Posted on 01/23/2005 12:12:12 PM PST by 4.1O dana super trac pak
Hallelujah! After 44 years one of America's most famous convicts, a black man named Wilbert Rideau convicted of murdering a white woman in Louisiana during the Jim Crow era, is free. Headlines worldwide proclaim justice has been done. But they couldn't be more wrong. Justice is weeping. For Rideau remains what he was when I knew him 17 years ago - a cold blooded murderer.
Three different juries convicted Rideau, now 62, of murder. But all were overturned on technicalities, providing Rideau an incredible fourth chance. This time he was convicted only of manslaughter, downgrading his sentence to a maximum of 21 years and thereby freeing him. But here are the uncontested facts of the case.
In 1961 Rideau robbed a St. Charles, Louisiana bank using a gun he'd purchased the day before along with a buck knife. He ordered three employees into his car and drove them to a bayou. There he emptied his gun into them a point blank range, hitting two in the neck and a third in the arm. One escaped into the water; one feigned death. The third, Julia Ferguson, made the mistake (according to others) of begging for her life. Rideau drew his knife and plunged it into her heart, killing her.
(Excerpt) Read more at modbee.com ...
Sad but true!
Exactly. The OJ Jury provided the most visible jury nullification action in US history. But we must ask why the OJ Jury let him walk?
Was it because they were racist, uneducated or that the prosecution presented the case poorly?
I would think each of the above factors contributed to the OJ verdict but did the OJ jury also think of the Rodney King verdict (which was a sound verdict) or recall cases of blacks being killed by whites in the South in the 1960's without being convicted?
Color didn't matter!
Well maybe the victims have some relatives still alive and street justice will prevail over PC dumbasses in todays courts.
Doom on this trash and that garbage that let him back on the streets.
Damn, but this has made me mad.
I shall pray that this murderer's life on the outside is SHORT.
I suppose Hollywood will seek to enshrine him in a 'doctoredmentary.'
A grotesque perversion of justice to let a man go free after he has committed such a grusome crime. It doesn't matter if the judge was appointed by Reagan or Clinton, If we don't have justice we won't have civilization. People will take matters into their own hands. You are one sad, sad excuse for a human to defend this.
Willie Rideau is a Poster Child For Liberalism. Every excuse you can think of has been made for him. I'm sure they'll figure out how to blame his incaceration on President Bush.
You're overreacting. The Klan rising again? He didn't go free. He spent forty years in prison already. It was only a matter of time before he was going to be let out of prison. One clearly guilty man getting a downgraded sentence doesn't mean the whole justice system is wrong.
Only because a few judges went insane and bowed to politically correct nonsense. They decided to become less than murdering scum. Do you feel you must also join the insanity?
The judges didn't say, "okay you can go free if you had an all-white jury and you served forty years", they said any trial of a black with an all-white jury is invalid. How many more will go free because of this decision? The court has declared that the opinion of a jury can be invalidated based on their skin color. I say the appelate court over-reacted.
I don't know how many more people will go free. I don't think many will IMHO. I'm not losing my faith in the justice system because Rideau got set free early.
I saw interviews with the O.J. jury. Some of them expressed the opinion that they would not have felt safe convicting O.J. If a jury is afraid to convict because they are afraid of retaliation, then no one is safe, black or white.
That sounds like the juries in mob cases.
yeah, I think the killer should be paroled to your house.
Yes, exactly. Like in Sicily. Like in some places in New York city. Like in some countries in Africa. It can happen here. We can become Zimbabwe.
The next step is to invalidate convictions of criminals, not because of an all-white jury, but because the jury didn't have the correct fraction of whites or blacks.
This is about more than criminal justice and violent crime. It is about judges who cowardly bow to political winds. When that happens we will have much bigger problems than allowing a few murderers to go free.
Freedom, justice and democracy are fragile things. They can be destroyed a lot faster than they are created. They are destroyed by greedy factions, mob intimidation or by public opinion driven by corrupt agendas.
Okay fair enough. I just try to be optimistic about things. That's why it's important to vote for the right people.
Why should one evil act of the state justify a greater evil? Why does the disenfranchising of blacks justify the freeing of a criminal who may go off and kill other blacks? Why should the public suffer just because the state made a mistake? That makes no sense.
Yes, I agree. And so does Cathy Buckle in Zimbabwe, bravely checking to see if her voter registration is still valid. But sometimes that isn't enough. If the right people have fled, sometimes there isn't anything you can really do. If we become surrounded by thugs, their cohorts in government and people who allow themselves to be intimidated by them there isn't much you can do.
I think that's why the founders wrote the 2nd amendment. It's the lifeboat for freedom. It's the final backup system if everything else fails.
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