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Some Facts About First Time Drunk Driving Offenders

Studies show that one DUI arrest is made for every 88 instances of driving under the influence.

1st offenders' Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) is usually between 0.16 and 0.18.

80% of 1st offenders were found to be either problem drinkers or alcoholics.

50-75% of people whose license has been suspended continue to drive anyway.

Editor's Comment:  Some very sobering facts about drinking and driving.

Meth Pours Into U.S. From Mexico

Mexican drug gangs produce 80% of the meth consumed in the United States. The effective crack-down on domestic meth labs has created opportunities for the Mexican drug cartels to fill the void and produce meth in what are called "super-labs."  Border officials have seized millions of dollars worth of the illegal drug in 2008 already.

Editor's Comment:  The Mexicans can't get all the blame.  Americans who insist on being drug addicts are the real problem.  It's the old supply and demand principal.

Justifiable Homicides Triple In Memphis

In 2007 there were 32 homicides which were classified as justifiable homicides, triple the number from 2006.  In Tennessee a death is ruled a justifiable homicide if someone is protecting themselves or someone else from harm.  Memphis D.A. Bill Gibbons said, "There is a presumption, like in a home break-in, that your life is in danger."

Editor's Comment:  No matter how many times editorial writers condemn people who legally possess firearms, folks will defend themselves.

Crime Is Up In Charlotte, N.C. - Residents Demand Action

In the first three months of 2008, compared to 2007, Robberies in Charlotte, North Carolina increased 15%, Aggravated Assaults jumped 17%, and Home Burglaries nearly 18%.  "We want to feel safe when we are walking to restaurants, or working in our yards, or heading to the park, and now we don't," said residents as they marched on city hall to demand action.

Editor's Comment:  Just check out the next story.  If the government can't or won't do its job (protect the public from crime), then people will invariably handle it themselves.  This is more a failure of government than anything else.

Applications For Concealed Handgun Permits Jump 38% In Charlotte

Charlotte, North Carolina residents are arming themselves for protection.  There has been a 38% spike in the applications for concealed carry permits in Charlotte compared to the same time last year.  Experts say people turn to guns when they have a fear of real or perceived crime and have lost confidence in the police.  One applicant said, "I don't want to shoot anyone, but I do want to be able to protect myself."

Editor's Comment:  What does anyone expect.  People want to feel safe and they look to the government to do that.  If their government fails, people will not hesitate to not only arm themselves for protection, but vote for new leaders - and they should.

Hit & Run Now A Felony In Kentucky If It Results In A Death Or Serious Injury

As of July 15, 2008, a new law will make it a felony for a driver to leave the scene of an accident that involves a death or serious injury.  Kentucky, Utah and Montana were the only states where it was a misdemeanor.

Editor's Comment:  This law should have been passed years ago.

As Food Prices Rise, Prison Inmates' Menu Options Reduced

As global food prices soar, prisons are trimming some of the extras from their menus. Some have eliminated jelly from peanut butter sandwiches. Coffee and desserts could soon disappear. "There's no real health value in coffee," officials in Wisconsin said. A sheriff said, "Why should they get dessert? I don't dessert most of the time."

Editor's Comment:  What do they call it? "3 hots and a cot." Maybe it will be just "3 meals and a bunk, cut the frills," like the rest of us who are paying the tab for their room and board.

"Stop Snitching" Movement Affects Ability To Prosecute Cases

The phrase "Stop-Snitching" started spreading a few years ago when Denver Nuggets' basketball player Carmelo Anthony urged people to stop cooperating with police on a DVD.  Without witnesses, police can't solve many homicide, gang and drug cases.  In too many cases across the country, witnesses are reluctant to provide information to law enforcement for fear of retaliation.

Editor's Comment:  People who live in high crime neighborhoods are affected most by these threatening thugs.  Those same neighborhoods suffer even more when the policy-makers decide to release convicts from prison.  Where do they return?  The high crime neighborhoods, of course.  They don't go live in the neighborhoods where the governor, lawmakers, editorial writers, and law professors live.  The safety of those neighborhoods should be considered too.

On June 22, 2001, the "Cease-Fire" Work Group convened for the first time and continues to meet on the first and third Fridays at the office of the Fayette Commonwealth's Attorney

The Cease-Fire Team
The work group consists of representatives of the following local and federal agencies:

• Fayette Commonwealth's Attorney
• United States Attorney for the Eastern District of KY
• Fayette County Attorney
• Lexington Division of Police
• Fayette County Sheriff
• Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms Enforcement (ATF)
• Federal Bureau of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE)
• Kentucky Department of Corrections, Office of Probation and Parole

These agencies meet and discuss whether to prosecute the gun cases on a state or federal level. They also share information on criminal activity involving guns and gangs. The gang aspect is relatively new and was incorporated into the Cease-Fire Project focus in 2007.  In determining whether a case should be prosecuted under state or federal laws, the group considers various factors:  the defendant's criminal history, the number and types of weapons involved, and federal disabilities which prohibit a person from possessing a firearm.

2001-2008 (through May) Activity
As of May of 2008, the Cease-Fire group has presented and discussed a total of 1,161 cases since its inception in 2001.

2007 Cease-Fire Activity
In 2007, the group discussed a total of 103 defendants in Cease-Fire cases.

UPDATE -- Repeat Offender Sentenced To 25 Years.  He Earned It!

Christopher Brown

Remember last week's Law Breaker, Christopher Brown?  He was the repeat offender who broke into lots of cars in the parking lots of health clubs.  He had 10 prior felony convictions and 11 prior misdemeanor convictions.  The prosecutor recommended a 13-year sentence.  The judge probated the sentence for 5 years and let him out on the street.

As it usually happens with repeat offenders, he was caught by the police again doing the same thing, breaking into cars and using stolen credit cards.  This time, Circuit Judge James Ishmael sent Mr. Brown to prison for 12 years.

Next came a motion to revoke his previously probated 13-year sentence. This time Circuit Judge Pamela Goodwine revoked his probated sentence and sent him to prison to serve the 13-year sentence after he completed serving his 12-year sentence, for a total of a 25-year sentence.

Why must he serve his 12-year and 13-year sentences consecutively?  Because he committed the last series of break-ins while he was on probation for a previous crime.  The law requires that they be served consecutively. And, besides, he earned it.

Capital Punishment Saves Lives

Excerpted from Boston Globe article by Jeff Jacoby

Jeff Jacoby

Between 1965 and 1980 there was practically no death penalty in the United States. For 10 of those 16 years - 1967-1976 - there was NO death penalty; a national moratorium while the United States Supreme Court determined whether our constitution permitted it.

The Question:
Did that moratorium save innocent lives or cost more innocent lives?

What do the statistics show?:  They clearly show that as executions become more numerous, murders decline.

• Between 1965 and 1980, annual murders in the United States skyrocketed, rising from 9,960 to 23,040

• The murder rate - homicides per 100,000 persons - doubled from 5.1 to 10.2.

• From 1995 to 2000 executions averaged 71 per year, and the murder rate dropped from 10.2 per 100,000 in 1980 to 5.7 in 1999, a 44% reduction.

• The murder rate is at its lowest rate since 1966.

Murder rates fell in almost every state in the 1990s. But they fell the most in the states that use capital punishment.

It seems irrefutably clear, that when murderers are executed, innocent lives are saved. And when executions are stopped, innocent lives are lost.

Author's Note:  Death penalty convictions typically undergo years and years of appeals. So painstaking is the super-due process given to death sentences, that for all the recent hype about innocent inmates on death rows, there is not a single proven case in modern times of an innocent person being executed in the United States.

South Carolina - A law passed by the State Senate would require employers to verify the workers' immigration status through a federal electronic database, a new state paper-based system, or a state-issued ID.

Under the legislation, employers who knowingly break the law could be fined up to $2,500 for each illegal immigrant on the payroll for a 1st offense; $5,000 for a 2nd offense and $10,000 for a 3rd offense. An employer could be sentenced up to 5 years in prison for helping a worker fake documents.

Critics predict the legislation will lead employers to shy away from hiring illegal immigrants.

Rhode Island - The illegal immigration question is playing a role in Rhode Island politics. House lawmakers approved a bill (53-17) to require private employers to e-verify the citizenship of new hires. The proposal now goes to the State Senate.

Under the Rhode Island plan, any employer with 3 or more workers would have to confirm, through an online government database, whether the new hire is authorized to work in the United States. The verification takes only seconds. Employers that refuse could face fines up to $5,000 every 30 days.

The Courier-Journal Expresses Its Editorial Opinion In Opposition To Kentucky's Death Penalty
What about the facts on which they base their opinion?

Last week the editorial writers at the Louisville Courier-Journal once again voiced their editorial opposition to Kentucky's law which permits juries to impose the death penalty in cases of aggravated murder.

In the days when newspapers were the main source of information, the opinions of editorial writers used to carry some clout.  Not so much anymore. There are a number of reasons why editorial opinions of the newspapers are no longer taken as seriously by today's reading public.

Wesley Pruden Wesley Pruden, former Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Times, expressed his thoughts on that declining influence, and why almost every newspaper today is reporting declining circulation.  He expressed those views to a convention of the Association of Southern Newspaper Publishers. "Good newspapers do not mock the beliefs of people who we think aren't as enlightened as we think we are. . . . We've developed a distinctly holier-than-thou tone in our writing.  We paint the very people we are trying to persuade to read our newspapers as irredeemable racists, depict almost all businessmen as crooks, our religious heritage as bigotry and the culture of the democratic west as evil.  Then we don't understand why people don't want to read our newspapers or take us seriously."

 

But about the C-J's opinion condemning Kentucky's death penalty.  It's not the condescending tone of their writing, we are used to that.  It's the questionable information on which they claim to base their opinion that needs to be examined.

 

Editorial says:

"Most civilized countries have outlawed the death penalty."

FACT CHECKER:

We have been led to believe by the media that there is no significant support in England or Europe for the death penalty. This from French daily, Le Monde, 12/2006:

 

In favor of executing Saddam Hussein:
Great Britain	69%
France	58%
Germany	53%
Spain	51%
Italy	46%
USA	82%

 

Unfortunately, European governments will not permit executions even when their populations support it, nor will they allow the issue to be voted on.

 

Editorial says:

"If the death penalty were a real deterrent, that would change the argument. But there is no such evidence."

FACT CHECKER:

According to 16 recent studies, executions save lives.  For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented.  The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time - murder rates fall when executions rise.

 

The author of one such study, Professor H. Naci Mocan, Economics Chairman, University of Colorado at Denver, said, "I oppose the death penalty but my research shows that the death penalty deters - what am I going to do, hide them?  Science does really draw a conclusion.  It did.  The results are robust, they really don't go away.  The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect."  Mocon's study found that each execution saves 5 lives.

 

Editorial says:

"There is a growing national consensus against the death penalty."

FACT CHECKER:

The C-J consistently relies on the Death Penalty Information Center (an organization which seeks to eliminate the death penalty) for statistical support of it's longstanding editorial opposition to Kentucky's death penalty.  Because of the clear anti-death penalty bias of the information disseminated by the DPIC, responsible people would be well advised to question its objectivity.

 In May, 2006, Gallup asked this general question:  "If you could choose between the following two approaches, which do you think is the better penalty for murder:  the death penalty (or) life imprisonment with absolutely no possibility of parole?"  Gallup found 47% for the death penalty and 48% for life without parole.  Some, including DPIC and the Louisville Courier-Journal, immediately claimed that this represented lower support for the death penalty.

 However, when asked the general question in October, 2007, "Do you support capital punishment for murderers?," 69% of Americans said yes, 28% opposed (Gallup, 10/07). Furthermore, when the public is asked about real cases and real fact situations in which the death penalty is a real option, support rises to 80%.

For example:

• 81% of the American people supported the execution of Timothy McVeigh

• 79% support the death penalty for terrorists

Death penalty support is actually much deeper than we are often led to believe by the media.  Significant percentages of those who say they generally oppose the death penalty actually support it when given  specific facts and circumstances of a case which is eligible for the death penalty.

Editorial says:
"The studies show 'racial skews' in the conduct and outcome of capital cases."
FACT CHECKER:
This from the Empirical Analysis of Maryland's Death Sentencing System with Respect to the Influence of Race and Legal Jurisdiction:

"We found no evidence that the race of the defendant matters in processing of capital cases in the state (Maryland)." p. 26.

"The race of the victim does not appear to matter when the decision is to advance a case to the penalty phase or to sentence a defendant to death after a penalty phase hearing." p. 29.

This too from the Report to the New Jersey Supreme Court Systematic Proportionality Review Project 2001-2002 Term by Judge David S. Baime, retired Appellate Division Judge:

"There is no sustained, statistically significant evidence that the race of the defendant affects cases which result in the imposition of the death penalty.  There is no sustained, statistically significant evidence that white victim cases are more likely than minority victim cases to result in imposition of the death penalty."

Just look at the racial make-up of Kentucky's death row:

Total on Death Row	38
Whites on Death Row	30	79%
Blacks on Death Row	7	18.4%
Hispanics on Death Row	1	2.6%

Those statistics speak for themselves.

Final thoughts:

Aren't we glad the internet permits us to research the issues editorial writers write about? What we have learned is that their opinions are simply their views on issues.  Obviously, most disagree with their opinion concerning the death penalty.  Thankfully, the internet also gives those of us who disagree the ability to share our own thoughts.

In the final analysis, the C-J's editorial writers are just five employees of a large for-profit media corporation who, I suspect, are paid a lot of money to write their views about issues of the day.  No one objects to people expressing their opinions.  After all, it is just that, their opinion.

Thanks to Dudley Sharp of Justice for All, www.jfa.net, for his knowledge about all of these issues surrounding the death penalty.