It might seem like an unimportant story in Saturday morning’s Washington Post, and the ruling won’t affect all that many people, but it demonstrates the willingness of some people to be absolute assholes — note that I used the word directly rather than my more usual [insert slang term for the anus here] — for no good reason. Yes, sometimes we need government officials to be [insert plural slang term for the anus here] for the good of government and of the country, but this kind of behavior over pettiness is just plain stupid. Continue reading
Category Archives: Law
Illegals apprehended in Kentucky
Our good friends on the left would have people believe that the poor, oppressed ‘undocumented’ residents in our country are all just sweetness-and-light, good, people working hard to make a living. Well, when the liberally-oriented Lexington Herald-leader starts pointing out that those apprehended in the Bluegrass State might not be among our better angels, perhaps some of us might doubt the meme the left are presenting.
Kentucky isn’t the largest state in the union, but it’s good to see that we’re not being ignored in Operation Take Back America.
16 people federally indicted on criminal immigration charges in Kentucky
Hold them accountable! When will we hold those who have enabled illegal immigration accountable for the violent crimes some illegals have committed?
Joel Quintana-Dominguez
‘Disgusted and sickened’: Man accused of trying to flee country after sexually assaulting child in Shelby Twp.
By Jessica Dupnack | July 30, 2024 | 9:26 AM EDT
SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. (FOX 2) – After allegedly sexually assaulting a family member numerous times, Shelby Township police say the suspect started packing up to flee the country.
Officers began investigating 32-year-old Joel Quintana-Dominguez on July 15 after learning that he may have sexually assaulted a minor who was not even a teenager yet. Continue reading
Our #FreedomOfSpeech is different from that of other countries, and we thank the Lord for that! We need to defend our freedom of speech against the left who would restrict it
What would happen to you if you tore up and burned a copy of the Holy Bible on the steps of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan? What would happen to you if you dropped a Crucifix into a jar of urine, and photographed it, claiming it to be art?
There would be people claiming that you were a religious bigot, who ought to be thrown in jail, but you’d actually face no legal charges. Some people might think you were headed straight to Hell, but no one would actually try to send you there.
What would happen to you if you participated in, or perhaps even led, a protest March in support of Hamas or the Palestinians in New York or Washington or foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia? As long as the protest march was peaceable, there might be some hecklers shouting from the sidewalks as the protest march passed, but you’d not be facing any charges. If you were in the country illegally, now that Donald Trump is President — it wouldn’t have happened under our previous President or Kamala Harris Emhoff, had she been elected — you might get sent back home, but that’s it. And if you are young and pretty, NBC News might even publish a celebratory glamour photo of you!
But, if you lived in Sweden, legally, you could be charged with a crime. Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee legally granted protection there, was charged with incitement against an ethnic group over the 2023 burning of a Quran, and was due to be sentenced Thursday morning. Continue reading
The Justice Department said that pardons do not mean innocence . . . when it comes to the J6 defendants. The same must hold true for those pardoned by Joe Biden
Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right
It was seven months ago that we noted The Free Press’ Olivia Reingold‘s article on how oh-so-well-intended “harm reduction” measures were actually hurting the Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia.
(Sonja Bingham’s, a 55-year-old mother of three, and local Kensington activist) problem is not just with the hundreds of drug users camped out in Kensington—her neighborhood in northeast Philly that’s been dubbed ground zero for the city’s opioid crisis. It’s with an ecosystem of activists that call themselves “harm reductionists.”
Those who advocate for harm reduction — a Biden-endorsed policy that prioritizes users’ safety over their sobriety or abstinence — say they’re helping fix the problem. But when I visited Kensington last month, Bingham and almost a dozen other residents told me that the activists are actually the ones causing it.
Even The Wall Street Journal noted what a disaster Kensington has been, and how the city’s George Soros-sponsored, police-hating and criminal-loving District Attorney, Larry Krasner, has tried to stymie Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins’ plans to clean up the blighted area, and now we have a new complaint, this time in The Philadelphia Inquirer: Continue reading
No matter how much you hate the credentialed media, you do not hate them enough!
Upon seeing this tweet from Eyal Yakoby, I had to check the article to see if it was as bad as I suspected. In some ways, it really wasn’t, because most of it was based on the legal problems for José Ibarra’s defense, and the decision to seek a bench trial, a trial by a judge rather than a jury.
Laken Riley’s killer never stood a chance
For all the political controversy surrounding Jose Ibarra, the outcome of this trial was never in doubt.
By Danny Cevallos, MSNBC legal analyst | Thursday, November 21, 2024 | 7:07 PM EST
Jose Antonio Ibarra was convicted on multiple counts of murder Wednesday in the February killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley. Ibarra was immediately sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, along with other consecutive sentences for lesser crimes, including aggravated assault with intent to rape and “peeping Tom.”
Riley’s murder became a political rallying cry at this summer’s Republican National Convention because Ibarra entered the country illegally in 2022. But for all the political controversy, the outcome of this trial was never in doubt.
He will do it again
Tyler Boyle under arrest, via WPVI-TV.
What sentence did he face originally?
It is always a good thing to see child molesters sentenced to jail, but it’s not a good thing, not a good thing at all, to see them sentenced to far to little time in prison.
An Aldan man was sentenced to county jail for trying to lure underage girls into his car, possessing child porn
Tyler Boyle approached underage girls on two separate occasions as they were walking home from school. After his arrest, police found a hidden cache of child porn on his cell phone.
by Vinny Vella | Hallowe’en, October 31, 2024 | 2:29 PM EDT
An Aldan man who twice tried to lure underage girls walking near their schools to get into his car and asked one to perform a sex act was sentenced Thursday to 11½ to 23 months in county jail.
Tyler Boyle, 21, pleaded guilty in July to luring a child into a motor vehicle, corruption of minors, and related crimes for approaching the girls, as well as possessing child pornography for a hidden cache of images investigators discovered on his cell phone after his arrest.
As a result of the sentence handed down by Delaware County Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan, Boyle must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Assistant District Attorney Bryan Barth said that while it was fortunate none of the victims was physically harmed, Boyle’s behavior warranted incarceration.
So, a guilty plea. His sentence? 11½ to 23 months in the Delaware County jail. Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Vinny Vella continued to tell us that Mr Boyle apologized for his actions and regretted the impact hey had on the victims and their families.
“I’m doing all I can do to change my destructive behavior,” Boyle said. “I vow to get all the help I need, go back to school to finish my degree, and become a productive member of society.”
Tyler Boyle receiving his award for becoming an Eagle Scout, via Pennsylvania’s 163rd Legislative District in Delaware County
Translation: his lawyer told him to express contrition. WPVI-TV identified him as a former Eagle Scout.
Well, perhaps he really is contrite, perhaps he really is sorry for what he did, as well as for having gotten caught. But this wasn’t his first offense.
When he was arrested for this offense, he was already out on bail for exposing himself to a kindergarten aged girl. The girls in the current case were 11-years-old at the time. He still faces the charges for the 2022 arrest.
What, I have to ask, are the odds that Mr Boyle will come out of the county jail reformed? What are the odds that the two incidents for which he was arrested are the only two attempts he made to lure young girls? After his first arrest, if there was ever any chance that Mr Boyle could somehow restrain his sick urges, that chance was obviously zero to judge by the fact that he offended a second time.
The fear of jail didn’t stop him from that second offense, so what are the chances that 11½ to 23 months in county will create enough of an overriding fear that his unnatural urges won’t get the better of him again?
Unfortunately, Mr Vella’s story did not tell us what kind of jail time he was facing. He was charged with “two counts each of felony luring a child into a vehicle, felony unlawful contact with minors, and felony corruption of minors, according to court records.” Under 18 §2910(a)(a.1)(2) Luring a child into a motor vehicle or structure is a second-degree felony, which, under 18 §106 (b)(3) carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison. He could have been locked up for twenty years just on those two counts.
Was Mr Boyle given a lenient plea deal so the children would not have to testify? That kind of thing happens a lot. However, child pornography was found on his cell phone, and that, too, is a felony. Under 18 §6312(d)(d.1)(2)(i) simple possession of child pornography is a third degree felony, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, and none of the victims would have had to have testified for that charge to have been brought to trial.
The Pennsylvania General Assembly has provided for strict sentences for the sexual abuse of children and preying on them, but, as happens far, far, far too often, in many of our states, the criminal justice system is far too lenient in imposing sentences for these crimes.
Gary Plauché was unavailable for comment.
We should never release murderers until their victims come back to life!
Every Sunday morning during Mass, Catholics make our Profession of Faith, which ends:
I look forward to the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of world to come. Amen.
Other than Christ Jesus, we believe that no one has yet been resurrected from the dead. That is the case with the victims of murder here on earth, but some people seem to believe that those who commit murders should be released from prison before the person they killed is resurrected from the dead.
Should life without parole be mandatory for second-degree murder? The Pa. Supreme Court is weighing the issue.
Efforts to challenge the statute and the penalty have been persistent but unsuccessful over the years
by Chris Palmer | Tuesday, October 8, 2024 | 2:07 PM EDT
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court justices on Tuesday debated whether the state’s mandatory sentence of life without parole for second-degree murder is constitutional — an issue that has long been eyed for reform by a mix of advocates and some legislators.
Under state law, people who participate in a deadly felony — such as a robbery — can be charged with the crime, also known as felony murder, even if they didn’t commit the killing or intend for anyone to die. A conviction leads to an automatic life sentence, and more than 1,100 people are serving that penalty in Pennsylvania, which is one of only two states nationwide to mandate incarceration for life for felony murder convictions.
The law is Pennsylvania Title 18 §2502(b), reproduced above. I point out here that even if the perpetrators did not go into their crime intending to kill anyone, if they were committing a crime, while carrying weapons, they had to know that someone being killed was a possibility, and that they might not have intended for someone to be killed does not make someone who was killed during such a crime is no less dead than the victim in an intentional murder. Title 18 §1102(b) specifies the penalty as life imprisonment.
Efforts to challenge the statute and the penalty have been persistent but unsuccessful over the years. The issue landed before the state’s high court this week because an attorney for one of those defendants — Derek Lee, who took part in a fatal robbery in Pittsburgh in 2014, but whose coconspirator committed the killing — filed an appeal saying that the penalty is unduly cruel.
Isn’t killing someone “unduly cruel”?
Further down, we get the typical leftist argument:
Legislators have debated Pennsylvania’s sentence for felony murder for years. Beyond the challenge to the sentence as potentially cruel, advocates have pointed out that those imprisoned for the crime are disproportionately Black, that about half are from Philadelphia, and that hundreds have already served decades in prison, putting them beyond the age at which they’re likely to commit another crime.
Is the purpose simply to lock them up until they have passed the ages “at which they’re likely to commit another crime,” or is the purpose also to punish them for the crimes they have committed? Perhaps they will have passed the ages in which they are likely to commit other crimes, but their victims are still stone-cold graveyard dead.
“(A)bout half are from Philadelphia”? Perhaps they are, but it’s also true that about half of all murders in the Keystone State occur in the City of Brotherly Love.
“(D)isproportionately black”? According to the Philadelphia Shooting Victims Dashboard, accessed at 8:58 AM EDT on Wednesday, October 9th, the data on fatal shootings in the city from 2015 through October 7th, 75.71% of all fatal shooting victims were black males, and another 5.85% were black females. 11.1% were Hispanic males, while 1.25% were Hispanic females. Only 3.97% were white males, 1.25% white females, and less than 1%, 0.78% were Asians of either sex. Of course the criminals who killed them are going to be “disproportionately black”!
(Bret)Grote[1]How unserious is Mr Grote? He couldn’t even be bothered to clean up his beta male beard before going before the state Supreme Court. has been among the most vigorous advocates for change. He and the organization he works for, the Abolitionist Law Center, filed a lawsuit in 2020 contending that the state’s ban on parole eligibility for felony murder was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court rejected that appeal two years later.
Image from main page of Abolitionist Law Center website, screencaptured on October 9, 2024.
Ahhh, the Abolitionist Law Center, which we have previously mentioned. What reporter Chris Palmer failed to mention, and did not hyperlink, is that the Abolitionist Law Center is opposed to incarceration for anything, opposes all prison sentences, and would, if they could, free every murderer, every rapist, every drug dealer, and every assailant locked up in Pennsylvania’s prisons.
We challenge every point on the criminal punishment conveyor belt including policing, courts, jails and prisons, and various forms of legal supervision, as well as other aspects of the carceral machine.
Boldface in the original.
TribLive.com carried more on this story:
Grote told the seven justices that if his client’s sentence is not struck down, Lee will some day die in prison because of the unintended consequences of his crime.
“This must no longer be the case in Pennsylvania,” Grote said.
Why not? After all, Leonard Butler of Pittsburgh died in his own basement, the result of a crime committed by Paul Durham and Derek Lee! Why shouldn’t Mr Lee die in prison?
Lee ordered Butler and his girlfriend into the basement and demanded money from them. Butler handed over his watch, and Lee went upstairs in the home, leaving Durham and Butler in the basement.
Butler attempted to lunge at Durham, the girlfriend testified at trial, and Durham shot him. . . . .
Justice P. Kevin Brobson countered (Mr Grote’s argument, saying) that Lee engaged in a violent home invasion, entered with a gun and pistol-whipped the victim.
So, Mr Lee was armed just as the actual shooter was!
Justice Brobson questioned whether Mr Lee’s case was the right one on which to base the Abolitionist Law Center’s case. I have to ask: what good would be served by releasing Mr Lee, either now, after he has served only eight years, or ever, for the people of Pennsylvania, or the family of Mr Butler?
Perhaps Mr Lee will find faith in God while he’s locked up; perhaps he already has. Perhaps he will be able to do some good while in prison, counseling others who do have hope of eventual release. Regardless of that, he participated in a felony murder, and should not be released until the day his victim comes back to life.
References
| ↑1 | How unserious is Mr Grote? He couldn’t even be bothered to clean up his beta male beard before going before the state Supreme Court. |
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