Posted on 11/25/2001 11:48:39 AM PST by Deadeye Division
They got what they asked for, I Mean it is illegal to own a gun in Cleveland.
11/25/01
were combined and one was reduced to "attempted" carrying of a concealed weapon. He was sentenced to two years of probation.
A year later, Bryan shoved a gun into Freddie Belcher's side and robbed him. Prosecutors dismissed a gun charge that would have sent Bryan to prison for three years in addition to any sentence for the robbery. Instead, he pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and served 3½ years. Nineteen months after being released from prison, Bryan shot Leon in the face after the officer approached him at the gas station near E. 40th St. and Community College Ave.
Bryan was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death. Leon is survived by his wife and three small children.
NATHANIEL HILL
Age: 27
Last address: 1000 block of E. 74th St., Cleveland.
Princess Williams used to while away the summer nights sitting on the porch of her Collinwood home, waving to neighbors.
All that changed Feb. 18, when Nathaniel Hill and two other men burst into her house, threw her to the ground and put a gun to her head.
The men bound Williams' hands and feet with cord, then pulled down Williams' pants and threatened to rape her with the handle of a dust pan. They asked her where her son was and ransacked the house, looking for money and drugs.
"I knew I was going to die then and there because I only had $15 and a credit card," Williams said.
The trio left without shooting her, and Hill was eventually arrested. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison on robbery and gun charges, but Williams, 50, wonders why he was on the street in the first place.
Though Hill was arrested with a loaded gun three times between 1997 and 1998, he never served more than a few months in jail because of a series of plea deals and dismissals.
DAKUS COLLINS
Age: 28
Last address: 3800 block of E. 142nd St., Cleveland.
In 1993, Dakus Collins used a .380-caliber Glock pistol to rob two people of $400 and clothes. Two years later, he robbed 19-year-old Anthony Reglus and shot him in the leg. Nine days later, Reglus and Collins argued over gambling debts and Collins shot Reglus again, this time killing him.
The two robbery cases were combined, most of the charges were reduced, and the firearm charges were dropped. Collins was sentenced to five years in prison.
Two years later, while sitting in prison, Collins was charged with aggravated murder for the death of Reglus. Again, the firearms charge was deleted and Collins pleaded guilty to less serious charges. He was sentenced to 6½ years in prison - to be served concurrently with the time from the earlier robberies.
In total, Collins had 10 gun charges dropped.
Collins "just killed him, and it was like nobody cared," said Michael Reglus, Anthony's uncle.
Collins will be released from prison in 2003.
MAURICE FREEMAN
Age: 23
Last address: 1100 block of E. 74th St., Cleveland.
James Gilmer was shaken last summer when he heard that Maurice Freeman had been charged in the killings of three people in two days.
"I was surprised that he was not in jail," Gilmer said.
Freeman was one of the initial suspects in the killing of Gilmer's stepson, Benjamin McDougall, in 1997. Freeman provoked the fight that led to the shooting but blamed the killing on a friend and testified against him.
In an agreement with prosecutors, Freeman pleaded guilty to aggravated menacing, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to six months in jail.
Last spring, after Freeman served a six-month prison term for driving a stolen car and assaulting a police officer, police found him with rocks of crack cocaine and a loaded 9 mm handgun.
He was sent back to prison for 60 days for violating his parole. On June 20, Freeman was arraigned on new drug and gun charges stemming from the spring arrest and walked out of the County Jail after posting $5,000 bail.
A month later, police say, Freeman killed Kenneth Johnson and Starr Hudson. Two days later, they say, he killed Alfonso Amos.
The problem is when we have criminals in high-density crime areas. Guess what happens when you don't go after the criminals, and outlaw guns instead? What you see here.
Prosecutors do plea bargaining with any kind of felony. Don't believe me? Talk to any assistant DA - or visit any courtroom where such plea deals are made for a day.
As a court-appointed lawyer, I once got a woman facing 55 years - most for felony forgery, rest for dozens of bad checks - down to three years probation on misdemeanors; that was despite an extensive prior record. I also got a guy facing 30 years for crippling an innocent man he beat with a chair leg in a gang attack down to 10 years - also despite an extensive prior felony record.
It's not about guns - but about a criminal-justice system in meltdown. Plea bargaining does let DAs clear dockets by the end of the day - but it very soon has them facing the same guys back again. Plea bargaining is worse than worthless.
(A) Gun control in Cleveland does not reduce criminal behavior, because the criminal element does not abide the laws. That's what makes them criminals.
(B)The revolving door criminal justice system, in it's socialist wisdom, is a failure, except for expanding government, and keeping lawyers busy.
God Bless America!
How proud you must be.
Tell me, did these fine, upstanding, misunderstood people go on to victimize any other citizens when they should have been in jail?
And they ask my why I don't like lawyers.
Is that so difficult to figure out?
On the one hand, I'd like to get your name/number in case I ever need to kill or maim someone, and don't want to do a lot of time.
On the other hand, since it's unlikely I'll ever do anything like that unless I'm legally defending myself, I think I'll just hope you get hit by a truck, and never practice law again.
Why not send them to the one of these remote Islands (personally, I prefer the Aleutians) and give them full sentences? In a couple of years, the load will be off the court systems except for newbies. Surely there is room on some of these remote Islands for thousands of these criminals to serve full and complete sentences! 100,000? 1,000,000? Who knows? Who cares? Maybe a few will die in prison of old age or disease (or cold, or bugs)?
Let's open up a new "Devils Island" and watch the crime rate plummet in Cleveland and everywhere else in America!
MARK A SITY
http://www.logic101.net/
Are you proud of these accomplishments?
--Boris
I call this the "Coventry approach", due to a story by Robert Heinlein.
My solution is similar: take 100,000 square miles of Dakota Badlands or lease a similar patch of British Columbia. Surround it with a triple electrified "death fence" and patrols with armed guards and dogs. Anyone escaping will be shot on sight.
Anyone who is convicted of a felony gets a one-way trip to "Coventry"; a survival pack, a parka, and a hearty shove out of an airplane with a parachute. Every sentence is a life sentence without possibility of parole.
Break the social compact...adios.
It's humane, and the anti-death-penalty types should love it. It's cheap.
BTW, Heinlein's protagonist (who got sentenced to Coventry for punching somebody in the nose) found the society that had evolved there was very orderly and polite...
--Boris
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