Scott Roeder sentenced to life

By GottaLaff


Sometimes things turn out the way they should. Via an e-mail alert:

Scott Roeder, an antiabortion extremist who shot and killed Dr. George Tiller, one of a handful of American physicians who performed late-term abortions, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 50 years in a Wichita, Kan., courtroom Thursday.

Roeder was convicted on Jan. 29 of premeditated murder for shooting Tiller in the head during a Sunday church service in Wichita.

A former airport shuttle driver with ties to anti-tax groups, Roeder was sentenced to an additional 24 months on two counts of aggravated assault for threatening to kill two church ushers who tried to stop him as he fled Reformation Lutheran Church after the shooting May 31.

More soon at: http://www.latimes.com

TPC teen contributor challenges Balloon Boy coverage

By GottaLaff

Six year old Falcon Heene with his father Richard

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

I've previously posted the observations of a remarkable high school student. Her insights were, and are, unique and poignant. (Please read them here, here, and here.)

Today she sent me an e-mail, and has graciously allowed me to share it with you. She wrote it to a radio host who she calls about once a month as the teen correspondent.

What a remarkable young woman:

I probably won't make it to the chat room or onto the phone to your show tonight because it is "ornament night" here with my host family and I will be covered in glitter glue and fluorescent paint all evening. But I want to put in my 2 cents worth on the sentencing of Balloon Boy's parents.

I've just looked at the news story on 3 different sites, and everyone is focusing on whether the punishment is enough. I've heard you refer to this as America's punishment fetish.

No one has said whether the kids are in foster care now, if they're staying with other relatives, or how their parents' sentence will affect them. And THAT is what matters.

My dad left town when I was six and I have never seen him again. My mom went to prison when I was 11 and I have only seen her twice. The state of Texas may be glad they got a minor league drug user (and sometimes dealer) off the streets, but they never gave me or my brother a second thought.

That's not exactly true. The county took an interest in whether or not I was physically safe. But only after I wasn't.

I am becoming an academic superstar in spite of all of the people who think I am a loser because of who my parents are. I love school and I love learning and I have found my own way -- but huge numbers of kids with parents in jail never graduate HS and certainly don't graduate as Texas Scholars with ambitions for the ivy league.

I call the family I live with my host family and I pretend that I am an exchange student because I hate the way foster care sounds. But some of the other kids who live here are in foster care. The only difference is that my minister facilitated this "placement" and the county signed off.

The other kids here came through the county first. We are all VERY LUCKY that we're with a great family and the worst humiliation here is that we'll all have our hodge-podge home-made ornaments photographed and saved.

The Heenes are lousy parents and idiots, but why is the media so obsessed with the conditions of their sentence and don't even mention what the next 10 or 12 years will be like for their kids? Will they be together?

The parents will have supervised probation from the state, but will they also have supervised parenting? Will the Heene kids have a chance to make their own Christmas tree ornaments with glitter and feathers and green poster board?

Am I the only one asking those questions?

We need a whole lot more teens like this one. I am proud to count her as a friend.

Prison population to have first drop since 1972

Of course, it's because of the economy, not any sort of sensible sentencing.

DALLAS – The United States may soon see its prison population drop for the first time in almost four decades, a milestone in a nation that locks up more people than any other.

The inmate population has risen steadily since the early 1970s as states adopted get-tough policies that sent more people to prison and kept them there longer. But tight budgets now have states rethinking these policies and the costs that come with them.

"It's a reversal of a trend that's been going on for more than a generation," said David Greenberg, a sociology professor at New York University. "In some ways, it's overdue."

HuckaWiki hijacked: "Mike Huckabee (THE IDIOT)"

By GottaLaff

(click on image to enlarge)

Yesterday I posted about Mike Huckabee's commuting the suspected Washington shooter's sentence some years ago. That report was damaging enough on its own, but some Wikipedia readers took the information and performed the written equivalent of TPing Huck's Wiki page:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's Wikipedia page has been edited to include hostile remarks about his commutation of an individual suspected in the fatal shooting of four police officers. [...]

"WILL FOREVER BE KNOWN AS THE IDIOT WHO RELEASED THE COP KILLER MAURICE CLEMMONS HE WAS SERVING A 35 YEAR SENTENCE FOR ARMED ROBBERY THE IDIOT RELEASED HIM AFTER 9 YEARS," reads the addition made by an unknown user.

The user, or users, also added "THE IDIOT" to Huckabee's photo caption.

It's one thing to opine about Huckabee's judgment (or lack thereof). It's quite another to be childish enough to deface Wikipedia like a giggling eighth grader sneaking around behind Mom and Dad's back. Grow up, Wiki users.

Levi Johnston's mom sentenced to 3 years in drug case

By GottaLaff

Bad news for the Johnston family:

Sherry Johnston was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for dealing OxyContin. [...]

Johnston, who lives in Wasilla, made a deal with prosecutors in August to plead to a single felony count in exchange for dropping the other five felony drug dealing charges against her. The deal called for her to be sentenced to three years of prison time plus three years of probation, which is what the judge gave her.

Johnston will serve her sentence at Alaska's only female prison, Hiland Mountain Correctional Center in Eagle River.

Now Sarah Palin's ghost writer has something to add to the paperback version.

UPDATE: Go here for details that aren't included in this post. Gryphen has the scoop.

Levi Johnston's mom cops plea: addiction blamed on no health insurance

By GottaLaff

Hey Chuck Grassley, et al. Look what a health care crisis can do:

The mother of the man former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol had planned on marrying has reached a plea deal in her drug case.

Sherry Johnston pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of possession with intent to deliver the painkiller OxyContin. Five other felony counts were dropped.

I feel sorry for her, and I hope she gets treatment for her problem. However, I can't help but point and laugh a teeny tiny bit at this next part:

"That's pretty," Johnston said as a state trooper's pink handcuffs were placed around her wrists.

Okay, fun time over. Let's get to something that will most likely get overlooked elsewhere:

Although Johnston could receive 20 years in prison, her attorney and prosecutors agreed to a five-year sentence, with two years suspended, Butler said, considering the small quantities of drugs involved. [...]

Sherry Johnston has two pain pumps implanted in her body to deliver medication because she suffers a rare condition involving scurvy and chronic pelvic pain from prior medical surgeries, Butler said. She was receiving professional pain relief treatment but the problems arose when her insurer refused to pay for the medication, Butler said.

I'm sorry, what? Her insurer wouldn't pay for prescribed medication that her own doctor ordered for her? So they got between her and her physician? Isn't that called "rationing"? Was Ms. Johnston held hostage by her insurance company?

Would, say-y-y...a public option have helped prevent her drug abuse problems?

Nah, a government run program have just gotten in the way of her privately uninsured addiction, what with the Feds sticking their medical noses where they didn't belong and all.

Yeah, better to force someone to resort to committing felonies than to allow proper care.

"People want to think she was just a drug addict," he said. "She made a poor judgment choice. But what do you do?"

Why, you run a lying, corporate smear campaign to prevent Americans from getting the care they need, that's what! Silly question.

Assistant District Attorney Richard K. Allen said prosecutors considered Johnston's criminal-free background as well as her physical problems in agreeing to the mitigated sentence.

Levi didn't attend the hearing.

She really does need rehab. Let's hope she recovers and has no further drug issues... and that she has access to health care sooner than later... public health insurance... that she can afford.

Obama seeks to change crack sentences

By GottaLaff

Crack-ing the whip, finally:

The Obama administration joined a federal judge Wednesday in urging Congress to end a racial disparity by equalizing prison sentences for dealing and using crack versus powdered cocaine.

"Jails are loaded with people who look like me," U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, an African-American, told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said the administration believes Congress' goal "should be to completely eliminate the disparity" between the two forms of cocaine. "A growing number of citizens view it as fundamentally unfair," Breuer testified. [...]

Durbin said more than 81 percent of those convicted for crack offenses in 2007 were African-American, although only about 25 percent of crack cocaine users are African Americans.

Another campaign promise kept:

President Barack Obama had called for such a change while campaigning for the White House. [...]

The Obama administration is also seeking to increase drug treatment, as well as rehabilitation programs for felons after they're released from prison.

Shoe-thrower gets three years

By GottaLaff

So many mixed messages, so little time.

"Freedom is untidy and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." -- Donald Rumsfeld, 2006.

The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at George Bush, gaining instant hero status in much of the Arab world, has today been sentenced to three years in prison.

Muntazer al-Zaidi, 30, who worked for the al-Baghdadiya television channel, shouted "Long live Iraq" when the sentence was read out.

Zaidi had earlier pleaded not guilty and said his actions were a "natural response to the occupation".

He was given the three-year sentence for assaulting a foreign head of state during an official visit.

Of course, that would be after a foreign head of state assaulted his entire country.

After the verdict was announced, his relatives erupted in anger, shouting that the decision was unjust and unfair. Some collapsed and had to be helped from the court. Others were forcibly removed by security forces as they shouted "Down with Bush" and "Long live Iraq".

"This judiciary is not just," Zaidi's brother Dargham said. Another brother, Uday, said the verdict was politically motivated. The journalist's sister, Ruqaiya, burst into tears, shouting: "Down with Maliki, the agent of the Americans," referring to the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

There's that newborn democracy rearing its Bushy little head again. See? See how they're honing the politicization of their justice system? BushCo, meet Mini-BushCo... all while fomenting even more resentment toward the United States.

Zaidi's lawyers said he would appeal against the sentence. [...]

Zaidi, who seemed nervous throughout, began to restate his defense from the first session of the trial, saying that he had not "intended to kill Bush or humiliate him." He explained that when he saw "the occupiers' president" smiling, he "imagined millions of Iraqis killed every moment at Bush's orders." His testimony was then interrupted by the judge, who told him to keep quiet unless he had anything new to say. [...]

The trial began on 19 February but was adjourned until today as the judges considered a defense argument that the charge was not applicable because Bush was not in Baghdad on an official visit, having arrived unannounced without an invitation.

However, Rubaie read a response from the prime minister's office that said the visit had been official.

The chief defense lawyer, Dhia al-Saadi, demanded that the charge be dismissed, saying his client's action "was an expression of freedom and does not constitute a crime".

Makin' progress! Let freedom reign! Wait a minute... Didn't the Bushies say "they hate us for our freedoms"? Does this mean...? Could it be...? Is it possible... that they now... hate themselves?! Will Iraq be the new central target of terrorists... because they're so free?

Irony isn't dead. That was just a rumor.

"I thought about what the achievements were -- killing about a million Iraqis," Zaidi said. "I saw only Bush and it was like something black in my eyes." [...]

A poll released today, commissioned by ABC News and the BBC, suggests 62% of Iraqis regard the shoe-thrower as a hero. Twenty-four percent of respondents saw him as a criminal who had assaulted a visiting head of state. [...]

Prior to the start of the trial, Zaidi claimed he had been beaten and tortured while in custody.

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.

BREAKING: O.J. Simpson sentenced to at least 15 years in prison

By GottaLaff

The judge just sentenced O.J. Simpson to at least 15 years, with possibility of parole after 5. He'll be serving the sentence in a Nevada prison.

UPDATE: He was sentenced to 48 years, but some sentences were concurrent. Correcting the numbers as they come in, he will spend somewhere to a minimum of 6-9 years in prison. The recommendation was 18 years. (I'm liveblogging this)

O.J. Simpson is 61 years old. This is considered to be a generous sentence, surprising from a very tough judge.

MSNBC carried it live.

The Goldmans were in the room. Needless to say, they were in tears.