Obama’s Law Enforcement Priorities

Here is a graphic example of how the media protects federal judges by not reporting their outrages. On July 19, in U.S. v. Strong, a First Circuit majority upheld the seven-day jail sentence of Ronald Strong, a 50-year-old in prematurely poor health. 13 medications for heart and kidney problems produced a sudden uncontrollable attack of diarrhea in a federal courthouse, with a significant mess in a small one-person bathroom.  

While the case of Nidal Hasan, caught red-handed committing mass murder at Fort Hood, dragged on for four years, with many more years of appeals likely, Strong was charged by an Obama-appointed prosecutor within three days – three days! – with willfully damaging federal property, creating a hazard and creating a nuisance. He was found guilty within 113 days and lost his appeal within two years – before the Hasan trial even began.

In my view, it was prosecutorial abuse to even bring such a case and judicial abuse to uphold the conviction.

The essence of the devastating dissent (22) by Judge Torruella, a Reagan appointee, which should be read fully, was that the government had violated the very law it used to prosecute Strong, and he lacked the required criminal intent in dealing with what was, after all, a wholly unexpected accident.

By contrast, I contend that the majority judges, appointed by Clinton and Obama,

were clearly out to get Strong. To declare that he had been "willful," they resorted to rank speculation rather than proof.  Without demonstrating any causal connections, they (1) asserted that he had received "implied notice" of the regulation the government itself was required, but failed, to observe to assure actual notice; (2) cited his loss of a Social Security case; and (3) if that were not enough, found that he "may have" -- "may have"?! -- acted willfully because of the delay in his being given access to the bathroom.  

        Can any honest person believe that activist liberal judges would ever accept "may have" as proof in a murder case?

Finally, this case punctuates the critical importance of the presidents who appoint prosecutors and judges.

Justice Sotomayor and Murderer Advocacy

I have a critique of Justice Sotomayor’s media-ignored but highly revealing Dec. 3 dissent seeking mercy for twice-convicted triple-murderer Benny Lee Hodge. The dissent deserves attention for what it says, what it implies and what it disregards. It is a graphic illustration of the grave danger of confirming justices whose values are contrary to those of a vast majority of the public – and have no scruples about rewriting the Constitution to contain commands nowhere within the actual written document.
 
Sotomayor’s dissent is a call for a highly organized campaign to inform the public about how justices have abused what Justice White famously termed their “raw judicial power” and to vigorously oppose placing more justices such as Sotomayor on the Supreme Court (and lower courts).
 
Essentially, Sotomayor takes the position that "especially heinous" murders cannot and need not be "explained" but can and should be "mitigated," in a quest to find “at least one juror” who can be persuaded to show “respect” and “mercy” for a brutal killer who celebrated slaughtering his victims without mercy. In lecturing the Kentucky Supreme Court that this has been “clear” for 30 years, Sotomayor implicitly admits that it had never been “clear” before that – for the very good reason that such judicial concoctions never before existed because they were and are not in the Constitution.
 
In arguing for “mitigation” and “mercy,” Sotomayor is less than forthright. She complains of "deficient" attention to Hodge's abused childhood by his lawyer in the appealed death sentence for a single murder before the court. However, she omits that Hodge is actually facing two death sentences from two trials, for three premeditated murders and one attempted murder on two separate occasions 27 years ago, not one death sentence for one murder. And she omits that in the trial resulting in the other death sentence, Hodge’s lawyers presented “substantial” so-called mitigation evidence, including referring to his abused childhood.

The New York Times’ Pro-Murderer Mentality

I have a new article at American Thinker: “Pro-Murderer Mindset of The New York Times.” It critiques a recently posted 7900-word article highly sympathetic to a double-murderer and advocating his early release from prison while still a young man. I discuss the huge gulf in values between murderer advocates and victims of barbaric crimes.

Having long pretended merely to oppose capital punishment, the real goal of those who champion the cause of murderers is to minimize any punishment for murder, period. The Times punctuates one more time what has always been realized by capital punishment supporters: the "life without parole" alternative is a sham. Murderer advocates seek to save not only the lives of their idols, but also their freedom.

The media and courts, especially the U.S. Supreme Court, have promoted and furthered the minimization of punishment for murder, while unspeakably compounding the torture suffered by victims.

The Times asserts that there is a “national debate over just what is accomplished by sentencing juveniles to long prison sentences." I dispute that and point out:

The public strongly supports severe sentences for severe crimes. The only debate is in the minds of pro-murderer elitists who have a disproportionately dominant influence in the media and with five justices of the Supreme Court, who have defied the public by imposing their own values on everyone else… On June 25, the Court abolished mandatory life sentences for convicted premeditated murderers almost 18 years old, seven years after abolishing the death penalty for them and two years after abolishing life sentences for nearly 18-year-old non-homicide predators.

I conclude that “all too often, the elite media and elite judges eagerly identify with brutal murderers at the expense of their long-dead victims and the tormented souls left behind.” Nevertheless, an overwhelming public majority identifies and sympathizes with victims rather than their tormentors.

Obviously: “The 2012 election will determine whether anti-victim values will be entrenched on the Supreme Court for another generation.”

Judicial Activism & Irrational Sentencing

      I recently wrote about how judicial activists have created a constitutional right for the most brutal and depraved criminals to commit new brutality free from any punishment whatsoever, precisely because they are the most brutal and depraved.

      For select miscreants already serving life sentences, the death penalty for new crimes – with the exception of first degree murder in some states – has been rendered unavailable by unaccountable high court justices. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively decreed that escapee Ehrlich Anthony Coker had a “constitutional right” to rape Elnita Carver, under threat of death, with no punishment at all, three weeks after she gave birth.

      The Court bestowed this right upon Coker as a reward for his having committed prior violent crimes including rape, attempted murder and actual murder. Since he was already serving a life sentence and the death penalty for rape is too harsh for the moral sensibilities of justices, no further penalty could be imposed. The Supreme Court and other courts have even ruled that some convicted murderers could torture and murder fellow inmates and prison guards without punishment.

      Unsuspecting citizens might think that those with the worst records and crimes should and do receive the harshest sentences. Clearly, that is not the necessarily the case. Something is painfully wrong when a person with no prior record can receive a harsh sentence because he is not already incarcerated, but someone serving life cannot be penalized for the most barbaric new crimes because he is already serving life for the worst depravity.

      There is little basis for confidence in the judges who have given us this criminal “justice” system. These individuals or the people who appoint them should be held accountable in elections. The next election will be critical in this regard.

      For more on this subject, please see my article originally appearing here or here.