and 12-year-old even go around the block. “It’s scary,” she said after last week’s public forum on sexual predators hosted by the Cottage Grove Police Department at Cottage Grove Junior High. Coulter said she...

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (AP) - A sex offender recently freed from prison was arrested in the death of a woman abducted while visiting a friend, police said Monday. The friend was shot and seriously wounded. The body of MaryEllen Welsh, 62, was found in a wooded area of Bristol, about 10 miles from New Britain, where she was abducted Sunday. She had apparently been shot, New Britain police said. She was visiting a friend Sunday morning when someone broke into the house, Sgt. Darren Pearson said. The friend, identified as Carol Larese, 65, was badly wounded but was expected to...

The prisoner claims that wearing pink places him in peril and is discriminatory.

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...

Deconstructing Clinton is a lot easier than parsing sentences. Language has its own structure and rules, what we call grammar and syntax. It is these things that allow us to communicate efficiently with each other, even when we are not schooled in the rules of language. But in Clinton’s post-modernist world there are no rules because there is no reality. Existence is a matter of opinion and reality is what I think it ought to be. In such a world facts are fiction and fiction is reality with each reality being as good as any other. Hence whatever I say...

ODESSA,TX (AP) - A 77-year-old freed death row inmate faces prison again after being convicted of threatening to kill a Midland man over a $300,000 debt. John C. Skelton of Knoxville, Ark., was convicted Tuesday for calling Terry Lee Jacobs in February and telling him that he'd be shot in the head unless the debt to his former business associates was paid. Skelton served seven years on death row for the 1982 death of Joe Lee Neal of Odessa before an appeals court freed him in 1990, ruling that there was insufficient evidence to convict him. Neal's daughter, Nancy, sat...

Investigation Continues as Congressman Enters Mayo Clinic May 5, 2006 — Capitol Police have taken disciplinary action against a watch commander for the handling of Rep. Patrick Kennedy's car accident, acting Capitol Police Chief Christopher McGaffin said. Lou Cannon of of the Fraternal Order of Police for the District of Columbia said there are questions about whether Rep. Patrick Kennedy received special treatment. (ABC News) McGaffin said the incident was improperly delayed due to "poor judgment" on the part of police managers and that a field sobriety test should have been administered to Kennedy after his car hit a barrier...

Many Straight Guys Say 'No Thanks' to 'Brokeback Mountain' BY DRU SEFTON It's true, the movie "Brokeback Mountain" does provoke what one researcher calls "a very strong ick factor" in some straight men. What is it in this story of two cowboy pals in 1960s Wyoming who find themselves in lifelong love -- yet go on to marry women -- that elicits this response from heterosexual males? The answers are as complex as the plot. A psychologist who coined the word "homophobic" said the revulsion is precisely that. A scientist who discovered genetic links to sexuality said he simply does...

LANCASTER - Across the fence from Baroness Patricia Scotland, inmates in prison jumpsuits, some without shirts, called out for attention. A cold wind blew through the prison yard and the visitors across the barbed wire-laden fence might have been an odd sight for the inmates, who stood in the courtyard on a recreation break. The men, many with shaved heads and several with tattoos, flashed gang signs at the visiting official, who was accompanied by the prison warden, Charles Harrison. But Scotland, minister of state for criminal justice and offender management in the United Kingdom, walked in the other direction...

Paroled Murderer in Tennessee Is Charged With Killing Again By Bill Poovey Associated Press Writer Published: May 18, 2005 CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) - Tony Pope went to prison for bludgeoning his girlfriend to death with an iron skillet and was back out on the streets five years later despite a warning from a friend of the victim. "It not only scares me to think that someone like this can go free, but it puzzles me as to why you'd release him to possibly do it again," Vicki McCurry wrote to Tennessee's parole board before a 2001 hearing. The board did...

Molesters Often Strike Again Saturday, April 16, 2005 By Catherine Donaldson-Evans Jessica Lunsford (search) and Jetseta Gage (search): two young girls recently kidnapped, molested and killed, allegedly by men who authorities said are convicted, registered sex offenders who had served time and were back in the community. Criminologists say it’s all too frequent that the perpetrator is a pathological sexual predator, as in the case of Jessica’s alleged killer in Florida, John Evander Couey (search), and Roger Paul Bentley (search), who Iowa police say murdered Jetseta. “It happens all the time,” said Louis B. Schlesinger, a forensic psychologist specializing in...

Last month, state Rep. Kurt Zellers hailed the House of Representatives' passage of legislation he authored that will lock up sex offenders for life without parole when they commit first-degree rape. "It was time for us to send a message to these predators that we will no longer allow them to repeatedly victimize our families and communities," the Maple Grove Republican declared. Fear about sex offenders committing new crimes after being released into the community has haunted the State Capitol this year. However, a major U.S. government study, the largest of its kind ever conducted, indicates that sex offenders, as...

State drops Christian children's home Will no longer refer kids to facility because of church-attendance policy Posted: April 1, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Because the Tennessee Department of Children's Services disapproves of a successful children's home's practice of taking its child residents to church each week, the state agency will no longer refer children to the care facility. The new government policy seeks to ensure the religious freedom of the children under the state's care in compliance with a federal court order that requires a state contract for all children's care providers. Those who run the Tennessee...

Just heard on WCBS newsradio NY that CNN reports Carlie Brucia found dead in Sarasota.

Unfortunately, it now looks as if the worst has happened in the Dru Sjodin disappearance, and the state is building a strong case that its suspect is a murderer. (Many talk-radio callers to the contrary, there will be a trial to decide that.) Alfonso Rodriguez, having been a violent sex offender previously, the most important thing after putting him out of business once and for all will be to decide how we can best protect ourselves against other repeaters. Forget the death penalty. In states with the death penalty, it is for murderers -- and only a few of those...