Free Republic

Developing story...

Governments tend toward tyranny. Governments are comprised of selfish humans with personal desires for money, job security, and increased authority over fellow citizens. A citizen working for a government has opportunities to rule over and oppress fellow citizens, they would never have outside their government position. Therefore, government becomes a magnet for selfish power-seeking individuals. By their sheer size and superior firepower, governments tend to overrun and ignore personal rights. The machine capriciously devours it's victims. The Declaration of Independence declares that governments exist to protect the rights of citizens. The Constitution for the United States of America further states...

Joseph Edward Duncan III is a sadistic, detail-oriented rapist and killer who went on a GPS-guided quest to abduct and rape children before he settled on a Coeur d'Alene family, U.S. Attorney Tom Moss told a federal jury Wednesday. Duncan, who is representing himself at the sentencing hearing, told the jury that most of Moss' description of events was "fair and accurate." He also said he would testify "to clarify things." -- SNIP -- The six-woman, nine-man jury (12 jurors and three alternates) mostly kept their composure as Moss detailed the grisly crimes against Dylan and Shasta. Some jurors wrinkled...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A twice-convicted killer with a history of violence that continued even after he was sent to death row was executed Tuesday for gunning down two video store workers during a robbery 14 years ago in Dallas. "...See y'all when you get there," Leon David Dorsey IV said in his final statement. "Do what you're going to do." Dorsey was the seventh prisoner executed this year in the nation's most active death penalty state and the first of two inmates scheduled to die this week. Two more are to die next week.

(Dallas, TX) -- A Dallas killer, one of the most dangerous men on Death Row, will be executed tonight. Leon Dorsey freely admits that he murdered two Blockbuster employees in Dallas during a high-profile 1994 robbery. He shows no remorse over the brutal killings and refuses to apologize. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice keeps Dorsey on its highest lockdown level because of a history of violence and threats. In his eight years on Death Row, Dorsey has amassed nearly 100 infractions including an attack where he stabbed a guard 14 times with a hand-made shank. The guard was saved...

..."We're not trying to make heroes out of these guys," says Aviva Futorian, an exhibit organizer. "We're trying to rehabilitate them. That's good for society and good for the victims." Janie Edwards has her own view of Charles McLaurin’s art. "He should draw a rope and hang himself in that cell," she says. McLaurin is a lifer at Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet. Edwards is the south suburban Richton Park woman whose 17-year-old son, Jarrell Edwards, was killed by McLaurin in 1992. A relative of the boy McLaurin killed says he believes art can be therapeutic for some criminals --...

National security trumps an immigrant's right to a speedy naturalization process, a Manhattan federal judge ruled yesterday......a group of New Yorkers who hoped to vote in this fall's election sued to force approval of backlogged citizenship applications in time for Election Day. Judge Lawrence McKenna dismissed the lawsuit, filed by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Judge said he couldn't authorize the FBI to hurry "name checks" - a comprehensive vetting process expanded after 9/11.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran's judiciary has decided to scrap the punishment of stoning convicts to death in draft legislation submitted to parliament for approval, the local press reported on Wednesday. Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi was also quoted as saying that stoning sentences against several convicts had been suspended, with four commuted to either lashes of the whip or jail terms. "In the latest version of the Islamic penal codes bill, which has undergone several modifications, such punishments are not mentioned," Jamshidi said, the reformist Etemad newspaper reported, referring to both stoning and amputation.

Very rarely do you see conservatives rally around convicted criminals demanding they be set free. That’s part of what makes the case of Border Patrol agents Ingacio Ramos and José Compean so special. That, along with the fact that so many people who should be behind bars are free while the two agents are in prison for essentially doing their jobs. Ramos and Compean made the mistake of shooting a Mexican drug smuggler named Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in the butt as he was trying to get away. Good for them, you might say, but U.S. Attorney and Bush-buddy Johnny Sutton...

2008-08-06 11:11:02 - BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) - Serbia's Justice Ministry says it has received no formal U.S. request to extradite or prosecute a Serb student wanted on assault charges in New York. U.S. police say 20-year-old Miladin Kovacevic severely beat fellow college student Bryan Steinhauer during a bar fight in May and then fled to Serbia in June to avoid prosecution. Washington reportedly has demanded that Serbia return Kovacevic by Aug. 1. But Serbian Justice Ministry says in a statement released Wednesday the United States has not made a formal request for Kovacevic's extradition to the U.S. or trial in...

What happened to justice in America? It certainly wasn’t served on July 28 when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the unjust convictions of Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. As it stands today, these two brave border protectors must now serve out their full 10-plus-year sentences for shooting and wounding a Mexican drug smuggler they encountered while he was carrying a million-dollar payload of narcotics along the Southern border in Texas. What started off as simple procedural mistakes by the agents has turned into an unimaginable travesty of justice unlike anything I’ve ever seen in...

SHENANDOAH, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- By the time help arrived, Luis Ramirez lay convulsing in the middle of the street, foam running from his mouth. Crystal Dillman displays the religious medal worn by her fiance, Luis Ramirez, who died from a beating. 1 of 3 Blows had struck the 25-year-old Mexican immigrant with such force that they left a clotted, bruised impression of Jesus Christ on the skin of his chest from the religious medal he wore. His attackers were white teenagers, including star students and football players, witnesses told police. After a night of drinking, the teens taunted the undocumented...

SHENANDOAH, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- By the time help arrived, Luis Ramirez lay convulsing in the middle of the street, foam running from his mouth. Crystal Dillman displays the religious medal worn by her fiance, Luis Ramirez, who died from a beating. 1 of 3 Blows had struck the 25-year-old Mexican immigrant with such force that they left a clotted, bruised impression of Jesus Christ on the skin of his chest from the religious medal he wore. His attackers were white teenagers, including star students and football players, witnesses told police. After a night of drinking, the teens taunted the undocumented...

Guest Commentary by Laurie Roth This week I thought I would lose my mind when I heard of the horrifying decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals against Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. So many of us who had followed this case for the last few years were hoping that once all the evidence had finally been heard, unlike with the first trial, that justice would be done. Wrong!! Justice was not done!!! You may recall in the first trial that the illegal alien, drug thug Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, who brought 743 pounds of marijuana over our border was...

Fourteen years and numerous judicial reviews have passed since José Medellin was sentenced to die after confessing to the brutal gang rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston. JOSÉ MEDELLIN That's long enough, state officials say. It's time to carry out the sentence. But defense attorneys, and an unusual coalition of federal officials, including no less than the attorney general and secretary of state, say if his Aug. 5 execution is not stayed, so Mr. Medellin's case can be reviewed one more time at the behest of the International Court of Justice, Texas will be rushing to judgment...

Where were the career people on whom we count to keep the department honest? The latest report concludes that the two most senior people responsible for protecting immigration judges from political influence had "sufficient evidence . . . to have realized that political or ideological affiliations played a role" and that they should have spoken up to others who could do something. The same criticism was leveled at those who ran the office overseeing the honors program and lateral hiring. Where were they? It is disappointing that they failed to act forcefully to protect the department they served. Attorney General...

President Bush on Monday approved the execution of an Army private, administration officials said. It was the first time in over a half-century that a president has affirmed a death sentence for a member of the U.S. military.

Former Justice Department counselor Monica M. Goodling and former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors, according to an inspector general's report released today. Goodling passed over hundreds of qualified applicants and squashed the promotions of others after deeming candidates insufficiently loyal to the Republican party, said investigators, who interviewed 85 people and received information from 300 other job seekers at Justice. Sampson developed a system to screen immigration judge candidates based on improper political considerations and routinely took recommendations from the...

Mississippi death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop’s final words before being executed included an endorsement of presidential contender Senator Obama. “Senator Obama offers hope for people like me,” Bishop asserted. “I have feelings, dreams, and aspirations. I don’t want to die.” Bishop acknowledged that the election of Obama would come too late to save him, but still urged voters “to consider what kind of a world they want for their children. Do we really want a justice system focused on ‘an-eye-for-an-eye?’ Or do we want to ‘forgive-and-forget?’ Think about that when you cast your ballots next November.” Senator Obama averred...

Investigators are hoping you might be able to point them in the right direction as they search for who is responsible for a shooting that left the Houston Police Department's first Hispanic female officer wounded. 78-year-old Velia Ortega was visiting family members at the Plum Creek Apartments at 6969 South Loop East Monday afternoon, when she was wounded by the gunfire. Investigators say they want to question 17-year-old Bruno Aviles and 20-year-old Andrew Garcia in connection with the shooting. Authorities believe the pair may have been involved in a dispute over a vehicle with members of Ortega's family.

At least 80 people were injured during a bullfight in Colombia when stands in an overcrowded stadium collapsed underneath the crowd. Some 500 spectators screamed in panic and scrambled for safety as, following the collapse, the bull charged towards crowds at the stadium in Planadas, in the south of the country. Two men dressed as clowns tried to distract the bull and tempt it away from the mass of people before others joined them in trying to pin it down. The dramatic events at the annual fiesta were caught live on television and an investigation into how it happened has...

The government watchdog group known as Judicial Watch recently filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department, for that agency’s failure to turn over certain documents related to the prosecution of Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean… The suit comes after the government refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request for documents which detailed the agreement made between the governments of Mexico and the United States, which allowed drug smuggler Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila to return to this country to actually testify against Ramos and Compean. The FOIA request was filed by Judicial Watch on April 17, 2008. The...

PHOENIX - People who hire "coyotes" to get them into this country can be prosecuted under a state law aimed at the smugglers, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled Thursday. In the first decision of its kind in the state, the judges rebuffed even the comments of Rep. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, one of the architects of the 2005 legislation, that it was never designed to go after the immigrants themselves. Judge Lawrence Winthrop, writing for the court, said it is possible that Paton may have intended that the migrants be considered the victims of the crime of human smuggling. "This...

... The United States is the only country to take the position that some police misconduct must automatically result in the suppression of physical evidence. The rule applies whether the misconduct is slight or serious, and without regard to the gravity of the crime or the power of the evidence. “Foreign countries have flatly rejected our approach,” said Craig M. Bradley, an expert in comparative criminal law at Indiana University. “In every other country, it’s up to the trial judge to decide whether police misconduct has risen to the level of requiring the exclusion of evidence.” But there are signs...

A US soldier who deserted to Canada and sought refugee status for opposing the war in Iraq has been extradited to the United States, officials said, in Canada's first such case since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. "I can confirm that he has been expelled from Canada and returned to his country of origin," Shakila Manzoor, a spokeswoman for the Canada Border Services Agency (ASFC) said. US citizen Robin Long, 25, fled to Canada in 2005 and demanded refugee status, claiming he would suffer irreparable harm if he were sent back to the United States. He also argued that he...

The court is poised in coming weeks to seal Lawrence's fate, along with that of nine other convicted murderers seeking freedom. The justices are expected to answer some difficult questions: When should a killer be set free? What are the limits, if any, on the governor's power to decide? Are such factors as an inmate's prison record and age ever more significant than a horrendous crime committed decades ago? The state parole board had approved Lawrence's release four times since 1993, but three governors vetoed those decisions. Schwarzenegger blocked Lawrence's release twice before judges on the state Court of Appeal...

  Jack Straw ... law will back heroes            New law to back 'have-a-go-heroes'     By CLODAGH HARTLEY Home Affairs Correspondent Published: 12 Jul 2008     NEW legislation will protect “have-a-go heroes” who intervene in crimes or use force to defend themselves, Justice Secretary Jack Straw vowed last night. From Monday a person’s actions will be judged on the situation “as they saw it at the time” — even if in hindsight the force could be classed as unreasonable, according to insiders. Mr Straw told The Sun: “We’re not going to have a...

Gordon Brown said the attacks were "shocking and tragic" as he also promised the first ever "cross-government youth crime plan" would be published later next week. A teenager was among four victims of separate fatal stabbings which took place in London over the past day, as a fifth man fights for life.

A Westmoreland County jury acquitted Sen. Robert Regola of Hempfield on all counts in his perjury case. Regola was found not guilty of perjury, possession of a firearm by a minor, false swearing, and recklessly endangering another person. Regola was charged with lying during a coroner's inquest about the whereabouts of a 9 mm Taurus handgun his family owned. The weapon was found beside the body of his next-door neighbor, 14-year-old Louis Farrell, on the morning of July 22, 2006. Farrell died of a self-inflicted wound to the head from that gun, Coroner Kenneth Bacha ruled. The senator allegedly...

The wife of a veteran NYPD officer was arrested yesterday for fatally shooting a young Brooklyn man who had groped her 13-year-old daughter last month, The Post has learned. Veronica Nickey, 40, walked up to Ellison Butler, 22, as he watched a basketball game at about 9 p.m. on June 27 in Lincoln Terrace Park in Crown Heights - then pulled a .380-caliber handgun, a source said. She put one bullet into his chest, shouting, "That's what you get for messing with my children! That's what you get for messing with my daughter!" witnesses told cops. She tried to shoot...

BRITAIN’S soft justice system hit a new low yesterday with plans to scrap prison sentences for burglars. Hundreds of thousands of crooks could escape jail every year under the proposals by advisers to the Lord Chief Justice. Those sentenced to short, sharp shock jail terms of less than 12 months for “less serious offences” – including burglary – should be handed community penalties instead, Even those who are likely to reoffend could walk free from court if it is believed they will go on to commit “non-serious offences”. And in a further blow, while courts must not be swayed by...

Capital Punishment: A year and a half after its lethal injection debacle, Florida's recent execution of a child killer and rapist went smoothly. But emotionalism continues to impede justice.Mark Dean Schwab was a monster. He looked like a perfectly normal, even handsome young man. But a month after being released from prison in 1991 for raping a 13-year-old boy in 1987, Schwab befriended, then kidnapped, raped and murdered 11-year-old Junny Rios-Martinez Jr. As Schwab was being executed Tuesday evening, Junny's relatives and their supporters outside the death chamber wore T-shirts emblazoned with a smiling photo of Schwab's young victim. When...

Few if any murders carry the horrifying cachet of the Manson murders in 1969. The deaths of seven people on two nights at the end of a tumultuous decade combined all of the political and cultural baggage of the era — drugs, counterculture, celebrity, cults, and pure evil in the form of the perpetrators, especially Charles Manson himself. Combining mass murder and serial murder, the Manson Family has played on the imaginations of Americans for almost 40 years, while its members routinely apply for parole and get rejected. Now one of them faces death, although much different in nature than...

The House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating whether certain public corruption probes were politically motivated, has subpoenaed the Justice Department for documents related to the prosecutions of Dr. Cyril H. Wecht and former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., the committee chairman, sent a letter Friday to Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

The fanatical Taliban mastermind behind recent attacks in which six British soldiers died in Afghanistan has been killed in a missile attack by an Army Apache helicopter. In what military chiefs described as a 'deliberate and surgical strike', the 35-year-old rebel leader - known as Sadiqullah - died alongside nine fellow Taliban fighters after the Apache fired two laser-guided Hellfire missiles at their red pick-up truck and destroyed it. The rebel leader had been tracked down after weeks of secret intelligence work. His death would have been instantaneous, as the warheads of the 5ft-long missiles, which travel at 950mph, are...

Schleicher County, home of the Yearning For Zion Ranch, doesn’t feel it should be responsible for the enormous costs of April’s raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound. Kerr County agrees. This week, Kerr County commissioners approved a resolution in support of Schleicher County that asks the state to pick up the tab on the Child Protective Services investigation against the polygamist sect. “We are asking the state to indemnify our county,” said Schleicher County judge Johnny Griffin. “Not one person from my county was involved, other than the sheriff who received the initial...

'Speak when you're spoken to!' The Queen sharply interrupted her. 'But if everybody obeyed that rule,' said Alice, who was always ready for a little argument, 'and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that -- ' --Lewis CarrollBritish Justice. BrokenEver wonder where the American Justice system will wind up? How about the propensity of Judges to disregard legislation, make up law, tell elected officials how to run the nation? Apparently, they inhabit a make-believe world wherein they are kings....

A man jailed in Mexicali on suspicion of running down a Border Patrol agent in January, killing him, has been released without charges, it was reported yesterday. The Attorney General's Office in Baja California confirmed to The Associated Press that Jesús Navarro Montes had been released from a Mexicali jail. No explanation for his release was given. Navarro was arrested Jan. 22 by Mexican authorities. He was accused of driving a Hummer carrying drugs on Jan. 19 near Yuma, Ariz. Border Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar was placing spike strips on a road to stop the Hummer and a second vehicle...

An attempted bank robbery in Canton played out like a scene from a movie Monday when a man who claimed to have a bomb was stopped by a customer armed with a pistol. According to police, the customer pulled out a .9 mm handgun (for which he had a CCW permit), racked a bullet in the chamber, pointed it at the man and announced, "You are not robbing this bank!"

It seems that whoever becomes the 5th Justice whether it be O'Connor or Kennedy they sell out to the highest bidder and their vote for cash and prizes or are blackmailed by the left if they don't vote the ACLU way and help their career they would expose them about things they don't want in public. Since Kennedy became the 5th vote he has supported International Law supplanting the Constitution, Co2 is a pollutant, terrorist Habeas Corpus rights, and illegal alien rights, etc. You know the left will give him all kinds of awards from the left in the next...

A 44 year old Hong Kong man accidentally fell off a 10th floor balcony while trying to video tape his next door neighbor showering. peeping-ton-fall Peeping Tom Accidentally Falls Off 10th Floor picture The 29 story building was designed so that two units have their bathroom windows right next to each other. This made it easy for the man to climb over and peep on his neighbor. The victim, a 28 year-old sales lady, was taking a shower when she noticed a strange hand holding a cell phone outside the bathroom window. She screamed for help and saw the person...

The woman responsible for the largest wildfire in Colorado history was released from a federal prison in Texas this morning. Terry Lynn Barton, 44, was convicted in 2003 of starting the Hayman fire in the mountains west of Colorado Springs. The June 2002 fire torched 138,000 acres, destroyed 133 homes, 466 outbuildings and forced the evacuation of 8,000 people. Barton has three days to report to the federal Probation Department in Colorado Springs, according to U.S. Attorney for Colorado Troy Eid. She then has to find a job and start paying $14 million in federal restitution that already has been...

A Los Fresnos family is asking a state district court to stop a Cameron County justice of the peace from ordering spankings in his courtroom and to remove the judge from office. Mary Vasquez and her husband Daniel Zurita filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of their minor daughter against Cameron County Pct. 6 Justice of the Peace Gustavo "Gus" Garza. Brownsville lawyer Mark Sossi represents the family. The petition alleges that on April 9, Garza told the then-14-year-old girl and her stepfather that the teen would be found guilty of a criminal offense and fined $500 for not attending...

... Nunez, 14, and co-defendant Jose Diego Perez, 29 – both members of the violent 18th Street gang in Los Angeles – were arrested April 25, 2001, after they kidnapped Delfino Moreno, 34, from in front of his Santa Ana home. The kidnappers demanded $100,000 in ransom plus a kilogram of cocaine, Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh told an Orange County jury in 2003. But Moreno's family alerted Santa Ana police instead of agreeing to pay. And when the defendants spotted undercover officers, they took off in an Oldsmobile sedan. Witnesses testified that Nunez blasted away at chasing officers with...

The most likely place a crazed suicidal gunman will go to when he wants to kill a large group of people is a shopping mall, a school or a workplace. Not so coincidentally, all of these places are designated "gun-free" zones -- only someone forgot to inform the lunatic gunman association about the rules. We're told by the anti-gun media and the frightened rabbits of the anti-gun movement that if we find ourselves in the middle of a shooting rampage we should hide and wait for the proper authorities to arrive. While hiding, we should cower, quiver and pray that...

MONTREAL - A former chef who goes by the nickname "Big Mike" has had his sentence for drug trafficking reduced because the provincial jail where he's incarcerated isn't dealing with his 430-pound weight. Michel Lapointe has already served 20 months behind bars awaiting sentencing in what his lawyer described in court as hellish conditions. "For the first eight months he didn't have a bed adjusted to his size," defence lawyer Clemente Monterosso said in an interview Thursday. "He never got a chair adjusted to his size. The chair and the tables were too tight and he could not sit down....

More than 31,000 scientists across the United States, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields including atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and dozens of other specialties, have signed a petition rejecting "global warming," the assumption that the human production of greenhouse gases is damaging Earth's climate. "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate," the petition states. "Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- A military judge wants to hear from the Supreme Court before starting the first war crimes tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The judge hearing the case against Osama bin Laden's former driver ruled Friday that the trial should be postponed six weeks, to July 14. Navy Capt. Keith Allred said he wants to wait until the Supreme Court rules on whether Guantanamo detainees have a right to challenge their detention in U.S. civil courts. Allred says the Supreme Court decision is expected by June 30 and could affect the case. Hamdan is charged with...

Apparently it is more egregious to oversleep in Hemet, California than it is to commit armed robbery. After delivering a pizza Jeremy Queen was robbed at gunpoint then hit on the head with the weapon. The police were called, the report was made and the police drove Mr. Queen around in their squad car to see if they could find who had attacked him. They couldn't and have said they probably never will. Back at work Mr. Queen was chastised for taking so long to make the delivery and told that since the delivery was made, he was no longer...

The study sought to shed light on the neurological underpinnings of moral decision-making, said Ming Hsu, a fellow at the U. of I.'s Beckman Institute and co-principal investigator. (Credit: Photo by L. Brian Stauffer) ScienceDaily (May 10, 2008) — Which is better, giving more food to a few hungry people or letting some food go to waste so that everyone gets a share" A study appearing in Science finds that most people choose the latter, and that the brain responds in unique ways to inefficiency and inequity. The study, by researchers at the University of Illinois and the California Institute...