Posted on 07/07/2007 7:24:07 AM PDT by ruination
ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The mayor of Hazleton has long cited the May 2006 shooting death of a 29-year-old city man as the impetus for his widely emulated crackdown on illegal immigrants.
But on Friday, prosecutors dropped homicide charges against the two illegal immigrants accused of shooting Derek Kichline , depriving Mayor Lou Barletta of one of his key arguments for kicking illegal immigrants out of Hazleton.
Luzerne County prosecutors said they abandoned the case against Joan Romero and Pedro Cabrera because key witnesses were either unavailable or unreliable, not because they were convinced of Romero's and Cabrera's innocence.
But Barletta's critics quickly pointed to the decision as evidence that the mayor jumped to conclusions when he accused illegal immigrants of wrecking his northeastern Pennsylvania city of more than 30,000.
"This dismissal of charges adds to the long list of discredited claims Barletta has made in the course of demonizing undocumented immigrants for allegedly destroying Hazleton," said Witold J. Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.
Barletta called Walczak's statement "repulsive."
"Derek Kichline's family and friends will never see justice for his death," Barletta said. "The fact that the ACLU celebrates this and turns it into a public relations spectacle is disgusting and Mr. Walczak should be ashamed of himself."
Barletta repeatedly said that Kichline's slaying spurred him to propose the Illegal Immigration Relief Act. Though he also said illegal immigrants were caught dealing drugs and committing other crimes, and were a burden to police, schools and hospitals, the slaying was "the one that broke the camel's back," he said.
Prosecutors had accused Juan Romero and Pedro Cabrera of walking up to Kichline in front of his home just before midnight on May 10, 2006, and shooting him in the head as his horrified girlfriend looked on. No motive for the slaying was given.
The illegal immigrant law, approved by City Council last summer and copied by towns and cities around the nation, would penalize landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and businesses that hire them. A companion ordinance would require tenants to register with City Hall and pay for a rental permit.
The ACLU has sued in federal court to overturn the measures, saying they trample on the federal government's exclusive power to regulate immigration. A federal judge presided over a nine-day trial over the laws and is expected to rule on their constitutionality later this summer.
Luzerne County prosecutors said they abandoned the case against Romero and Cabrera because a key witness, Cesar Ariel Jacquez, had been inadvertently deported, and two other important witnesses had credibility issues.
Police found the murder weapon in Jacquez's apartment, and Jacquez would have testified that Cabrera and Romero gave it to him after the homicide, said Assistant District Attorney Mike Vough.
Prosecutors traveled to the Dominican Republic last month, but could not persuade Jacquez to return to the United States to testify.
Prosecutors have the option of refiling homicide charges against Cabrera and Romero if additional evidence comes in.
The pair will continue to be jailed pending their deportation to the Dominican Republic. "They will not be free to walk the streets of Luzerne County," Vough said.
The whole article is BS, and the reporter knows it.
Oh no! Does this mean that America will have to accept Illegals with open arms? /sarc
I fear we're doomed to be another toilet republic, as in mehico.
One could easily make an argument that this injustice makes Barletta’s case stronger.
It strengthens the mayor's point.
As long as these ACLU lawyers are allowed to operate in a manner detrimental to the American people, we may never win this battle. Maybe Shakespeare had the right plan for such lawyers in his King Henry VI.
I just posted this article, too! I did a search on the title and author, and came up with nothing. I’m sorry, #1.
I think we are going to see a lot more of this. Nobody saw nothin’, and the crimes continue.......
No problem! The search function isn’t so great.
This mayor won his (Republican) primary nomination with something like 90% of the vote. Something that should make Democrats worry is that he also won the Democrat nomination as a write in when he wasn’t even running for it.
I agree. Congressman Billybob has posted his rebuttal to the article.
Is it the part about setting a uniform "rule" (as distinct from a law), or is it the bit about importing slaves?
The victim would probably be alive as well.
U.S. Constitution, Article 4 Section 4:
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
1. The act of invading; the act of encroaching upon the rights or possessions of another; encroachment; trespass.
ping
So again illegal alien murderers will go free. What rule of law?
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