Tag Archives: #HoldThemAccountable

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Was it worth it?

Demond Goudy, 21, Photo released by Chicago Police Department.

We have thrice mentioned the killing of seven-year-old Jaslyn Adams in the Windy City. Chicago Police have now apprehended a second suspect in that shooting, as Demond Goudy, 21, was taken into custody Monday in the 1500 block of South Springfield following a SWAT standoff. Marion Lewis, 18, allegedly the driver, was previously apprehended.

Mr Goudy has been denied bail, because he was already out on bond awaiting trial on other charges. WGN noted that Mr Goudy’s life had been a long spiral of violence:

In recent years, violence has been a constant in the life of Demond Goudy, one of the men accused of taking part in the fatal shooting of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams earlier this month.

Court records show that Goudy was shot and critically wounded on the West Side last October. That shooting occurred less than two weeks after Goudy’s brother was shot and killed in Humboldt Park. No one has been charged in either case.

Before he was charged in Jaslyn’s killing — a shooting that also left her father seriously injured — Goudy was already facing four separate criminal cases.

Court records show that, in addition to the murder charge, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has accused Goudy of robbery, manufacturing/delivery of cocaine, possession of a controlled substance, possession of a gun with a defaced serial number and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. None of the charges against Goudy are more than 2 ½ years old.

According to court filings made by his attorney, Goudy was a participant in READI Chicago, “a job readiness program that provides cognitive behavioral therapy and work force training.”

Let’s face facts: young Mr Goudy was a waste case, and no ‘job training’ program was ever going to turn him into a decent and law-abiding member of society. Mr Goudy was already under electronic monitoring when he was shot in the back, just two weeks after his brother, Edward James, had been murdered. Cook County Judge Edward Maloney, asked by Mr Goudy’s attorney to loosen the conditions of Mr Goudy’s monitoring so he could go to medical appointments following his release from the hospital, instead dropped the monitoring altogether, after Cathryn Crawford of the Lawndale Christian Legal Center, Mr Goudy’s attorney, argued that, “Demond is not a threat to anyone given his condition.” Apparently neither the judge nor the defense attorney thought that, eventually, Mr Goudy would recover.

Naturally, I checked out the Lawndale Christian Legal Center’s website, and found this, on their main page:

THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IN OUR COUNTRY IS BROKEN.

It’s costing too much and hurting us all. But we are standing at a pivotal moment where the conversation has begun in earnest about shifting power back to the community as a more effective way to ensure peace, make communities safer and provide equity for everyone.

Over a decade ago at Lawndale Christian Legal Center, we committed to providing legal defense for juvenile and emerging adult clients in North Lawndale, keeping them out of prison, surrounding each one with the right resources to address the systemic problems threatening their future, and involving the community in seeking justice. We believe it is – and always has been – the most effective way to build a system that is fair for everyone.

This is a restorative justice program supported by holistic social and legal services that walk juveniles and emerging adults through, and away from, the court system for good. Through our work, we’ve been helping transform young lives tangled in a deeply flawed system, and inspiring hope in places where hope has been hard to come by.

I get it. Everyone deserves a legal defense. But perhaps, just perhaps, Miss Crawford, their Director of Holistic Legal Services, may just have a bit too much goodness in her heart:

Cathryn is a graduate and former professor of Northwestern University’s School of Law. With a decades long legal career, she joined LCLC due to its unique community-based holistic legal representation model and the vision espoused by Cliff Nellis, Executive Director. Before coming to LCLC, Cathryn worked in Texas representing clients on death row. People like Cathryn’s mother, a single mom and tenants’ rights community activist, instilled in her a strong sense of social justice and work ethic from an early age. Cathryn hopes to reform the justice system by making it holistic instead of punitive and to eliminate the pernicious racism that characterizes it. She wants our clients to be seen as unique individuals with real strengths rather than simply the offense with which they have been charged. She is motivated by her team and by her clients.

Or perhaps she’s just an idiot. Those gang tats on Mr Goudy’s neck ought to have told her something, ought to have told her that perhaps, just perhaps, her “strong sense of social justice” was a bit misplaced when she told Judge Maloney that Mr Goudy wasn’t a threat to anyone. 

Does Miss Crawford even think about Jaslyn Adams, and how the client she helped to get released from monitoring shot her stone-cold graveyard dead?  Does she feel any responsibility, does she have any sense or remorse?

Miss Crawford did Mr Goudy no favors. If Mr Goudy was indeed one of the shooters — remember: he is innocent of that until proven guilty — at least the years he would spend behind bars for his previous crimes would have left him with some hope of eventually getting out of prison. Now, if he is convicted in the premeditated murder of a seven-year-old innocent girl, well, that’s it, he’ll spend the rest of his miserable life in prison.

How about Messrs Goudy and Lewis? The shooting was, apparently, some gang-related action. Yeah, they sure showed Jontae Adams, young Miss Adams’ father, what for, but now the 21 and 18 year olds are looking at never, ever, getting out of prison. Was it really worth it for them?

Well, assuming that Messrs Goudy and Lewis are the guilty parties, they will be held accountable by the criminal justice system.

But what about Judge Maloney, who freed Mr Goudy from monitoring, and Miss Crawford, who worked as hard as she could to see to it that Mr Goudy was out on the street, and able to (allegedly) shoot his victims? We know that, legally, they’ll never be held accountable, but morally and ethically, if Mr Goudy really was one of the men people who killed Miss Adams, Mr Maloney and Miss Crawford are at least in part responsible. This death should gnaw at their hearts forever.

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Hold them accountable!

I have an entire series entitles Hold them accountable, much of which is lost, or at least hidden, in a file containing whatever remains of this site prior to the reboot. However, before RedState closed itself to diarists, I had cross-posted nine of the Hold them accountable posts there, and they are still available. I have gone through the old RedState archives, and recovered those that I could, though the formatting may be poor.

My good friend — OK, OK, I’ve never actually met the man! — Robert Stacy McCain, formerly a real professional journalist, and now the site owner of The Other McCain has become quite the stupid crime blogger of late, and now he has another one:

Florida Woman Was in a Big Hurry to Reach Her Destination: Prison

by Robert Stacy McCain | April 28, 2021

The vehicle that Jennifer Carvajal destroyed, photo by Florida Highway Patrol.

Jennifer Carvajal was behind the wheel of a Hyundai Elantra clocked on radar at 111 mph headed west on I-4 by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper. It was 1:30 a.m., and three passengers were in the car with Carvajal, who did not have a driver’s license, because she had violated her probation.What was she on probation for? DUI manslaughter in 2014.

Yeah, that’s right — apparently you can kill somebody while driving drunk in Florida and you’re back on the streets in just a few years.

In 2016, Carvajal was sentenced to five years in prison, but was released in 2019. “According to Hillsborough Circuit Court Clerk records, she was then arrested in May [2020] for violating her probation with a drug-related charge and was sentenced to five more years probation.”

Did you get that? After killing somebody, then serving only three years in prison, she was arrested for drugs, a probation violation that could have sent her back to prison. But it’s Tampa, where all the judges are Democrats, so they just gave her more probation. Less than a year later, she was doing 111 mph on I-4 at 1:30 in the morning when the trooper caught her on radar. And when the trooper managed to catch up with her, Carvajal had a truly genius idea — right turn!

The result of Miss Carvajal’s right turn at 178½ KM/HR? She wasn’t driving on a banked NASCAR oval — where all of the turns are left turns anyway — but Interstate 4, so, as Mr McCain has the video, things did not go well. Miss Carvajal and twop of her passengers were seriously injured, and one was ejected and killed.

Mr McCain tends to write in a mocking and sarcastic vein when it comes to his stories on stupid criminals, and there’s more at his original, but, to me, this incident raises some obvious questions:

  • How did Miss Carvajal get just five years for killing someone? Was this the result of some cockamamie plea bargain? Was the judge just too lenient? In Florida, DUI Manslaughter is a class 2 felony, which can result in a sentence of up to fifteen years. The minimum sentence is four years.[1]Brian DeFreitas, 48, was sentenced to 12 years for the same offense.
  • How did Miss Carvajal get probation so soon, not quite four years, into her five year sentence? When she was considered for release, did no one think to ask, is she going to get drunk behind the wheel and kill someone else?
  • Who took the decision, and why, in May of 2020, to sentence Miss Carvajal to another five years of probation when she violated her existing probation rather than throwing her back in the clink?

Well, that’s the answer, of course: May of 2020. Our legal system was releasing everybody it could — and I’m surprised that Pennsylvania didn’t release Wesley Cook, the scumbag cop-killer who goes by the faux name of Mumia Abu-Jamal — due to the huge overreaction to COVID-19. In effect, the legal system in Tampa, Florida bet that it was wiser to protect Miss Carvajal from the virus than it was to protect other people from her drunken driving. The result of that bet? A 22-year-old man will never see 23, as he’s lying on the slab, stone-cold graveyard dead.

Jennifer Carvajal

As we have noted previously, some media organizations have become reluctant to post photos of criminals, for what I have come to assume are the ‘social justice’ reasons of not making it seem as though non-whites commit crimes. One of Mr McCain’s commenters, who styles himself Buffalobob, wrote:

ABC action news, “we choose not to show her mug shot because she is no longer a threat to the community. Will they show it when she is released again on probation?

Another news organization did choose to show Miss Carvajal’s photo, which Mr McCain found.

The sad story of Miss Carvajal, who has now sent two people to their eternal rewards, did not just happen. At several points, people who have sought public office and are responsible for law enforcement and trying to keep the public safe, took decisions which enabled Miss Carvajal’s deadly actions. Will the judge who sentenced Miss Carvajal to such a short sentence be held accountable? Will the probation and parole officials who decided to let her out early be held accountable? Will the prosecutors who decided, in May of 2020, not to send her back to prison for probation violations, be held accountable?

The sad, answer, of course, is that no, they won’t be held accountable. Her entire five year sentence, had it been served, would have expired before this crash, so the probation officials don’t bear any real responsibility here, but the judge, who sentenced her so leniently, and quite probably the prosecutors who arranged such a lenient sentence, do bear responsibility. The officials who decided to add another five more years probation, rather than send her to jail, bear responsibility. Everyone who played a part in Miss Carvajal not being sentenced to the maximum amount of prison time allowable under the law, and everyone who played a part in not keeping her locked up for as long as the law allowed, bear responsibility for the death of that 22-year-old man.

Until we start holding such officials accountable — which I suspect will never happen — we will continue to have stories along these lines, of how someone who could, and should, have still been in jail on a previous conviction, has murdered, mugged, raped or molested another innocent victim.

References

References
↑1 Brian DeFreitas, 48, was sentenced to 12 years for the same offense.
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Hold them accountable!

It’s a very good thing that prosecutors let Jeffrey Epstein skate on charges in 2008. Well, that good thing comes at a cost, the cost being an unknown number of other teenaged girls being sexually abused, but maybe, just maybe, some real good can come of this. From The Miami Herald:

BY Julie K Brown and Jay Weaver | August 8, 2019 07:38 PM | Updated August 9, 2019 2:48 PM

A. Marie Villafaña, the lead federal prosecutor who helped negotiate a controversial plea deal for accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, has submitted her resignation to the Justice Department, the Miami Herald has learned.

Her departure comes amid a federal probe into the role she and other federal prosecutors, including her former boss, Alexander Acosta, had in sidelining a 53-page indictment against the wealthy New York investor in favor of a state plea to minor prostitution charges in 2008. Epstein, 66, was accused of molesting dozens of underage girls, most of them 14 to 16 years old, at his Palm Beach mansion more than a decade ago. He is now facing federal sex trafficking charges involving minors brought against him last month by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is examining whether Acosta, who resigned his cabinet post as secretary of labor last month — and other U.S. prosecutors involved in the 2007-2008 case — committed misconduct in negotiating the secret pact with Epstein. A federal judge in February ruled that the prior deal was illegally negotiated because Epstein and federal prosecutors concealed it from his victims in violation of the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

The Herald has learned that several people involved in the Epstein case have been questioned by the Justice Department in recent weeks as part of its ongoing OPR investigation.

There’s more at the original, but Mrs Villafaña is the last member of the federal investigation team who is still employed by the Department of Justice.

Mr Epstein was given special treatment during his incarceration in 2009, being allowed to work in his office on work release, being chauffeured, and allowed to sleep with his cell door open when he was in jail. While the story says nothing about money changing hands, the mollycoddled treatment he received certainly raises questions about it. Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL):

ordered a criminal investigation into the state’s handling of the Epstein case, from his sentencing in 2008 to his incarceration and probation in 2009. In 2006, former Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer declined to prosecute Epstein on serious sex charges, which led to the U.S. Attorney and FBI taking over the case in 2007.

My website, The First Street Journal, has a long series called Hold Them Accountable, in which we have urged that government officials who treat criminals too leniently or release them too soon be held responsible for the crimes that those criminals commit at times when they should have still been locked up. If these investigations concerning the lenient treatment Mr Epstein received result in criminal convictions and prison time, it will send a message to other law enforcement officials: if you don’t do your jobs right, you, too, can go to jail.

And I’m guessing that prosecutors, policemen and sheriffs who wind up in jail will not have a pleasant experience therein.

If Mr Epstein is convicted, he’ll spend the rest of his miserable life locked up. Of course, that could have been the case starting in 2008, but some people didn’t do their jobs. They need to be held accountable for the injuries done to Mr Epstein’s (alleged) victims during that time.

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Hold them accountable!

If you were a judge, and had a second-time convicted sex offender before you, awaiting sentencing, and you gave him probation rather than the 2 to 2½ years in the penitentiary for which the prosecution asked, and he offended again, is there any reason that you shouldn’t be held liable for the sex offender’s subsequent crimes?

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes avoids prison for sex abuse
By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 2, 2018

For the second time in recent weeks, Portland protest leader* Micah Isaiah Rhodes stood before an Oregon judge ready to go to prison for having sexual contact with an underage teen.

And for the second time, an Oregon judge agreed to veer from state sentencing recommendations and give Rhodes five years of probation.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson on Monday said he wouldn’t send Rhodes to prison for two to 2½ years because he believes Rhodes earnestly is trying to change despite the prosecution’s arguments to the contrary.

“I can tell that you’re sincere and I can tell that you’ve grown a lot over the last couple of years,” Hodson said as Rhodes wiped away tears.

Rhodes was 20 and 21 at the time of his crimes, in 2014 and 2015.

In March, Rhodes pleaded guilty to two counts of felony second-degree sexual abuse for at least twice having sexual contact with a 17-year-old boy. Investigators say Rhodes met the boy on a gay dating app, and the contact happened in Gresham and Troutdale.

Days earlier, a Washington County jury had found Rhodes guilty of second-degree sexual abuse of a 17-year-old girl. A defense memo said the contact happened after the girl went to watch a movie with Rhodes at his mother’s house.

There’s a lot more at the link, including information concerning Mr Rhodes previous record as a sex offender.

  • At age 14, he sexually abused a 9 year old boy;
  • At age 15, he sexually abused three younger boys. He was convicted as a juvenile of first degree sodomy and sexual abuse; and
  • He has thrice been through sex offender treatment programs, which don’t appear to have worked.

Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Bumjoon Park said that Mr Rhodes does not respect the authority of the courts and “simply must not believe that having sex with minors is wrong.”

At least Mr Rhodes will have to register as a sex offender, and was ordered to have no contact with minors, but I fail to see how that protects potential victims while he’s out on the street.

Well, guess what? It was only three weeks later that the esteemed Mr Rhodes was arrested for violating the terms of his probation!

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is arrested, again

By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 23, 2018

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is back in jail on allegations that he violated terms of his probation by having contact with minors.

Rhodes, 24, was ordered to stay away from anyone under 18 years old after he was convicted this year on three counts of second-degree sexual abuse for having illicit sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl in Washington County and a 17-year-old boy in Multnomah County. The sexual abuse occurred in 2014 and 2015, and Rhodes was 20 and 21 years old at the time.

Washington County Circuit Judge Janelle Wipper and Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson decided in separate hearings not to sentence Rhodes to two to 2 ½ -years in prison, as state sentencing guidelines recommended. Instead, the judges ordered five years of probation for Rhodes with a long list of conditions, including that he was forbidden from being around children without the prior permission of his probation officer.

Last Wednesday, Rhodes was arrested and brought to the Multnomah County Detention Center on accusations that he had been in the presence of children. On Thursday, he was transferred to Washington County Jail, where he remains.

Fortunately, Mr Rhodes does not appear to have molested anyone, but he was caught at the protest “near a 15-year-old boy and outside a tent set up for children’s activities.” This time, Mr Rhodes was finally sent to prison, for 2½ years, for his probation violation.

Get that? Washington County Circuit Court Judge Janelle Wipper wasn’t all that upset that Mr Rhodes had raped minors, but that he had disobeyed her prior court orders! Yeah, the prison term was based on he molestation convictions, but the fact that he was sent to the clink was because he violated his probation.

The teenagers of Washington County are fortunate — as far as we know — in that none of them were raped by an incorrigible sex offender, but Judges Wipper and Hodson still exposed them to that danger. And even with the last violation, Mr Rhodes was sentenced to five years probation, yet Judge Wipper sent him away for only 2½, not five years.

Yeah, I know: government officials are shielded from legal responsibility for the decisions they take in their official capacity, as long as those decisions do not violate the law, and Judges Hodson’s and Wipper’s previous sentencing decisions were perfectly legal; they committed no crimes.

But at some point, such judges must somehow be held accountable when they release criminals on society when they have the power to lock them up, and those criminals re-offend.

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Hold them accountable!

If you were a judge, and had a second-time convicted sex offender before you, awaiting sentencing, and you gave him probation rather than the 2 to 2½ years in the penitentiary for which the prosecution asked, and he offended again, is there any reason that you shouldn’t be held liable for the sex offender’s subsequent crimes?

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes avoids prison for sex abuse
By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 2, 2018

For the second time in recent weeks, Portland protest leader* Micah Isaiah Rhodes stood before an Oregon judge ready to go to prison for having sexual contact with an underage teen.

And for the second time, an Oregon judge agreed to veer from state sentencing recommendations and give Rhodes five years of probation.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson on Monday said he wouldn’t send Rhodes to prison for two to 2½ years because he believes Rhodes earnestly is trying to change despite the prosecution’s arguments to the contrary.

“I can tell that you’re sincere and I can tell that you’ve grown a lot over the last couple of years,” Hodson said as Rhodes wiped away tears.

Rhodes was 20 and 21 at the time of his crimes, in 2014 and 2015.

In March, Rhodes pleaded guilty to two counts of felony second-degree sexual abuse for at least twice having sexual contact with a 17-year-old boy. Investigators say Rhodes met the boy on a gay dating app, and the contact happened in Gresham and Troutdale.

Days earlier, a Washington County jury had found Rhodes guilty of second-degree sexual abuse of a 17-year-old girl. A defense memo said the contact happened after the girl went to watch a movie with Rhodes at his mother’s house.

There’s a lot more at the link, including information concerning Mr Rhodes previous record as a sex offender.

  • At age 14, he sexually abused a 9 year old boy;
  • At age 15, he sexually abused three younger boys. He was convicted as a juvenile of first degree sodomy and sexual abuse; and
  • He has thrice been through sex offender treatment programs, which don’t appear to have worked.

Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Bumjoon Park said that Mr Rhodes does not respect the authority of the courts and “simply must not believe that having sex with minors is wrong.”

At least Mr Rhodes will have to register as a sex offender, and was ordered to have no contact with minors, but I fail to see how that protects potential victims while he’s out on the street.

Well, guess what? It was only three weeks later that the esteemed Mr Rhodes was arrested for violating the terms of his probation!

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is arrested, again

By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 23, 2018

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is back in jail on allegations that he violated terms of his probation by having contact with minors.

Rhodes, 24, was ordered to stay away from anyone under 18 years old after he was convicted this year on three counts of second-degree sexual abuse for having illicit sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl in Washington County and a 17-year-old boy in Multnomah County. The sexual abuse occurred in 2014 and 2015, and Rhodes was 20 and 21 years old at the time.

Washington County Circuit Judge Janelle Wipper and Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson decided in separate hearings not to sentence Rhodes to two to 2 ½ -years in prison, as state sentencing guidelines recommended. Instead, the judges ordered five years of probation for Rhodes with a long list of conditions, including that he was forbidden from being around children without the prior permission of his probation officer.

Last Wednesday, Rhodes was arrested and brought to the Multnomah County Detention Center on accusations that he had been in the presence of children. On Thursday, he was transferred to Washington County Jail, where he remains.

Fortunately, Mr Rhodes does not appear to have molested anyone, but he was caught at the protest “near a 15-year-old boy and outside a tent set up for children’s activities.” This time, Mr Rhodes was finally sent to prison, for 2½ years, for his probation violation.

Get that? Washington County Circuit Court Judge Janelle Wipper wasn’t all that upset that Mr Rhodes had raped minors, but that he had disobeyed her prior court orders! Yeah, the prison term was based on he molestation convictions, but the fact that he was sent to the clink was because he violated his probation.

The teenagers of Washington County are fortunate — as far as we know — in that none of them were raped by an incorrigible sex offender, but Judges Wipper and Hodson still exposed them to that danger. And even with the last violation, Mr Rhodes was sentenced to five years probation, yet Judge Wipper sent him away for only 2½, not five years.

Yeah, I know: government officials are shielded from legal responsibility for the decisions they take in their official capacity, as long as those decisions do not violate the law, and Judges Hodson’s and Wipper’s previous sentencing decisions were perfectly legal; they committed no crimes.

But at some point, such judges must somehow be held accountable when they release criminals on society when they have the power to lock them up, and those criminals re-offend.

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Hold them accountable!

On Sunday, a recently released felon named Tanaij Wells shot up a 24-hour are festival in Trenton, NJ. Wells had been released from prison after serving time for “homicide-related charges.” Seventeen people were wounded, five were injured in the ensuing stampede and one, Wells, is dead. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy,  a Democrat, wasted no time blaming guns for the Trenton Art All Night festival shootings.

That Mr Murphy would blame guns rather than criminals is hardly unexpected; that’s what Democrats do these days. Fox News noted that Governor Murphy supports shorter sentences for criminals, and the Trenton shooter, Tahaji Wells, was the beneficiary of a ‘shorter sentence,’ in that he was released from prison early. Had he not been paroled, he couldn’t have shot up the Trenton festival, because he would still have been behind bars. Perhaps Governor Murphy’s notion of shorter sentences is the wrong idea?

The problem isn’t gun control, or any lack thereof; the problem is that when the state has criminals in custody, they are treated too leniently, and released too early. From the Fox News story:

Murphy has decried the sentencing and incarceration of people throughout his campaign and time in office as part of his criminal justice reform agenda, which includes a review of sentencing laws in the state.

The governor’s efforts weren’t just promises, as earlier this year he resurrected the Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission created in 2009, which never actually held any meetings due to former state Gov. Chris Christie’s reluctance to appoint any members.

“We can and must do better,” Murphy said in a statement announcing the restart of the commission. “A Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission can undertake the important review of our sentencing laws and recommend reforms necessary to ensure a stronger, fairer and more just state.”

But it seems that Governor Murphy didn’t want to actually do much to reduce recidivism:

Another key promise of Murphy was to “expand re-entry services, so that the people coming out of prison have the support they need to return to productive lives” – a measure that should have supposedly prevented Wells’ shooting spree.

Yet, Murphy slashed all the money from a prisoner reentry program that was created by his fellow Democratic Party colleagues, NJ.com reported. The program provided training and helped former prisoners to find jobs and claimed it reduced recidivism rates.

Now, what could have prevented Tahaji Wells from obtaining a firearm illegally, and shooting up a festival because he was angry at another gang-banger? Keeping him in prison for his previous crimes would have accomplished that!

Mr Wells was convicted of aggravated manslaughter in 2004, and sentenced to 18 years in the state penitentiary. That sentence alone should have kept him behind bars until 2022.

And in 2010, while still in prison, Wells was sentenced to six additional years after pleading guilty to a second-degree racketeering charge. He reportedly helped a gang leader run the group from inside prison.

Six more years should have kept him locked up until 2028, unless the sentence was set to run concurrently rather than consecutively. Why anyone would think that sentencing a prisoner to an additional term to run concurrently with his existing sentence would be any sort of punishment or deterrent is beyond my poor ability to grasp.

Yet Mr Wells was paroled in February of this year.

Clearly, committing other felonies while in prison does not seem to constitute good behavior. Why was Mr Wells released early?

As is usual, we aren’t told who took the decision to release Mr Wells early, or even if there was any choice in the matter under New Jersey law. If there was no choice but to release Mr Wells early, then the legislature needs to address that. If there was a choice, then the parole board members who looked at his record need to be identified and held accountable for their actions. They need to be publicly shamed, they need to be fired, and the victims of Mr Wells’ actions need to sue them into penury. If the judge who allowed Mr Wells in prison conviction sentence to be run concurrently rather than consecutively had any choice in the matter, he needs to be publicly shamed, driven from office, and sued into penury.

Of course, public officials are shielded from such lawsuits, but they shouldn’t be. When a considered decision for leniency leaves people wounded, perhaps permanently handicapped, or dead, then the officials who took that decision should be held accountable for the consequences of their decision. If that was done, we wouldn’t be seeing instances of violent criminals being released early, we wouldn’t see idiotic judges handing down minimal sentences for serious felonies, and we wouldn’t be reading stories about men who should have still been locked up shooting into crowds.

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Hold them accountable! A felon guns down 17 people and New Jersey’s governor blames the gun.

On Sunday, a recently released felon named Tanaij Wells shot up a 24-hour are festival in Trenton, NJ. Wells had been released from prison after serving time for “homicide-related charges.” Seventeen people were wounded, five were injured in the ensuing stampede and one, Wells, is dead. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy,  a Democrat, wasted no time blaming guns for the Trenton Art All Night festival shootings.

That Mr Murphy would blame guns rather than criminals is hardly unexpected; that’s what Democrats do these days. Fox News noted that Governor Murphy supports shorter sentences for criminals, and the Trenton shooter, Tahaji Wells, was the beneficiary of a ‘shorter sentence,’ in that he was released from prison early. Had he not been paroled, he couldn’t have shot up the Trenton festival, because he would still have been behind bars. Perhaps Governor Murphy’s notion of shorter sentences is the wrong idea?

The problem isn’t gun control, or any lack thereof; the problem is that when the state has criminals in custody, they are treated too leniently, and released too early. From the Fox News story:

Murphy has decried the sentencing and incarceration of people throughout his campaign and time in office as part of his criminal justice reform agenda, which includes a review of sentencing laws in the state.

The governor’s efforts weren’t just promises, as earlier this year he resurrected the Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission created in 2009, which never actually held any meetings due to former state Gov. Chris Christie’s reluctance to appoint any members.

“We can and must do better,” Murphy said in a statement announcing the restart of the commission. “A Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission can undertake the important review of our sentencing laws and recommend reforms necessary to ensure a stronger, fairer and more just state.”

But it seems that Governor Murphy didn’t want to actually do much to reduce recidivism:

Another key promise of Murphy was to “expand re-entry services, so that the people coming out of prison have the support they need to return to productive lives” – a measure that should have supposedly prevented Wells’ shooting spree.

Yet, Murphy slashed all the money from a prisoner reentry program that was created by his fellow Democratic Party colleagues, NJ.com reported. The program provided training and helped former prisoners to find jobs and claimed it reduced recidivism rates.

Now, what could have prevented Tahaji Wells from obtaining a firearm illegally, and shooting up a festival because he was angry at another gang-banger? Keeping him in prison for his previous crimes would have accomplished that!

And in 2010, while still in prison, Wells was sentenced to six additional years after pleading guilty to a second-degree racketeering charge. He reportedly helped a gang leader run the group from inside prison.

Six more years should have kept him locked up until 2028, unless the sentence was set to run concurrently rather than consecutively. Why anyone would think that sentencing a prisoner to an additional term to run concurrently with his existing sentence would be any sort of punishment or deterrent is beyond my poor ability to grasp.

Yet Mr Wells was paroled in February of this year.

Clearly, committing other felonies while in prison does not seem to constitute good behavior. Why was Mr Wells released early?

As is usual, we aren’t told who took the decision to release Mr Wells early, or even if there was any choice in the matter under New Jersey law. If there was no choice but to release Mr Wells early, then the legislature needs to address that. If there was a choice, then the parole board members who looked at his record need to be identified and held accountable for their actions. They need to be publicly shamed, they need to be fired, and the victims of Mr Wells’ actions need to sue them into penury. If the judge who allowed Mr Wells in prison conviction sentence to be run concurrently rather than consecutively had any choice in the matter, he needs to be publicly shamed, driven from office, and sued into penury.

Of course, public officials are shielded from such lawsuits, but they shouldn’t be. When a considered decision for leniency leaves people wounded, perhaps permanently handicapped, or dead, then the officials who took that decision should be held accountable for the consequences of their decision. If that was done, we wouldn’t be seeing instances of violent criminals being released early, we wouldn’t see idiotic judges handing down minimal sentences for serious felonies, and we wouldn’t be reading stories about men who should have still been locked up shooting into crowds.

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Hold them accountable!

From the Sun-Sentinel:

School district shuts down information after Stoneman Douglas shooting

By David Fleshler | May 11, 2018

Superintendent Robert W Runcie, from his Twitter page.

The Broward school district’s repeated, emphatic — and it turns out, false — statements that Nikolas Cruz had not been in a controversial disciplinary program fit a pattern of an institution on the defensive and under siege.Facing significant legal and political exposure over the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the district has tried to keep information from the public and put out untrue and misleading statements, frustrating parents who say this is the time for maximum transparency.

The district is fighting in court against the release of school surveillance video. It flatly refused to issue any records regarding the shooting to the news media, in a possible violation of the state’s open-records law. Superintendent Robert Runcie has blocked critics, including parents, from his Twitter account. More than two months after the shooting, a Broward Sheriff’s detective told a state commission on school safety that he was still waiting for the district to provide all of Cruz’s disciplinary records.

The worst came last week, when Runcie acknowledged that his forceful denials that Cruz had been involved in the Promise program, which is intended to provide an alternative to the arrest of students for minor offenses, were wrong. The district had repeatedly dismissed as “fake news” suggestions that Cruz was in the program.

“It would appear that the district is more interested in protecting their programs than they are the students and teachers in our schools,” said Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alaina, was killed by Cruz during his rampage through the school. “As a father, I would ask the district to please be completely transparent so we can make sure this doesn’t happen to any other children in any other schools in Florida.”

In an interview, Runcie said the district has held nothing back from authorities, providing records as soon as they could be gathered. Any delays reflect the state of the district’s record-keeping systems, he said, not a reluctance to cooperate. He said he would look into the issue of the blanket refusals to provide documents to the news media.

Bovine feces!

From Superintendent Runcie’s biography page on the Broward County schools’ website:

Superintendent Runcie knows first-hand how a high-quality education can transform a person’s life. Born in Jamaica, he moved to the United States as a young boy and became the first member of his family to attend college, graduating from Harvard University and earning an MBA from Northwestern University. He later founded a management and technology consulting company and held several strategic leadership positions with Chicago Public Schools, including serving as its Chief Information Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Area Instructional Officer and Chief of Staff to the Board of Education.

Superintendent Runcie proudly joined Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) in 2011. With the support of a dynamic School Board, Mr. Runcie developed a strategic plan for the District focusing on three key areas: high-quality instruction, continuous improvement and more effective communications.

So, we are being told that a man who “founded a management and technology consulting company” and was once “Chief Information Officer” for the Chicago public schools, and “developed a strategic plan” focusing on, among other things, “more effective communication” oversees a school records division that doesn’t have recent records computerized, and easily accessed?

Let me be plain here: the Broward County schools and superintendent are trying to cover their asses!

The Sun-Sentinel article noted that Mr Runcie stated, on February 28, 2018, that Nikolas Cruz was not part of the so-called ‘Promise’ program which didn’t report most in-school crimes to the police. In a March 24, 2018, column for the Sun-Sentinel Mr Runcie called reports that yes, Mr Cruz was in that program “fake news.” This all turned out to be false. While Mr Runcie claimed that he, a former Chief Information Officer, hadn’t had all of the information, a four week time lapse between the first statement and his column was plenty of time to get the information.

Mr Runcie and his minions are doing everything in their power to save their own jobs right now. They don’t give a damn about anything else, they don’t care about the truth — especially the truth, because it would reveal how incompetent they are — about complying with Florida’s open records laws, about transparency or the larger community, only about keeping their jobs. Mr Runcie, who in November of 2017, just three months before Mr Cruz’ killing spree received a contract extension until June 30, 2023, makes $335,000 a year, paid for by the taxpayers’ dollars, yet he is doing everything he possibly can to keep information about the school shootings, information about his own failures, from the taxpayers.

To say that Mr Runcie need to be held accountable means that he needs to be terminated, fired, let go, dismissed. That is up to the Broward County School Board, of course, but the School Board is answerable to the voters: six school board seats, out of a total of nine, are up for election this year, and every school board candidate who does not commit to discharging the Superintendent should be defeated. More, the School Board candidates should make commitments to complete transparency and to open all records concerning Nikolas Cruz, and what actions the school took concerning him prior to the shooting.

This involves more than just Mr Runcie’s poor decisions, failures and attempts to cover up. Holding him and his minions accountable means that superintendents of other school districts will see what has happened, and realize that if they follow the same idiotic policies Broward County did, and something bad happens, they, too, will be filing for unemployment benefits.
____________________________

Posted on by

Hold them accountable!

From the Sun-Sentinel:

School district shuts down information after Stoneman Douglas shooting

By David Fleshler | May 11, 2018

The Broward school district’s repeated, emphatic — and it turns out, false — statements that Nikolas Cruz had not been in a controversial disciplinary program fit a pattern of an institution on the defensive and under siege.Facing significant legal and political exposure over the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the district has tried to keep information from the public and put out untrue and misleading statements, frustrating parents who say this is the time for maximum transparency.

The district is fighting in court against the release of school surveillance video. It flatly refused to issue any records regarding the shooting to the news media, in a possible violation of the state’s open-records law. Superintendent Robert Runcie has blocked critics, including parents, from his Twitter account. More than two months after the shooting, a Broward Sheriff’s detective told a state commission on school safety that he was still waiting for the district to provide all of Cruz’s disciplinary records.

The worst came last week, when Runcie acknowledged that his forceful denials that Cruz had been involved in the Promise program, which is intended to provide an alternative to the arrest of students for minor offenses, were wrong. The district had repeatedly dismissed as “fake news” suggestions that Cruz was in the program.

“It would appear that the district is more interested in protecting their programs than they are the students and teachers in our schools,” said Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alaina, was killed by Cruz during his rampage through the school. “As a father, I would ask the district to please be completely transparent so we can make sure this doesn’t happen to any other children in any other schools in Florida.”

In an interview, Runcie said the district has held nothing back from authorities, providing records as soon as they could be gathered. Any delays reflect the state of the district’s record-keeping systems, he said, not a reluctance to cooperate. He said he would look into the issue of the blanket refusals to provide documents to the news media.

Bovine feces!

From Superintendent Runcie’s biography page on the Broward County schools’ website:

Superintendent Runcie knows first-hand how a high-quality education can transform a person’s life. Born in Jamaica, he moved to the United States as a young boy and became the first member of his family to attend college, graduating from Harvard University and earning an MBA from Northwestern University. He later founded a management and technology consulting company and held several strategic leadership positions with Chicago Public Schools, including serving as its Chief Information Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Area Instructional Officer and Chief of Staff to the Board of Education.

Superintendent Runcie proudly joined Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) in 2011. With the support of a dynamic School Board, Mr. Runcie developed a strategic plan for the District focusing on three key areas: high-quality instruction, continuous improvement and more effective communications.

So, we are being told that a man who “founded a management and technology consulting company” and was once “Chief Information Officer” for the Chicago public schools, and “developed a strategic plan” focusing on, among other things, “more effective communication” oversees a school records division that doesn’t have recent records computerized, and easily accessed?

The Sun-Sentinel article noted that Mr Runcie stated, on February 28, 2018, that Nikolas Cruz was not part of the so-called ‘Promise’ program which didn’t report most in-school crimes to the police. In a March 24, 2018, column for the Sun-Sentinel Mr Runcie called reports that yes, Mr Cruz was in that program “fake news.” This all turned out to be false. While Mr Runcie claimed that he, a former Chief Information Officer, hadn’t had all of the information, a four week time lapse between the first statement and his column was plenty of time to get the information.

Mr Runcie and his minions are doing everything in their power to save their own jobs right now. They don’t give a damn about anything else, they don’t care about the truth — especially the truth, because it would reveal how incompetent they are — about complying with Florida’s open records laws, about transparency or the larger community, only about keeping their jobs. Mr Runcie, who in November of 2017, just three months before Mr Cruz’ killing spree received a contract extension until June 30, 2023, makes $335,000 a year, paid for by the taxpayers’ dollars, yet he is doing everything he possibly can to keep information about the school shootings, information about his own failures, from the taxpayers.

To say that Mr Runcie need to be held accountable means that he needs to be terminated, fired, let go, dismissed. That is up to the Broward County School Board, of course, but the School Board is answerable to the voters: six school board seats, out of a total of nine, are up for election this year, and every school board candidate who does not commit to discharging the Superintendent should be defeated. More, the School Board candidates should make commitments to complete transparency and to open all records concerning Nikolas Cruz, and what actions the school took concerning him prior to the shooting.

This involves more than just Mr Runcie’s poor decisions, failures and attempts to cover up. Holding him and his minions accountable means that superintendents of other school districts will see what has happened, and realize that if they follow the same idiotic policies Broward County did, and something bad happens, they, too, will be filing for unemployment benefits.