Database Finds Fugitive After 35 Years 459
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian has a story on a woman who was claims she is innocent and was apprehended 35 years after escaping prison by a computer database created by the Department of Homeland Security. Linda Darby was convicted of killing her husband in 1970 and sentenced to life at an Indiana prison but escaped two years later by climbing over a barbed-wire fence at the Indiana Women's Prison. She knocked on a stranger's door in Indianapolis, telling the woman who answered that her cuts and scratches were from a fight with her boyfriend. In Indianapolis she met the man who would become her third husband and moved to his hometown of Pulaski, where they raised their two children and watched eight grandchildren grow up. As Linda Jo McElroy, she used a similar date of birth and social security number to her real ones which allowed a computer database created by the Department of Homeland Security to identify her. Darby says she is innocent and fled prison because she did not want to serve time for another person's crime."
Of course... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Informative)
Our law defines the attempt to escape (or succeeding) as following the basic human urge to be free, thus not punishable by law.
Of course, what happens is that any chance you had for parole is gone. But there's no additional punishment for breaking out.
Re:Of course... (Score:4, Informative)
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Of course, in this situation it probably wouldn't make much difference, since she is so old now and only served 2 years of her sentence after her conviction.
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Mexico's law does that, but escaping from [certain] US prisons will draw charges and if convicted, tack a few years onto your sentence.
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Interesting)
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If you read the link, you'll find that there's much more to it.
Such as what? I read the link, and it seems pretty clear -- escaping itself is not a crime, and the accused is both permitted and expected to try. Of course, guards can shoot them in the process, and they are not pardoned for any crimes they commit in the process. But if they figure out how to escape without breaking any laws, they will not have any additional time tacked on to their sentences simply for trying to escape. They will eventually be caught in most cases, and will be forced to finish out th
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If "basic human urges" could not be punished, prostitution would be legal in every state.
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People do it, but I'd hardly call it basic.
If you have the urge to rape people, I would urge you to talk to a psychiatrist. Even if you never act on those urges, it's a sign of something you should be dealing with.
Are you smoking crack? (Score:3, Insightful)
Escaping from jail is a serious criminal offense with serious additional penalties. There is no statute of limitation concerns
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'Loose' = the opposite of 'tight', 'to lose' = the opposite of 'to win' or 'to gain'.
Other than that, good post.
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That's cool. Our law defines the attempt to murder (or succeeding) as following the basic human urge to remove scum from the face of the earth, thus not punishable by law.
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When asked, the defendant proffered his reasoning: "He just needed killin'." There was a murmur of agreement in the court, and the judge nodded approvingly. The DA, desperately trying to remain expressionless, braced himself and stood up; this was going to be a toughie.
additional punishment for breaking out (Score:4, Interesting)
Oddly enough, this woman led a seemingly normal crime free life for 35 years. Perhaps she was innocent in the beginning like she claims, as its really hard for a criminal to go cold turkey.
Re:additional punishment for breaking out (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's legal to be free. It's not punishable to try to become free. Just blowing up or killing people to get free is punishable.
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This case brings into question the whole purpose of prison. The criminal escape charges should be dropped if the idea behind prison is actually to reform the prisoner. It sounds like this lady lead a mainstream productive life, which should be the point of prison. Now if the real purpose of prison is a juvenile sense of revenge or to support the prison industrial complex, then by all means let's throw her back in and h
Our government finally does something right (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Our government finally does something right (Score:5, Insightful)
She managed to live as a productive citizen, have kids, and pay taxes -- but now at 65, the genius database that is going to let no small-time criminal get away has caught her. This is just sad. I don't think any of us really want a perfect tracking system -- we want good enough justice and better courts.
I remember that my brother used to mess around with drugs in high school. He never got caught, but had some "therapy" when my parents found out. They don't have this for poor people -- they just go to jail. Now my brother makes over $250,000 and runs the SouthEaster division of some big company -- a productive citizen. If the system had caught him, he'd be an unemployable deadbeat, and probably dealing with depression and recidivism like all the other folks. We like to think that we are different -- but opportunity makes a HUGE difference to your outcomes in life.
I'm glad when some mass murderer gets caught -- but I'm not so sure about this lady. Her life is over -- innocent or not. And it won't help anyone but to keep the employment of prison guards up. Do you know these mega-prisons have lobbyists now and that's where we got most of the push for mandatory sentences and 3 strikes and you are out?
Murder = OK? Are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically you are saying murder is OK. Wow. Innocent until proven guilty but that takes some really... interesting thinking to claim that murder is somehow forgivable.
Re:Murder = OK? Are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would rather have her free on the street than lose some of my civil liberties. She didn't re-commit crimes, and she led a good life. She did/does deserve to be in jail, but this database is obviously not being used in the context that it was expected to be used in, and that's disturbing.
If you've ever watched an old western, or any outlaw movie -- there's a very romantic idea in America of old criminals righting their ways by themselves, relocating and turning into great, good productive citizens. Then in the end of the movie, some asshole sheriff shows up and drags the ex-criminal back into court/jail to the sadness of the whole town who then rallies behind him. So, yea, internally a lot of people are conflicted -- this person should be in jail, but there's some part of the rough and tumble American ideal inside of people still that says she made it right and should be left alone. She needs to go back into jail for precedence reasons (can't just let her go once they've found a jail-bird), but a part of me is disgusted at the way she was caught -- by this TERRORIST DATABASE, and not by something that would have happened if the government wasn't actively data-mining in places that they normally wouldn't be if it weren't for 9/11/PATRIOT ACT/Bush.
So yea, lock up the criminals (even better, rehabilitate), but don't justify a massive infringement in civil liberties by saying that it has allowed you to lock up grandma.
Re:Murder = OK? Are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
You may think I'm crazy for saying that, of course, but I'm not a fan of the retributive concept of "justice" that countries like the USA use. For me, prison has two functions, and none beyond these: 1) keep society safe from those criminals who're actually dangerous; 2) reeducate criminals for the purpose of enabling them to function as productive members of society again.
Now look at this case. 1) Is it necessary to put her in jail to keep society safe? No; she's been living for 35 years without doing anything, and possibly never was a threat at all, depending on whether she was indeed rightfully convicted or not (something I naturally can't comment on). 2) Is is necessary to reeducate her? No; she's already become a productive member of society again.
Therefore, putting her in jail is counterproductive and wrong - QED. Unless, of course, one believes in using prison to take revenge on people, but that's not something I do (although I do realise I'd probably be in the minority if I lived in the USA).
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A huge government database full of your SSN and other personally identifying information (Lexis-Nexis, anyone?), including relative's names, former names, former SSNs, birthday's you've listed, jobs you've worked at, places you bank with... list goes on and on.
I don't know about you, but having all of that information readily available and consolidated in one place seems like a dangerous thing to me, and would violate my privacy.
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Excuse me while I play devil's advocate here - am I to understand that your point of view is that life imprisonment should mean life?
Because if not, then the idea that society should never forgive a murderer to my mind implies that anyone who is let out of prison after serving such a term should never be able to find work, should be denied even the most basic of social housing or benefits and should essentially have no choice but to wind up liv
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That's a hell of a double standard there.
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Because most rational and intelligent people understand the difference between killing and murder. Sorry you don't have the intellectual capacity to fit into the rational and intelligent category.
If I terminate your life while you are attempting to shoot children on a playground, that is killing in defense of others.
If I terminate your life because you are suffering horribly from terminal cancer, that is killing for mercy.
If I terminate yo
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Jesus, I sincerely hope you get to face one of those one day.. Because juries are the pinnacle of intelligence, can't be mislead, deceived or swayed by irrelevant stuff, right? Just face it, it's a lottery as much as anything, especially if you can't afford a good defense.
convictions (Score:2)
Seems to me I've been reading a lot recently about people who have been convicted and then found to be innocent (in various ways). There are a bunch of factors here - many prosecutors gain (promotions, publicity...) from convictions, so it is in their interest to convict people - and a dubious conviction is probably better than no conviction. (Not saying that they do it deliberately, though some probably do, more that they convince themselves that the person is really guilty - perhaps even unconsciously
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True, but this is what the appeals process is for. There are more avenues than escape from prison.
Is it a perfect system? Of course not, but it serve it's purpose "for the most part."
Convict (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Murder = OK? Are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sure enough to know that a Judge and jury listened to all the evidence and returned a guilty verdict. Sure enough to know that she felt 'escaped convict' offer a better chance to her than an overturned conviction through the appeals court...
But since you read an article summary, I am sure you understand the facts better than the jury that convicted her.
When prison helps (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Our government finally does something right (Score:5, Insightful)
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You may think that solving a few cold cases here and there justifies the loss of civil liberties and expansion of government power that created this story, but I doubt you will find universal consensus for that view.
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I want all crimes except genocide or crimes against humanity to expire in 20 years tops. "Fugitives" are humans most of all and if they managed to keep themselves out of the hands of law enforcement for 20 years and didn't commit any crime
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Dunno how things work in US of A but around here anything short of murder DOES exp
Re:Our government finally does something right (Score:5, Insightful)
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Give her a break! (Score:4, Funny)
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What is the real issue here ? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is interesting is that we have this story probably flagged up by the authorities. I suspect that it is to make us think that the ''big government databases'' are a good thing and that we should approve their continued use. What is buried are the stories where these databases have screwed up and inconvenienced (or worse) innocent people.
Re:What is the real issue here ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Agreed. That some escaped convict was caught is certainly good news. The bigger question, since the database "caught" her for using an SSN that was "close" to her old one, is what happened to the other few hundred people whose SSN was a digit off as well?
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While not perfect, this has freed other prisoners legally,
and this could be used to determine her guilt or innocence
to a very high probability.
Much more so than just a simple polygraph.
Surprised at what you might find (Score:5, Interesting)
Our databases were regional, so while searching for duplicates a whole computer system suddenly disappeared from the Northeast and mysteriously showed up in Florida. I started researching thinking that the system perhaps was stolen but instead I accidentally uncovered a CIA operation. Don't know if it is still active so I won't say anything else about it except database integration can give insights and glimpses into situations that are at first very transparent.
This sounds like what caught Linda.
The title off the post is irritating (Score:5, Insightful)
The database did nothing. It is a process running on a computer. Information flows in, (potentially useful) information flows out, a suspected criminal is arrested. One could as well claim that the piping system in a house effected the drowning of someone. Water flowed in, water flowed out, and someone died.
The database is just an occasionally useful tool. The code for it is written by people, and the outputs are intrepreted and acted upon by people.
Could we eschew this slipshod causal analysis?
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Its the difference between building a house without a hammer, and building a house with one. The hammer didn't hammer the nails; the person did. However, the house wouldn't have gotten built without the hammer because its just too difficult to do it otherwise. And thats the point: the database is a tool that makes the difference between catching some criminals and letting them get away scot-free. The title of the story is exactly right.
tricky one (Score:3, Interesting)
Rather then attempt to clear her name shed escaped from jail and started a new life - a felony in itself.
On one hand you take the argument that they system has an appeals system designed to right injustice so if she believed she was innocent she should of tried to clear her name, on the other hand you have a possibly inept defense lawyer who seemed not to be dong their job and the possibility that left on her own she would rot in jail.
It is clear that the police have significant evidence to pin the crime on her, and the original jury clearly thought so. And we only have to facts as stated from TFA that make her seem like a saint based on the new life after the original murder.
And a justice system only works if all judgments and laws are upheld.
I am slightly disturbed by the final comment about this database "But there also were other clues that he said he could not talk about." - WTF? has this person never heard of conspiracy theorists? give them a single clue like that and they can invent ten secret organizations by lunchtime.
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Wrong Message (Score:5, Insightful)
Whew! Glad we have her off the streets. Thank God for that database....
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A woman claims her innocence to the point where she breaks out of jail.
What, only innocent people try and break out of jail? Please.
Given that she spent 35 years on the outside with no further crimes, I'd say that she's pretty rehabilitated already.... but I guess not.
So what's your point? If we convict people who MURDER their spouses, we should let them out to see if they can turn their life around? If your sister's husband murders your sister, then escapes, are you OK with just letting him go? I
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I was under the impression that while you may be sentenced to life in prison for a murder, you generally don't stay in prison for your entire life. You eventually get parole for good behavior. In addition, the reason for the justice system is to punish those that do bad (to be a deterrent to others to commit similar crimes) and incarcerate those that are a danger to society. I have a hard time believing that she is a danger to society. As a deterrent to others, I'm not so sure s
Re:Wrong Message (Score:5, Funny)
The sad part is that If she hadn't done it in all caps she might have gotten away with it.
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God is a coder? Shit, we are surely in the Matrix then.
No, wrong understanding (Score:5, Insightful)
"Given that she spent 35 years on the outside with no further crimes, I'd say that she's pretty rehabilitated already.... but I guess not."
Maybe prison is meant to be *punishment*, and no, I don't think she's done her time if she was in fact guilty.
Or would you agree that someone who kills YOUR sister, son, cousin, father - and managed to evade capture for 35 years should just be therefore forgiven?
Stepping backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Punishment? No, you mean Revenge.
Revenge is about hate.
The supposed purpose of the police system is to ensure that people are free of fear and hate. That we are safe to live in peace. Prison is supposed to remove people from society as long as they pose a threat, and it is meant to rehabilitate people so that they can lead peaceful lives. That is the end purpose of the law. That is the way we protect ourselves.
Without knowing more about the woman and the life she has lived, we cannot judge. Perhaps she was being abused and her killing the man was an accidental result of self-defense. Or perhaps she was a jealous lunatic. Or perhaps she really was falsely accused. We do not know. But I DO know that revenge is not why I pay taxes. If this woman today poses no threat, if she has become a giving person who helps society, then containing her and ruining her psyche in a prison system which has a lousy track record of actually rehabilitating people, then what has happened here is a step backwards.
You cannot un-kill people. The past is the past, and it may be very sad. But the future is not well served through revenge and further acts of hate. As Gandhi put it, "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."
-FL
Re:Stepping backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
So your most of your argument is specious.
The part of your argument that is incontestable is the part where you say "[prison] takes [criminals] off the streets." That, in fact, does lower the crime rate, although there are much more sensible approaches to lowering the crime rate (for example, de-criminalizing drug use (see this [powells.com])).
The fact that Indiana didn't catch the woman for 35 years implies to me that they probably didn't try very hard -- hell, she didn't even move out of state. I'll bet there's a subtext to the story, or circumstances that we don't know about, that convinced the cops that she posed zero threat to society and wasn't worth expending the resources to track down. That judgment, if it was made, turned out to be true.
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Furthermore, as a caring society, our prisons DO have the mandate to rehabilitate as it is the best option for all involved. If you can take a criminal and turn them into a productive member of society, then society just got significantly better.
That said, for precedence reasons, they have to haul her in. Otherwise you're setting a really bad exa
Yesss! Guess my PDP-11 batch job finally finished! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yesss! Guess my PDP-11 batch job finally finish (Score:2)
Trillions of $$ Well Spent... (Score:2, Insightful)
I am soooo pleased that we now have tens of thousands of otherwise unemployed white-collar workers working diligently to pursue terrorists such as this woman. If only one such terrorist is found by the trillions of dollars then I think the "War on Terror" must be declared a wild success.
Sheesh!
wasn't it created for catching terrorists? (Score:4, Interesting)
if I remember correctly the department of homeland security was created to fight dangers for the national security, that is terrorists. How does a database of Americans fit into this? And why was it used to catch a fugitive prisoner - no matter whether she was was acutally a murderess or not? What's next? Catching people for speeding?
twm
What concerns me most... (Score:3)
What I suspect actually happened is that Linda Darby needed to provide her SSN on some application for something recently and since identity theft has become a major problem over the last decade the agency that took her application found that the SSN belonged to multiple people and forwarded the information to the FBI for possible criminal investigation. This would automatically make Linda Darby a suspect for a crime which would justify the DHS trying to figure out who actually belonged to the SSN in question and who didn't, eventually giving DHS a justification for attempting to make a connection between Linda Darby and Linda McElroy. But the article doesn't go into this sort of detail and probably should.
Considering... (Score:3, Insightful)
Good job. We caught her. Now let it drop.
Re:matching ids (Score:5, Funny)
P.S. Why is
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Because of privacy rules (Score:3, Insightful)
At least it used to be that the FBI couldn't troll through every database the government had, looking for people. The idea was that pe
Re:Firt post!! (Score:5, Funny)
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If she manages to avoid going back to prison, she can get together with OJ and look for the real killer.
Re:Has she offended since? (Score:5, Interesting)
(Bracing for the bitchslaps...)
You know, this is what drives me crazy about how our justice system deals with murder. On the long list of crimes ranked by recidivism rates, murder ranks very near the bottom. Except for the few sociopaths who see murder as acceptable means for financial or personal gain, and the even fewer number who kill to indulge a predatory instinct or because it's just fun for them, the vast majority of murders are very obviously one-time affairs. Most murderers are far less of a continuing threat to society than, say, rapists and molesters.
So, why do we impose the heaviest sentences for murder, regardless of circumstance, heavier than those crimes that indicate a far more sociopathic personality, if the justice system is first and foremost about protecting society and its interests?
Re:Has she offended since? (Score:5, Insightful)
Murder is the most serious crime, and if you neither attach a jail sentence (to deter) nor a therapy/rehab course (which is pointless because murder, as you said, has a tiny recidivism rate) you aren't actually attaching any judicial response, and murder ceases to be criminal behaviour.
I understand your frustration at the seemingly fruitless punishment for murder (and you are correct; it serves no purpose for the betterment of the convicted), but having a long jail sentence for murder actually does serve society: by deterring murder.
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I disagree with your underlying assumption that many murders are pre-meditated. Many murders are outright accidental (e.g. "I meant to hurt him, not kill him"; "I just wanted to scare him"; etc.) or crimes of passion. I imagine the demarcations might be a little different here (US) than in the UK between murder and manslaughter, and that might add to the confusion.
I'd be surprised if the lengthy sentence actually had much influence on the psychological cost/benefit analysis for those very few who commit p
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Truth of the matter is that there are countries where murder carries long sentences with high murder rates (like the US) and with low murder rates (like the UK) and there are countries where murder carries short sentences with very low murder rates (like the Scandinavian countries) - there's no conclusive link between the length of sentences in these cases and frequency.
The point
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My wife is from the UK, and the stories she's told me about burglaries, assaults, robberies, etc over there was almost more than I could believe. I live in Phoenix, AZ which is an area of some 5 million people. I don't even remember the last time
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Re:Has she offended since? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, as you say, vast majority of murders are by people the victim knew. Ever think that the heavy sentences keep others from committing murder?
Sentences are for multiple reasons. Rehabilitation, Punishment and Deterrence. Rehabilitation so the person does not do it again. Punishment for their crime. Deterrence to keep others from committing the same crime.
Re:Has she offended since? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, that aside, most people agree that there should be *some* consequence for lawbreaking. From what I've seen, there are 4 basic reasons that people want that consequence applied, and many people seem to weight those reasons wildly differently. This leads to some people having a completely reasonable and consistent opinion that still makes absolutely no sense to someone else. The four reasons I've seen are:
1) revenge
2) deterrent
3) rehabilitation
4) prevention of recidivism (in the aspect that someone can't easily commit some crimes while in jail)
So, for someone who weighs 3 and 4 heavily, the sentence for a first murder should be fairly light, as the criminal is unlikely to commit that crime again. If you weigh 1 and 2 heavily, then the consequence should be correlated to the seriousness of the crime, not the chance of the criminal committing the crime again, so a hefty sentence for murder makes sense.
But even if 3 and 4 are the only concerns, there's got to be a reason why one would want to prevent recidivism. That reason is probably the potential for damage that the crime being committed again poses. Even though the recidivism rate for shoplifting is probably incredibly high, if it happens it's still *just shoplifting*. It costs someone some money. Similarly, even though the recidivism rate for murder may be extremely low, when it happens someone still dies, and that can significantly impact a lot of people. (I'm not trying to imply that you think murderers should receive a sentence lighter than shoplifters, it's just two things that tend to be on opposite ends of the scale for both recidivism and the impact of the crime's effects)
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So, why do we impose the heaviest sentences for murder, regardless of circumstance, heavier than those crimes that indicate a far more sociopathic personality, if the justice system is first and foremost about protecting society and its interests?
Eh? "Regardless of circumstance?" Circumstances are why we have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree murder, manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, not guilty by reason of mental defect, and so on. Even then, the state can decline to bring charges, a plea bargain
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I'm not trying to be an ass, but this is one hell of an assumption. I can think of a few half-baked reasons why this might be true, but then again in many ways the state itself doesn't act as if this is so. Is it a matter of resources invested?
Lay the argument on me, I'm honestly interested.
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Sure
So far as murder is concerned, the problem is all other crimes don't permanently remove the victim's rights. Murder does, because the victim is dead. Consequently the law has always maintained harsher discipline for murderers because we want those sentences to serve as a deterrent. Kill someone? You're going down,
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Well, maybe I'm being harsh. You should explain what exactly you mean by being "fingered" and what's wrong with it, and why we should be up in arms about it.
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This is what the MSM has been reduced to, propaganda and spin, which is why they're losing readers and viewers at an ever increasing rate.
With the right kind of ears you can hear a sound. It is a harsh gnashing sound, but one that is becoming more shrill and louder all the time. More and more are able to hear it, and even see it. It is a desperate and fearful sound. It is the sound of the political left in America. They are terrified and in distress. You c