Free Republic

Get your paws off those panties. That was Knox County Juvenile Judge Carey E. Garrett's message to Knox County Public Defender Mark Stephens Wednesday in the ongoing battle over whether juvenile detainees should be allowed to wear their own underwear. Garrett ruled after a hearing in his court Wednesday that Stephens' office has no legal authority to represent two teenage girls in their complaint about the sharing of underwear at the Richard L. Bean Juvenile Service Center. If the girls want to challenge detention center Superintendent Richard Bean's decision to scrap a policy that had allowed detainees to wear and...

This 17-year-old girl has one word for Richard Bean's new underwear policy: Gross. Bean has a word of his own for the girl's complaint: Pantygate. The girl, who is not being identified because of her age, has filed a complaint in Knox County Juvenile Court over a practice at the Richard L. Bean Juvenile Service Center in which detainees essentially share underwear. Bean said he announced the policy a few weeks ago. Before, parents or relatives of juvenile detainees could bring children underwear to use during their stay at the detention facility. But, Bean said, most parents "wouldn't bring them...

Two West Virginia lawmakers this week voted against historic legislation that overhauled the nation’s spy network in order to beef up the country’s counterterrorism network. The legislation passed overwhelmingly in both the U.S. House and the Senate. The vote in the Senate was 89-2, with U.S. Sens. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., voting against the legislation. In the House, U.S. Rep. Alan B. Mollohan, D-W.Va., voted against the bill. Mollohan, in an interview Thursday, cited four major concerns with the legislation. ... “Does it adequately address the problems that have been identified with our intelligence gathering, storage...