Free Republic

"Lookism" is a crime most foul in a perfect world devised by radical feminists, though most women will usually overlook the crime when a good-looking man gives them a respectful once-over. But researchers in England, source of our common law, have identified a real crime: Jurors are more likely to convict "ugly" defendants than "attractive" defendants. The investigators are from Bath Spa University in Bath, the lovely Somerset resort where Beau Nash set down rules of polite society and where Chaucer set his morality tale of a witch who gave an errant knight his choice of a wife "foul and...

Saddam Hussein’s trial for crimes against humanity began before the Iraqi Special Tribunal on October 19, 2005. On November 5, 2006, the former Iraqi dictator was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Hussein’s appeal was rejected on December 26, 2006 and he was ordered executed within 30 days. On December 30, 2006, Hussein was hanged. The Iraqis bungled the hanging, but justice was carried out in less than 15 months.Compare Hussein’s trial – and remember, he had the blood of tens of thousands of people on his hands – with the trial of GA rape suspect, Brian Nichols,...

The national media won't tell you, but in Miami right now, a man named John Couey is on trial for brutally killing a 9-year-old girl named Jessica Lunsford. Couey, a convicted sex offender, kidnapped Jessica out of her modest Florida home, brought her to a trailer, sexually abused her, and then buried her alive. When authorities found her body, she was clutching a stuffed dolphin. Because of that heinous act, the state of Florida passed "Jessica's Law," which mandates that a first-time conviction for felony sexual battery on a child will result in a 25-years-to-life prison sentence. No plea bargain,...

LONG BEACH – Angering one victim's family, a judge yesterday sentenced four black youths to probation with 60 days of home detention in the racially motivated Halloween beatings of three white women. The sentences by Juvenile Court Judge Gibson Lee touched off another series of bitter words in a case that seems to spark outrage at every step. For the past few months, it has tested the harmony of this coastal city of 475,000, which touts its diversity. “The juvenile system is a joke,” said Barbara Schneider, as her 19-year-old daughter, Laura, sobbed on her shoulder. Her comments outside court...

Vic Toews' unfinished business National Post: EDITORIAL Published: Friday, December 29, 2006 Almost one year ago, our votes piled up in such a way that we elected a Conservative government with a short leash attached to its neck. The 39th Parliament has been able to pass a few useful measures, but in a splintered House of Commons, the government's agenda remains trapped within narrow limits in many areas. Unfortunately for Canadians, one of these areas is criminal justice, one of the Conservatives' strongest electoral suits. In the past, Canadians have tolerated, rather than celebrated, the lax policies of Liberal...

For Fredy Lopez-Gamez, American justice has been a revolving door. In September, after four arrests in Colorado Springs, he was finally deported by the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to his native Mexico, a free ride home that didn’t keep him away for long. Within two months, police say, he was back, masterminding the brazen kidnapping of a prominent local businessman on Nov. 25. Three days after the kidnapping, a prior felony drug case that could have netted Lopez-Gamez four to 12 years in prison was dropped. Prosecutors thought he was still in Mexico, and a judge ordered...

THERE WAS an average of about one murder a day in Philadelphia last year, the most homicides in about seven years. One of the reasons, according to the mayor and police commissioner, is that guns are too easy to obtain in Philadelphia. If easy access to guns were responsible for homicides, then gun clubs would be the most dangerous places on the planet. But it isn't - and they aren't. In 1998, the city was also trying to solve the homicide problem. The city brain trust created a Youth Violence Task Force that included such liberal luminaries as Temple law...

WASHINGTON - Put this in your pipe and smoke it: A University of Massachusetts professor says the medical marijuana grown by the federal government isn't very good. He wants a permit to cultivate his own pot, saying it will be better for research. Lyle Craker, a horticulturist who heads the school's medicinal plant program, is challenging the government's 36-year-old monopoly on research marijuana. Craker's suit claims government-grown marijuana lacks the potency medical researchers need to make important breakthroughs. "The government's marijuana just isn't strong enough," said Richard Doblin, a Craker supporter who heads the Massachusetts-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies....

It is fashionable among death-penalty opponents to claim that life in prison without the possibility of parole amounts to worse punishment than the death penalty. For example, Bill Kurtis, host of A&E's "Investigative Reports" who has written a book advocating abolition of the death penalty, asserts that: "Life without parole is bad. Worse than [executing] somebody." If death-penalty opponents truly believe this, then why would the supporters of Tookie Williams be so avidly advocating the commutation of his death sentence to life without parole? It's hard to believe they wish to inflict harsher punishment on Williams. Isn't this proof that,...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A federal judge ordered Missouri prison officials to drive a pregnant inmate to a clinic and let her get an abortion despite a state law that forbids the spending of tax dollars to facilitate an abortion. U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple ruled Thursday that the prison system is blocking the woman from exercising her right to an abortion. On Friday, he refused to stay the ruling, and ordered that the woman be taken to the clinic on Saturday. The woman, whose name was not disclosed in court papers, has said she will borrow money for the...

Why Have Penitentiaries Anyway? Most people realize that the court and penal systems in North America are seriously broken and must be fixed, yet contemplating doing away with penitentiaries sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Barely 200 years ago, an experiment began which has cost us untold billions of dollars. Just last year, this experiment resulted in 1.4 million adults incarcerated in federal and state penitentiaries (a figure which has quadrupled since 1980) at a cost of nearly $40,000 each. As Alan Elsner pointed out in a recent Washington Post article, 2.2 million people are engaged in catching criminals and putting and...

...Ashcroft.... will go down in history as the Attorney General who led the legal fight against terrorism. Every wartime AG has had to make tough calls about the balance between civil liberties and national security, and in a better world Mr. Ashcroft would be retiring to bipartisan accolades for taking on these difficult issues.... Yet no one in this Administration has endured more personal and political abuse. Granted Mr. Ashcroft isn't the smoothest public spokesman, and his cultural conservatism and strict interpretations of the law on the death penalty, partial-birth abortion and sentencing guidelines incensed liberals.... The irony is that...

...Mr. Gonzales has many things going for him, not least his relationship with the President, whom he has served for more than a decade starting in Texas. These personal ties -- much like those between Californians Ed Meese and Ronald Reagan -- will give him a stronger influence in the Cabinet than Mr. Ashcroft had. But his job will nonetheless be to build on the Ashcroft legacy. That includes moving ahead with terror cases, riding hard on the FBI as it reshapes itself to fight terrorists, and working for the renewal of the Patriot Act, portions of which expire next...

Dateline Charlotte, North Carolina. This story aired on News 14 Carolina, but I cannot find a direct link on their website to source it. The website posting and video is cut short from what the television broadcast reported. So that is why I have posted it in general chat. Let me introduce you to Mr. Alfred Adams, currently facing eight different charges including first-degree rape, kidnapping and burglary. He was also charged with simple assault, communicating threats, and two counts of first-degree sex offense. Adams has been arrested eight times since November 2002 on charges including burglary and assault on...

Forgive Us Our Injustices Paul Craig Roberts Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003 How would you like to spend Christmas season in prison? Millions of Americans do. Many are imprisoned for victimless crimes, such as marijuana possession. Others are totally innocent. Experts estimate that there are several hundred thousand innocent Americans in prison. Among these many is Christophe Yves Gaynor. In my considered opinion, Gaynor was framed by a corrupt Arlington, Va., prosecutor and railroaded by a corrupt Arlington, Va., judge. Gaynor was a skateboard coach in Virginia who took his team to a New York competition. One of the team members...

Public defenders in Massachusetts aim to help the sexually dangerous beat the rap at all costs, according to an advertisement posted online for a state-funded seminar. The Boston Herald reports the full-day seminar, originally titled, "Winning Despite the Bastards: Sexually Dangerous Persons Litigation and You,'' was slated to be held today at the downtown office of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, or CPCS. The program was reportedly canceled due to "lack of interest," however. You can't fault the writer of the proposed session outline for not trying hard to drum up interest. The paper reports the seminar's agenda listed...

<p>WASHINGTON -- One in every 32 adults in the United States was behind bars or on probation or parole by the end of last year, according to a government report Sunday that found a record 6.6 million people in the nation's correctional system.</p>

BEAUMONT - Two former prison guards have pleaded no contest to charges they engaged in improper sexual activity with inmates at an all-male prison in Beaumont in December. Monica Mahoney, 22, and Ingrid Fisk, 22, entered pleas before State District Judge Charles Carver on Monday. They will be sentenced July 29. A Jefferson County grand jury also has indicted Latisha Trahan, 25, of Port Arthur and Chastity Broussard, 21, of Beaumont. All four women were arrested in January after a Texas Department of Criminal Justice investigation of the alleged sexual misconduct was captured on hidden surveillance cameras. The equipment was...