Free Republic

Kevin Morgan was jolted awake by what sounded like an explosion. Then he heard something worse: an anguished mother crying for help. A Ford F-250 pickup truck driven by a woman suspected of being drunk careened through Morgan's Cobb County neighborhood early Sunday before plowing into -- and through -- the home of one of his neighbors. The massive truck killed 14-year-old Elliot Savary as he slept and injured his sister Leah, who is 13. Morgan was among the first neighbors to run to the aid of the teens' parents -- the mother frantically seeking help while her husband, Linley...

COLUMBUS, Ohio: An Ohio death row inmate who had received a state record seven reprieves and faced execution this month had his murder sentence commuted to life in prison. Governor Ted Strickland based his decision Wednesday on the lack of physical evidence linking John Spirko to the 26-year-old murder and "the slim residual doubt" about Spirko's responsibility for it. Those factors make "the imposition of the death penalty inappropriate in this case," Strickland said. Strickland is a death penalty supporter, but he has said he is conscious of the numerous examples of exoneration through DNA testing around the United States....

A federal judge sentenced three suspected leaders of the violent Aryan Brotherhood prison gang to life terms Tuesday, saying the sentences were the only just response to three decades of orchestrated murders and attempted murders in some of the nation's toughest penitentiaries. Barry "The Baron" Mills, 58, was sentenced to four consecutive life terms without possibility of parole, a sentence automatically imposed after a jury deadlocked earlier this year on the death penalty. Tyler "The Hulk" Bingham, 59, also escaped the death penalty but received three consecutive life terms without possibility of parole. A third defendant, Edgar "The Snail" Hevle,...

LOS ANGELES Three members of a Hispanic gang were sentenced Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for using murder and other violent acts to intimidate blacks in their neighborhood. Federal prosecutors had alleged Gilbert Saldana, Alejandro Martinez and Fernando Cazares targeted blacks in the largely Hispanic community of Highland Park, east of downtown Los Angeles. They were found guilty of conspiring to use violence, including the shooting deaths of two black men in 1999 and 2000. "These were horrific offenses that have had far-reaching consequences," U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson said during sentencing. Each defendant received...

Sorry to make you choke on your Cheerios this morning. But when an alert reader, Bob "Formerly of Savannah" Mason, passed this item along this week, I couldn't believe it:Ricky Jivens apparently is looking for a few good women. Female pen pals, that is. The most ruthless gang leader in modern Savannah history - a high-rolling drug dealer who had cops on his payroll and was said to be responsible for 15 to 20 deaths - wants to get up close and personal with members of the opposite sex in Europe and elsewhere, via the U.S. Postal Service, from his...

SAN DIEGO – A pedophile who was part of the international child pornography ring that exchanged videos and photos of themselves molesting children was sentenced Thursday to more than 467 years to life in state prison. Paul Whitmore, a former counselor for autistic children, was convicted Nov. 30 of 51 felony charges, including committing a lewd act on a child, aggravated sexual assault on a child, posing a minor for pictures involving sexual conduct for commercial purposes and attempting to dissuade a witness from reporting a crime. The verdicts included special allegations of bondage, sodomy, sexual penetration, oral copulation and...

FORT WORTH, Texas - A man convicted of abducting a girl as she walked to elementary school and molesting her must serve nearly 400 years in prison, a judge decided Wednesday. Jeremiah Sexton, 23, of Springtown, must serve four sentences of 99 years each. State District Judge Wayne Salvant, calling Sexton a "serial predator," ordered the sentences to be served consecutively, making the total 396 years behind bars. A jury Tuesday convicted Sexton on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of aggravated kidnapping. Sexton was arrested in February and accused of abducting and sexually...

Mudslinging by leading Democrats, usually taking form these days as trying to brand Republicans as racists, confirms what I have been writing about for a number of years: the Democratic Party is running on an empty tank. Bankrupt of ideas, the only thing they have to offer is slamming the opposition and playing the race card. The latest case in point is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Martin Luther King Day pandering to a black audience in Harlem, telling them that Republicans run the House of Representatives "like a plantation and you know what I am talking about." According to Mrs....

Davie -- Police say a man who broke into an apartment and raped a woman at gunpoint Wednesday night was so brash he forced his victim to write him a check for $1,400 -- in his own name. Officers arrested Anthony R. Roberts minutes after the crime at a check-cashing store two miles from his victim's home...(MORE) ..."One minute he is on a crime spree," Bamford said, "and then next minute he is confessing, `Yeah, I did an armed home invasion,' like it was nothing. "That's life in prison in Florida," Bamford continued, "even without the sexual battery." READ THE...

TOMS RIVER, N.J. Jurors in Ocean County have spared the life of a Bronx man who was found guilty of torturing and killing a mother and her son during a robbery in Barnegat. Dwayne Gillispie will be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Jurors were divided on the death penalty for one of the deaths and agreed the 23-year-old should not be executed for the other. Christine Staton and her 25-year-old son were killed in 2000. Prosecutors presented witnesses at the trial who described a plot in which Gillispie, his uncle and a third man set up a gun...

NOVATO, Calif. (AP) - A Kern County man who has spent more than 17 years on death row for killing his girlfriend and her 14-year-old son died Wednesday of complications from cancer, prison officials said. Hells Angel motorcyclist Robert Garceau was convicted for the 1984 stabbing deaths of girlfriend Maureen Bautista and her son, Telesforo Bautista, both of North Hollywood. According to trial testimony, Garceau buried the bodies in cement in the backyard of a fellow drug dealer's house in San Luis Obispo County and claimed that his drug-dealing friends, not him, killed the two. He killed them in Bakersfield,...

<p>SEATTLE — In a deal with prosecutors, Gary Ridgway (search) is apparently close to securing what authorities claim he denied his many victims: life.</p> <p>Ridgway was scheduled Wednesday to plead guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder, making him the nation's deadliest serial killer (search), sources told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.</p>

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Former Charles Manson disciple and convicted murderer Susan Atkins is suing Gov. Gray Davis, contending his policy opposing parole for nearly all murderers has made her a political prisoner. Parole board members and prison officials also are named in the federal civil rights lawsuit, which accuses them of ignoring the Constitution and parole rules to keep Atkins behind bars. "Over the course of her incarceration, Ms. Atkins has been transformed into a political prisoner," said the suit, filed by attorney Eric P. Lampel of Irvine. He said psychiatrists call her a model prisoner who is not a...

Pakistan court hands down life sentence for blasphemy A Pakistani court has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for making derogatory remarks about the prophet Mohammed. Mohammed Amin was arrested in December 1999 in the town of Mailsi, 40 miles south-west of Multan in the eastern province of Punjab, and a Multan court convicted him. Amin had "criticised" the prophet at a mosque in Mailsi, but had no details of what he said. Amin has asked his lawyer to appeal the conviction. Pakistan's blasphemy laws have come under criticism by international and Pakistani human rights groups. They complain that the...

Jurors convicted Clara Harris of murder today for running over her husband outside a Clear Lake-area hotel on July 24 after finding him with his mistress. Harris faces the possibility of five years to life in prison, but could receive a much lighter sentence. If jurors next find it was a crime of "sudden passion," the punishment could be reduced to two to 20 years in prison. Probation is possible on any sentence less than 10 years. Jurors in the three-week-long trial deliberated for around eight hours on their four options: acquitting the 45-year-old mother of all charges; convicting her...