Free Republic

"I love him like a brother. David Greenglass." --Woody Allen's character in "Crimes and Misdemeanors" David Greenglass was a prominent member of the supporting cast in a real-life spy story that shook the country in the 1950s -- the Rosenberg case. Indeed, it was his testimony that sent his ill-fated sister Ethel, the wife of Julius Rosenberg, to the electric chair along with her husband in 1953. David Greenglass' death at 92 should have been big news, at least on the obituary pages. For he was as much a part of American history as Benedict Arnold or Alger Hiss,...

NASHVILLE — A man who spent 28 years on death row for killing three people while robbing a Nashville convenience store was executed early today after telling relatives who witnessed his death to “trust in the Lord.” Cecil C. Johnson Jr., 53, was pronounced dead at 1:34 a.m. at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Those killed in the July 1980 shootings were the market owner’s 12-year-old son, Bobby Bell Jr., and two men sitting in a cab outside, Charles House, 35, and driver James Moore, 41.

Union Violence: An African-American is beaten up at a political rally by thugs shouting racial epithets, and after three months his assailants are charged with the moral equivalent of jaywalking. Why wasn't it a hate crime? The beating of Kenneth Gladney by people wearing the purple shirts of the Service Employees International Union outside a Missouri health care town hall meeting three months ago met all the classic definitions of a hate crime. Time was, the beating of a black man outside a protest rally, and the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators, would be headline news. Gladney was working...

Leaders of San Francisco's police officers union have accused Weather Underground co-founder Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, of taking part in the 1970 bombing of a city police station that killed a sergeant. The union leveled the charge in a letter to a conservative organization lobbying for arrests in the case, but said it had not been in contact with investigators and had no new evidence related to the bombing, which killed Sgt. Brian McDonnell. ~snip "There are irrefutable and compelling reasons to believe that Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn ... are largely responsible for the...

The following just in from Nancy at familysecuritymatters.org (read to the end for word of a new report concerning a "new SDS" on campuses): In a sensational letter to be released at a March 12 National Press Club news conference, the San Francisco Police Officers Association (SFPOA) tells Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival, Inc., and FamilySecurityMatters.org contributing editor, that evidence in the 1970 bombing murder of a San Francisco police officer points to Weather Underground members Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, two associates of President Barack Obama. The letter will be made public at a news event that will feature a...

Just heard that Ramos has been released from prison. There will be no media access until March 20, 2009.

Bill Ayers arriving at a meeting in Manhattan Sunday wearing a shirt reading, 'This is Ridiculous.'

The man the GOP loves to hate tiptoed out of hiding Sunday - if only to blast Fox News and the rest of the media for his predicament. William Ayers, the '60s radical who is one of John McCain's talking points in his criticism of Barack Obama, told a Manhattan panel discussion audience he was tired of being used as cannon fodder in America's political wars. "[Fox host] Bill O'Reilly comes on his show and first thing he says is, 'Why won't this Ayers story die?'" Ayers told well-wishers. "And then he spends 10 minutes talking about it." Ayers, a...

The cost of new housing for San Quentin State Prison's growing number of Death Row inmates will exceed estimates by nearly $40 million, and the compound could run out of space soon after it is completed, according to a state auditor's report released Tuesday. The auditor's new $395.5 million price tag for the project, which is expected to be completed by 2011, is new bad news for a state facing billions of dollars in budget shortfalls. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democrat-controlled Legislature are still trying to hammer out a spending plan for the fiscal year that began nearly a...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A reputed gang member - who moved out of San Francisco after beating a murder charge when the star witness against him was slain - was ambushed and shot to death Saturday night when he returned to the city for work at a construction site in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, authorities said. Daniel "Dango" Dennard, 23, of Antioch was attacked as he was stopped on his motorcycle at a red light on Bayshore Boulevard at Industrial Street, a busy roadway near the intersection of Highway 101 and Interstate 280. San Francisco homicide Inspector John Cleary said Sunday...

SOLEDAD - A 30-year-old convicted child molester is dead after being killed at Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad. Lt. Eric Moore of the prison said Donald Jones was assaulted by a group of prisoners Friday morning in the general population maximum-security yard. He was pronounced dead about 90 minutes later. Prison officers recovered a stabbing weapon at the scene. Jones had been in the facility since 1995, serving a 20-year sentence out of Los Angeles County for sodomy on a child under 14. Authorities said six men are suspected in Jones' death. They already are serving sentences for convictions...

VACAVILLE -- Condemned killer William Bradford, a double murderer who implied to his jury he had other victims, has died of natural causes while awaiting execution in a California prison. He was 61. Bradford died Monday of natural causes at a prison medical facility in Vacaville, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement Wednesday. It did not elaborate on the cause of death. Bradford was sentenced to death in 1988 for the murders four years earlier of Shari Miller, 21, who he met in a bar, and Tracey Campbell, 15, a neighbor. He was an amateur...

NEW YORK - To some on the streets, Larry Davis was a legend: A black drug dealer who shot six white police officers as they closed in to arrest him, then fled into the night and eluded capture for more than two weeks. To authorities, he was an outrage — a violent criminal who would beat the court system time and time again, staying out of jail until he was convicted years later in a separate case. His saga came to a violent end Wednesday night, when a fellow inmate stabbed him to death with a homemade knife in a...

For many in Memphis, the execution of Philip Workman early Wednesday was too long in coming. For others, it should never happened at all. But both sides agree that the legal process that began shortly after Workman was convicted of killing a policeman more than 25 years ago is unwieldy. "Even if the death penalty served a purpose, the delays defeat that purpose," said Memphis attorney Art Quinn, an opponent of the death penalty who has handled several death penalty cases. "The delays negate any argument that it serves as a deterrent," Quinn said. "But the fact that we have...

'We can't understand why this has been put off this long,' victim's mother says. LIVINGSTON (TX) — Condemned Texas prisoner Ronald Chambers describes himself as "loaded with patience." Now in his fourth decade behind bars, Chambers' patience hasn't wavered, but time finally may be running out for Texas' longest-serving death row prisoner. It's been more than 11,300 days since Chambers arrived on death row on Jan. 8, 1976. Since then, 381 of his fellow prisoners have been executed. He's set to join them this week. "I knew it was coming," Chambers, 52, said of the letter he recently received notifying...

The Supreme Court on Monday moved to reinstate the death penalty for a California man convicted of murdering a 19-year-old woman during a burglary. Justices reversed an appeals court ruling that threw out Fernando Belmontes' death sentence because the trial judge misled jurors who were considering whether to give Belmontes the death penalty or life in prison. The 5-4 decision was the court's first since starting its new term in October. Justice Anthony Kennedy said it was implausible to conclude that jurors failed to take all the evidence into account before settling on a sentence of death. Belmontes beat Steacy...

A tentative date has been set, December 22, for Lynne Stewart's sentencing hearing. This is the third time that the date has been changed AND it may be changed just once more. The reason for the changes stems from the legal team's need for a thorough review of the transcripts and other matters necessary for the best possible arguments for the shortest sentence possible. Liz Fink has taken the major lead in the sentencing aspect of Stewart's case. Liz is the very successful Attica attorney who has more recently joined the defense effort. In short, it may well be the...

The American Spectator March 2006 SECTION: The railroading of a former U.S. ally. LENGTH: 1511 words HEADLINE: America, The Hague, and Ante Gotovina BYLINE: Robin Harris BODY: GREAT POWERS LIKE AMERICA CANNOT AFFORD to be too sentimental about foreign friends whose purpose has been served. But sometimes it pays to keep faith with individuals who collaborate successfully in one's policy goals. This is particularly so when those concerned know the inside story of U.S. covert activity and when their fate sets a precedent that jeopardizes U.S. personnel. Such is the case of the former Croatian General Ante Gotovina, arrested in...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO - The state on Tuesday postponed indefinitely the execution of a condemned killer amid a court battle over the state's method of lethal injection and the role doctors may play in the death chamber.</p> <p>State officials notified the federal courts they would be unable to comply with a judge's order to have a lethal dose of barbiturate administered to Michael Morales by a medical professional in the execution chamber, a spokeswoman for the federal courts told The Associated Press.</p>

San Francisco -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday that he would consider granting clemency to Crips co-founder and convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams. After a private hearing with Williams' lawyers at his Sacramento office, Schwarzenegger said he would meet again on Dec. 8 with the lawyers, Los Angeles County prosecutors and others involved. As governor, he has the authority to commute a death sentence to life without parole. He is not legally obligated to hold a public or private hearing. Schwarzenegger decides clemency requests on a "case-by-case basis," . . .