The truth about the death penalty repeal bill in Connecticut

This article on the CT Death Penalty Repeal Bill published  by The Foothills Media Group is an excellent piece focusing on the unvarnished facts concerning this bill that has sparked so much debate here in Connecticut.

It was written by a Connecticut legislator named Bill Simanski, a Republican from Granby, whose main motivation was to insure that every Connecticut citizen be availed of all the facts involved with this proposed  Repeal Bill , as it is once again, about to be voted upon by the Connecticut legislature.

Very few people actually understand the serious ramifications that this bill will have if made into law. It would adversely affect our criminal judicial system insofar as increasing our violent crime rate due to lack of deterrence, the state will absorb  huge monetary expenses resultant from the deluge of new trials that will surely happen as public defenders in capital murder cases refuse any plea offers, knowing that by taking their case to trail they've got a chance of receiving a life sentence with the possibility of parole" (an obscene misnomer if there ever was one!)  and thus any lawyer will refuse a plea as they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by now going to trial and immediately pleading not guilty no matter how much evidence the state has against their client.

Just one of these trials typically cost millions upon millions of dollars in state money - both for the prosecutors and the public defenders who are on our States payroll and more often than not statistically wind up representing defendants in capital murder cases.


 Now typically very few legislators or anti-death penalty advocates talk about any of these issues; usually we hear a great deal about emotionally charged issues on the periphery of the whole death penalty issue.

This issue has always been and continues to have at its core a heated and emotional debate; Mr Simanski proposes to remove some of the emotion and lay out the facts -facts which are in and of themselves extremely disturbing.

This is the singular most important issue this state will ever face. As such it is up to the residents to understand what it means and accordingly put pressure on our Connecticut Senators, for they alone now hold the key as to whether this bill will pass muster and become law in the State of Connecticut.

The Bill just squeaked through The Connecticut Judiciary committee, it's origination point, and is poised to proceed to the Senate ,where if it passes by a certain margin - it will be made into law.

 As responsible citizens of this State, we simply cannot allow this to happen. And despite the overt media bias favoring the Repeal, it is far from the" inevitable outcome" being portrayed in so many Connecticut based papers such as the Hartford Courant among others.

This type of "journalism" is designed to discourage the people of the State from attempting to fight this bill, indirectly implicating that such efforts are hopeless at this point - whereas the opposite is in fact true.  This is a very close close divisive split within the Senate and even the Judiciary vote was closer than was "expected".

Efforts by Connecticut voters to be heard along with commitments to vote against any legislators that have voted for this repeal, starting with the members of the judiciary committee, each of whom are legislators themselves assembly persons or State Senators that cover a certain district in this state and as such are voted into these positions by the public. 

The constituents within those districts need to make it very clear that no matter who is running against them in the next election, political party be damned - anyone voting for this repeal is clearly soft on crime and will be voted out. Let your local legislators know that as a voting resident you will have a long memory, and that their vote on this repeal may easily become the deciding factor in whether they have a future in politics.

 It would seem that the owners editors and writers of our States largest newspapers are in the pocket of the democratic majority who sit on our general assembly, as well as our new Governor whose existence basically reignited the Democratic legislator's determination to get the Death Penalty repealed once and for all.  A similar bill to abolish the DP was written up and voted in to law in 2009, infuriating the people of this State, who were still reeling from the trauma of three sets of vicious capital murders all of which had yet to be adjudicated in fact jury selection had yet to start on any of them!

Governor Rell a Republican, used what was for her a rare veto upon the last Death Penalty abolition bill, citing that in poll after poll it is clear what her constituents want and that is the death penalty must remain as an option for Connecticut prosecutors for the very worst Capital murders, where already a plethora of aggravating factors are required of any crimes where this sentence is even pursued by the state.

There was also a common agreement among the public, Republican and even some Democratic  legislators that the current appeals process needs to be completely revamped and made usable, as the states death penalty  has become crippled by a limitless appeals process, which every public defender takes full advantage of throwing everything but the kitchen sink at every case no matter the brutality involved or their clients actual guilt;  Guilt and accountability has become a non issue to Connecticut lawyers, and this is where the current slippery slope that we find ourselves in, began. Justice is dead. Accountability an archaic notion in the world of Connecticut's courts.

Please get involved  with this critical issues and call the three Connecticut Senators listed below immediately. Deluge their voice mails with the strength of your opinion on this extremely important issue - Poll after Poll has proven that on average 68 percent of all Connecticut residents want the Death penalty to remain an option for our States prosecutors in our worst capital crimes.

Senator Prague (860)240-0543. Senator Maynard (860)240-0584. Senator Crisco (860)240-0189.

There is also a misleading and purposefully disingenuous claim that the repeal bill is "prospective",  meaning that it will supposedly not apply retroactively to all of the men currently on death row.

This as Rep Simanski explains, is an absolute falsehood, which was only designed to placate the public, as the legislators who wrote the bill anticipated the anger and uproar that a "non-prospective" repeal would cause in light of all of the recent protracted and traumatic death penalty murder cases which the people of the state are still reeling from.

What this means is that every man on death row - including the B.J Clarke and Karen Clarke murderers,  the Petit family rapists/murderers and a gaggle of other extremely dangerous convicted murderers and rapists each given death sentences by a jury of their peers, will never actually receive the Death penalty, and worse, they will all wind up in general population in prison with the same privileges that those men enjoy! Lead State Public defender Susan Storey, has already announced her intention to fight on these men's behalf and has cited that prospective repeals have not worked for others states, and indeed the prospective portions of these bills have been later scrapped by some.
 
And the line just keeps getting drawn further and further away. The courts are owned by defense attorneys whose very nature is to push the envelope no matter the cost to the public in lives pain brutality fear and life long trauma. These lawyers happen to comprise a good portion of our State's judiciary committee and our legislature.

Stop the Connecticut Death Penalty Repeal Bill Now.

Please petition our SENATORS, Make those calls and let your voice and your opinion be heard. Send emails and letters to every single Connecticut Senator, regardless of their political affiliation. Ask your Friends and acquaintances to do the same and remember although the three Senators listed are reportedly on the fence, every republican Senator needs to be reminded as do independent thinking democrats that do not necessarily follow the herd. There are a handful in the Connecticut Senate that actually think for themselves.
Foothills Media Group - Death Penalty Repeal Bill The real facts

Conn. committee passes death penalty repeal bill despite recent poll findings on issue

ATTENTION: CONCERNED CONNECTICUT RESIDENTS WHO VALUE PUBLIC SAFETY!

For all Connecticut citizens against the Death Penalty Repeal Bill,  please get on the phone to the following Senators and express your adamant wish that they vote against this Repeal .

Senator Prague  860 240 0543   Senator Maynard 860 240 0584  Senator Crisco 860 240 0189

There are voice mails at each number and as such you will be asked to give your name and phone number probably to assure that you are a Connecticut resident. No one will actually call you back, but you are given ample time to leave a message that should begin with the basics, in case the Senator's aides do not listen to a lengthy message and delete any messages that are beyond a minute or two.

State that you are adamantly opposed to the Death Penalty Repeal Bill that recently passed the Judiciary committee and will be heading to the Senate shortly. Beseech these lawmakers to do the right thing and vote against the Repeal!  A repeal will lead to further violence in our State. It is the beginning of the end, literally handing over our courts to murderers rapists and their often state finance public defenders or special public defenders who like Jeremiah Donovan, Joshua Komisarjevsky's lawyer, are paid a higher wage than "regular public defenders and are allowed many more billable hours and money and resources in defending capital murder crimes.

Senator Prague (860)240-0543. Senator Maynard (860)240-0584. Senator Crisco (860)240-0189. It is on to the Senate next and these are 3 critical votes. Leave a message on the voice mail's for these Senators, as well as any other Senators that are in your district, that are on the fence or that you feel might be influenced by the strength of your opinion. Victims and survivors of violent crime, family members and loved ones of victims obviously will have powerful voices, but everyone in this state will become a potential victim of this bill - so please make those calls!

The Senate is the only hope left for defeating the repeal of the death penalty in Connecticut. It must pass by a certain margin to get to the Governors desk.  There is considerable dissent regarding this bill among even our lawmakers; Had two Republican Judiciary Committee members voted against the repeal following their party's official position, the vote would have been 22-21 in the Judiciary, rather than 24-19.

I am dismayed and extremely angry at our own Trumbull Rep who voted for this repeal and then blathered on about abortions when he had the floor!  Abortion was not the issue on the agenda Sir.

I predict that this man will be voted out of his seat come next election when his constituents are heavily reminded of how this Republican lawmaker put all of our lives in peril with his vote to repeal the death penalty in it's originating  committee.

The Death Penalty is of course a deterrent, as one Senator in the Judiciary Committee said, if it deters one person from murdering, it has done it's job.

Life in Prison will become the new" cruel and unusual punishment" and the public defenders and other lawyers will all proceed to trial for every capital murder as a matter of course, in hopes of receiving life with the chance of parole for their murderers and rapists who prey upon the vulnerable. Our Connecticut prosecutors are not adept at trying these cases for they rarely rarely go to trial in this state. 96 -97 percent of all violent crime cases are adjudicated via plea deals, such as Leslie Williams whose lawyer quickly offered to plead guilty to capital murder and other charges in exchange for life in prison, because the death penalty exists.

Williams is the man who in 2008 burst into a Connecticut home where two women had sat down to after church coffee to chat. He shot one sixty seven year old woman in the head leaving her for dead. He then Kidnapped the other woman who was being treated for cancer, He stole her car and raped her, then shot her in the head as well, and throwing her body in some brush.

 This crime occurred just after Williams had been released from prison for raping a five year old girl, at the end of a seven year sentence which was arrived at by a plea deal rather than a trial (note; a seven year sentence for this crime is by Connecticut standards, a severe sentence) William stole a car right off the bat after getting out of prison and the car happened to run out of gas in front of the victims house.
He watched as the women entered the home as they returned from church waiting a few minutes,  he followed them in and began his murderous mayhem.

This horrible set of crimes occurred within 6 months of the Petit murders and happened in a quiet middle class suburb where people often make life long sacrifices in order to live in what they believe is a safe neighborhood.

The bottom line is that without a Death Penalty Leslie Williams lawyer would NEVER EVER have plead guilty to life without the chance of PAROLE.  The case would have gone to trial, as there would be nothing for murderers to lose" by going to trial for capital murder, and the groundswell of trials will cost the state millions and eventually billions of dollars. This eradicates the entire  argument by mostly democratic legislators that getting rid of the Death Penalty will save this State money due to the expensive built in appeals process. A process that in Connecticut is the biggest part of the problem rendering our Death penalty  impossible to actually implement.

The mostly democratic legislators begginning within the Judicary Comittee and the House, are responsible for purposeful crippling of Connecticut's current death penalty, leaving it in its current impotent state. Then they have the audacity and hypocrisy to use the very fact that the appeals process has crippled it as a reason to scrap it because its become too expensive as a result of the literally endless appeals that inmates and their attorneys file ad infinitum.

The Death Penalty clearly needs to be re-written and the appeals limited to a valid quantify per convicted person and appeals must require actual grounds, rather than simply being an automatic part of this sentence in Connecticut.

Other states such as Virginia and Texas have managed to create a death penalty that is not in name only, this they have done because as intelligent lawmakers they recognize that the DP is of course a deterrent as common sense dictates. And one innocent victim's life saved as a result of the existence of a working death penalty, is worth IT.

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/98b0a17ad0354b2ab4f152f0b403c014/CT--Death-Penalty

Henry Lee Award Dinner Honors Petit Family Foundation in Monroe Friday March 16th

The Henry Lee Award is quite an honor, and as such it is thus only fitting that The Petit Family Foundation who have contributed so much towards assisting victims of violence and domestic abuse, should be thus honored.

Congratulations as well to the co-recipient of this year's award, The Sikorsky Finance Women's Forum, an organization who have contributed heavily to Connecticut based  Jane Doe No More , a  sexual assault awareness/ advocacy group that sponsors the Henry Lee Award.

The event is being held Friday March 16th at The WATERVIEW in Monroe. It begins at 5:30 pm with a cocktail reception and silent auction; dinner follows at 7, with awards set for 8:30 p.m.

WFSB Eyewitness News Anchor Denise D'Ascenzo is this year’s emcee. Donna Palomba, the founder of Jane Doe no More, will present a scholarship to a college student who is working to improve the lives of victims of sexual assault.

Tickets are $125, and include dinner and open bar. Call 203-729-0245 or email info@janedoenomore.org  for an invitation or for information about reserved tables and event sponsorship.


For more about the event and past recipients, read this article in The Naugatuck Patch
Henry Lee Award Dinner Honors Petit Family Foundation in Monroe

West Hartford resident to lead Crime Victim's Service Agency CT-ALIVE

CT-ALIVE is an incredible Crime victim's services agency, and apparently they have a new president Katie Marinan of West Hartford.

This organizations work goes past the basic issues such as emergency housing/food/ shelter/  that victims of violent crime, partner/domestic violence clearly need.

For example a current project of CT-ALIVE  "Never going back to Abuse" is based upon Susan Somilian's well known motivational workshops. Founder of "The Avenging Angels" Susan formed the workshops in memory of her 19 year old niece Maggie, who was murdered in 1999.

This project which is being funded by The Petit Family Foundation focuses on stabilizing women's lives after the imminent threat of violence is over. Empowering women who are trying to make the tough transition from victim to survivor through education, re-socialization, technical training, and other practical assistance.

Struggling with these realities within the framework of leaving an abusive relationship, are key if we, as a community really hope to break the cycle that abused women find themselves in. Unfortunately, it is exactly within these parameters that state and federal funding for victims has traditionally always fallen short. We spare no expense on terrorism, yet this is terrorism, simply of the domestic variety.
Slowly we are seeing more private organizations and non-profits like CT-ALIVE., Jane Doe No More, and The Petit Family Foundation among others, helping to fill in some of these desperately needed voids.

Ct-Alive mission seems to be on just such " picking up the pieces" issues and rebuilding for victims of violence and abuse: Finding solutions for all of the very real  longer term issues such as transportation and long term housing needs, ,quality medical care, including  psychological/psychiatric assistance, and finally providing or finding available financial aid for adult education and/or technical/ certification programs so that victims have a viable way to start new healthier lives.

This kind of multi-faceted approach towards helping victims of violence, is heal and begin new abuse - free lives, truly breaks cycles of abuse forever.

Autonomy requires helping victims find funding for education and skill training as well as psychological intervention that goes beyond the most rudimentary counseling that is the usual fare in most states. There is a serious Post Traumatic Stress syndrome PTSD that often hampers victims of  violence in moving forward.
If this is not dealt with and treated, few women can successfully embark on a new life  Many times survivors are not even aware that they have PTSD, or how it might be negatively affecting them and/ or their children who have lived in household's where violence took place.

Financial independence is a necessity for women in formerly abusive relationships  and more often than not they require help in obtaining the training or education to pursue a viable career or job. The ability to support themselves and hopefully to do so within a career that they enjoy, lends a tremendous sense of self worth, as well as the security of knowing they can take care of themselves and in some cases, their children.

Kudos to CT-ALIVE and congratulations to their new president, Katie Marinan I'm certain she will serve them well, 

Read more about it here: New president appointed to lead CT-ALIVE

Tomorrow (Friday, 3/16 at NOON EST)-- White House Conference Call: Update on Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act

For all of you who would like to get more involved in helping to fight violence against women, the Violence against Women act - VAWA - is a veritable staple in this country, and now it is broadening its protective reach towards women from other country's who are caught in abusive relationships here on our soil.

No women should ever have to live in fear or pain from an abusive partner or ex-partner.

White House Conference Call: Update on Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act

Public Hearing: Should Connecticut’s Death Penalty Be Eliminated?

Click on link below for details regarding Wednesday's public hearing re The Death Penalty Repeal Bill in Hartford.  I also highly reccomend reading Don Pesci's shoebox full of talkibng points regarding the abolition of the Death Penalty -  all of the posts are excellent.


Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State: Should Connecticut’s Death Penalty Be Eliminated?

Roraback Renews Push for Repeal of Early Release Policy

As much as I obviously disagree with Senator Roraback's stance re the Death Penalty, I truly respect his unwavering commitment and tenacity in refusing to vote for a repeal of the DP, unless a separate bill that gives violent felons early release is withdrawn.  I admire Mr. Roraback for stating the truth about the realities of this early release program and boldly stating that he will not vote for a bill that is in effect telling victims of violent crime and their families, the judicial system lied to you when they gave the person who victimized you their sentence.

Whether that sentence was arrived at via a plea bargain or a jury trial (the latter is much rarer in this state unless it is murder)  the adjudication of any violent crime in Connecticut is extremely time consuming and emotionally draining for victims and/or their families.

Attending on average a years worth of hearings and continuances - this in  cases that are plea bargained, a victim and or their family members must see the person that committed often brutal crimes against them or their loved ones at monthly court appearances  Sticking with the process, cooperating with the prosecutors, despite the  traumatization, the fear and any physical seleleque of the crimes themselves, all takes a great deal of courage:  As such, when a victim of violent crime actually goes through all of this, many times the motive being to spare others from becoming future victims of the defendant, the least the state of Connecticut can do is actually ensure that the convicted offender actually serves whatever sentence he or she receives from the court.  As it is 97 percent of these cases are plea dealed which means that the sentences are lower than they should be to begin with, as plea deals involve lowering certain charges and dismissing/dropping others entirely. This is not done because of any lack of proof or weakness of a case, it is simply done out of course, a quick administrative type of approach to "justice" where compromise is key.

Well that "compromise" compromises the victim of these crimes, as well as future victims by leaving these violent offenders with criminal record's that do not reflect the severity of the crimes that they actually committed. As well the accompanying sentence for a violent crime charge is considerably less for say a class a misdemeanor than it would be for a class d felony, and a drop like this is commonplace in plea deals made by prosecutors every day across this state, worse in courts that reside in city's with high crime.ratios.

Now our Governor wants to make what are already watered down and arduously garnered sentences even lighter. No doubt, like the death penalty repeal, saving money is once again the motivation for this felon - friendly program. While putting price tags on our citizens lives is morally repugnant in and of itself, the fact is that repealing the death penalty and allowing violent offenders out of prison early will not save the state money in the long run. But this is another Post for another day.
Suffice to say that as a survivor of violent crime, I am disgusted by our Governor and his yes-men, both in and out side of the legislature, for trying to slide this dangerous policy past the people of Connecticut.

I am also surprised and disappointed that Senator Roraback would seem to be the only legislator this appalled and this vocal regarding the early release program, especially when considering that a very similar early release parole program contributed to a series of  horrible murders in 2007, each crime committed by questionably paroled repeat offenders. .

I do agree wholeheartedly with Roraback's assertion that  the two bills are inexorably linked and therefore his refusal to vote for a repeal of the death penalty if the early release program is approved -is very sound.  He states rather aptly that he  cannot put his name to repealing the death penalty even though in theory he's opposed to the DP,  when AT THE VERY SAME TIME a separate policy on the table would put our States citizens in clear danger from  this same group of violent felons and would be murderers, as well as betraying the victims of violent crimes and their family's, by cutting down sentences that have already been handed down by Connecticut courts.
Roraback Renews Push for Repeal of Early Release Policy | Capitol Watch

Great Death Penalty article by Lester Jackson

This article was originally posted in the Moral Liberal and has found its way to various other blogs and online publications. It is one of the best I have ever read about the Death Penalty and I've read  more than a few

Considering everything going on right now in our State, I thought that pulling this article from my own blog's archives was most approprate; We find ourselves again embroiled in yet another attempt by our legislators to repeal our State's Death Penalty, despite the fact that poll after poll proves that 70 percent plus want the death penalty to remain a prosecutorial option for the most brutal hienous crime that fit the already long list of aggravating factor" criteria.

The Connecticut legislature decided that the timing was just right for another shot at repealing the DP after a ridiculously protracted and arduous battle to obtain Justice for the Petit family victims and thier loved ones. The Petit victims were violently murdered and some tortured and sexually assaulted by two recently  paroled criminals, one of whom was given less than half of  the prison sentence that thier Judge specifically ordered for him (j. Komisarjevsky- the ringleader) after komisarjevsky was in court for  a string of felonious breaking and entering that landed them in our correctional facilities

How Quickly we forget... which is why time is always, always a friend of the accused. This is an issue that Mr Jackson brings up several times within his essay and one that as victims survivors and family members of victims we know better than anyone how no time boundaries between when a crime is committed and must be adjudicated by, has been deserving victims of violent rime for many years now. We need a handul of legislators who will committ to these isues as well as outside agencies to ensure that our courts parole boards criminal records divisons , probation, et al are in fact smotthly exchanging infomration easily within easy to use databases.

And of course the entire mindset must change.

In the meantime Thank you
Lester Jackson, for being such a devotedadvocate of revamping  our Death Penalty process and well as our entire justice system.

Keep up the good fight..


INTRODUCTION




Days apart in early February, two Connecticut events dramatically highlighted how power-abusing elitists have sabotaged the death penalty. First, in the second protracted Petit robbery-rape-arson-murder case, defense attorneys fired a fusillade of motions to spare the life of a client they proclaimed so dangerous that the “public interest” required him to “never again spend a day in free society (4).” Second, a group of murder victim family members called for death penalty abolition, complaining it inflicted greater suffering on them than murderers. Dr. Gail Canzano asserted: “The death penalty ensnares people in the criminal justice system… result[ing] in … years of suffering … for the families left behind. … [E]very single court appearance re-traumatizes the family….”



This was further vindication of the ruthless strategy of so-called death penalty opponents: protecting barbaric murderers by abusing the legal system to drag out, for decades, cases in which there is no doubt about guilt, torturing victims in the process.



That it was not always this way shows that it does not have to be this way now.



OLD JUSTICE



President William McKinley died on Sept. 14, 1901, eight days after being shot by Leon Czolgosz, who was caught in the act and confessed. On Sept. 23, Czolgosz went on trial and was sentenced to death three days later. He was executed on Oct. 29, 53 days after the crime and 47 after the president’s death.



Unable to get near his first choice (75), President Herbert Hoover, Giuseppe Zangara settled on President-elect Franklin Roosevelt. On Feb. 15, 1933, Zangara’s errant shot hit Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who died on March 6. Caught in the act and having confessed, Zangara was executed on March 20, 1933 after 10 days on death row and 14 days after his victim died.

On July 2, 1881, Charles Guiteau shot President James Garfield, who died on Sept. 19. Immediately caught, Guiteau boasted of his deed. He was placed on trial for murder on Nov. 14 and found guilty on Jan. 25, 1882. After an appeal rejected May 22 and a denied request for an orchestra to play at his hanging, Guiteau was executed on June 30, 1882, nine months after his victim died.



William Kemmler murdered his wife on March 29, 1889 and was sentenced to death 45 days later, May 13. He appealed the new execution method, electrocution, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court May 23, 1890. Even with the aid of high-priced lawyers hired by George Westinghouse, his execution occurred August 6, 1890, 15 months after the murder.



On March 20, 1927, Ruth Snyder, aided by paramour Henry Gray, strangled and bludgeoned her husband to death to collect insurance. In fewer than 10 months, January 12, 1928, they were both executed.





There was never any doubt whatsoever about the guilt in these cases. Justice was done – swiftly. This is now inconceivable, both in unpublicized and high-profile cases. In today’s murderer-friendly, victim-hostile judicial and legislative environment, incontrovertibly and boastfully guilty assassins and other murderers spend years, even decades, on death row – if sentenced to death at all. Consider the following few of limitless examples.



MODERN JUSTICE



On Nov. 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot 45 mostly military people, killing 13 and wounding 32. After 17 months, it remained uncertain whether Hasan would face capital charges or even be court-martialed. Although apprehended in the act of murdering, he is, in today’s argot, still merely an “accused” murderer.



On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, murdering 168 innocent people. He boasted of his guilt. Nevertheless, he was not executed until June 2001. Had he not dropped his appeals, there is no telling how many more years would have elapsed; indeed, he might still be alive after 16 years, which is routine nowadays.



On parole from a sentence for beating a neighbor to death, Robert Alton Harris kidnapped and murdered two boys, one “crouching and screaming,” and “giggled …, saying he had blown … Baker’s arm off. [He] amused himself by imagining be[ing] a police officer … report[ing] the boys’ deaths to their families. … [He] laughed, commented he had really blown the boy’s brains out, and then flicked the bits of flesh into the street.” Executed after “only” 14 years, the New York Times bitterly attacked the Supreme Court’s “Rush to Kill.”



John Jacob Dougan made several tape recordings bragging about the 1974 murder of an 18-year-old boy, which were mailed to the victim’s mother as well as to the media: “He was stabbed in the back, in the chest and the stomach, ah, it was beautiful. You should have seen it. Ah, I enjoyed every minute of it. I loved watching the blood gush from his eyes.” 37 years later, Dougan remains on death row.



Spared a death sentence for murder, this mercy enabled Clarence Ray Allen to communicate with and order associates outside prison to murder witnesses against him. It took another 26 years to execute him.

No ground for delay is too preposterous in today’s courts. So shameless are death penalty opponents that, after being kept alive to have a second bite at the murder apple that cost three more innocent lives, Allen’s lawyers actually argued (n362) he should not be executed because just thinking about the prospect might cause him to have a heart attack. In this vein, two justices have taken seriously the abolitionist demand that any murderer who succeeds in gaming the system for decades should be rewarded for the delay he himself has caused – by voiding his death sentence because execution would be cruel and unusual punishment after so long. In other words, grant mercy to the parent killer on the ground that he is an orphan.



In 1882, Guiteau got nowhere with his demand for an orchestra to accompany his permitted pre-hanging reading of his poetry, which he insisted would be “very effective” with music. Today, when judges take seriously the claim that a brutal murderer should be spared execution because he won a dance contest or would not be a threat in prison because he “only preyed on elderly women,” Guiteau’s demand, alone, would likely be good for a delay of a year or two.



Equally absurd but far more serious is the routine argument that a murderer never intended that anyone be murdered, even when he showed up with a loaded gun and a lethal knife, planned an armed robbery, stabbed his rape victim 53 times (93-4) or smuggled a chest filled with guns into a prison to help two convicted murderers escape. In the Petit case, lawyers argue Joshua Komisarjevsky never intended (3) for anyone to be murdered, but they fail to explain why, if this is so, he deserves an actual life sentence in “the public interest.” (There is evidence, from his own cell phone, that he was an active, willing participant. His partner probably could not have committed the crimes alone, nor even tried.)



Such absurdities help explain why the point has been reached where Virginia is held up as a veritable death penalty paradise (8) by some capital punishment supporters because it can execute the clearly guilty in an average of “only” seven years; and why former Kentucky Chief Justice Lambert conceded that it is “difficult if not impossible” to defend multi-decade cases. But given judicial obtuseness regarding victims, it is, first, vital to stress that these cases further victimize the law-abiding in the name of purported “due process” for the most brutal lawless.



VICTIMIZING VICTIM FAMILIES



Murder victimizes survivors in two ways: (1) the loss and pain of family members and others who care about the homicide victim; and (2) the agony inflicted by the modern travesty of justice system.



To lay persons, this may seem too obvious to mention. But not to many judges. The idea that, on behalf of convicted murderers, the courts cruelly punish murder victim families flies in the face of the denial they are victims at all. In a virtually unreported but highly revealing statement, Justice Stevens calls it a “misnomer” to label as “victims” the family members and others who love and care about murder victims because they are merely “third parties.” Really?! Consider these few examples:



David Brewer raped, strangled and stabbed Sherry Byrne 15 times; he slit her throat. This “ruined the lives of everyone close to her.” Her mother was hospitalized and divorced; her husband, who “wanted to die,” was twice hospitalized for psychiatric care.



One mother stated: “When Shannon died, we died.”



Dr. William Petit considered suicide because he lost: “a wife and two wonderful daughters, where you’re defined by your family. … children are the jewels … all your hopes for the future are in your children… Your wife is your partner, your team-mate … you lose it all.’



It is unlikely that Stevens will descend from his ivory tower to face Diana Harrington, who flatly declared (368-75) herself “a victim” of the brutal murders of her sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew.

Also, Stevens finds it “troubling” (7) to “rouse jurors’ sympathy for the victims and increase jurors’ antipathy for the capital defendants.” Indeed, if some justices (once a majority) had their way, victims’ families would have the courthouse doors slammed in their faces.



Solicitude for murderers and callous unconcern for victims go a long way toward explaining why judges have no qualms inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on the latter.



Justice Ginsburg suffers stress and cries; and Justice Blackmun found executing barbaric criminals “particularly excruciating” (153). Yet one can search in vain for similar expressions by them about victims. Hence, on behalf of those whose guilt is uncontested, these justices often have compounded geometrically the anguish of losing loved ones. That is why family members have said it is they who endure cruel and unusual punishment.



Justice Stevens worried that it might take 11 minutes rather than 7 for a condemned killer to die. But he voted to stay the execution of Earl Wesley Berry to decide only if lethal injection, previously advocated by Stevens as a lethal gas substitute, was inhumane. The justices voting for this stay said nothing about further victimizing the family of Berry’s brutally murdered victim. A local paper called it cruel not to execute Berry: “ironic that a man who beat and stomped to death a woman now hopes the justice system will save him from a death he believes is ‘cruel and inhumane.’” The daughter referred (n319) to suffering caused by “hav[ing] to deal with court proceedings and appeals processes” for two decades.



Although executing the most barbaric murderers causes stress, tears and excruciation for the likes of Ginsburg and Blackmun, they are heedless of the torment expressed by a son 30 years after his father was murdered: “It never ends for families … It’s just not right that it goes on and on.” Having waited 25 years for execution of her family’s murderer, Harrington (367) said the “loss of loved ones is enough agony that one should bear, much less the constant reminders of the criminal’s appeals, protests and constant complaints ….”



Doubly victimized – and Stevens denies they are victims at all!!



Now, judicially, legislatively or both, the Petit survivors are likely to suffer elite contempt for victims.



THE PETIT ROBBERY-RAPE-ARSON-MURDERS



This case has been reported widely, in detail. Briefly, in July 2007, Komisarjevsky and Stephen Hayes broke into the home of Dr. William A. Petit. They forced his wife to withdraw money from a bank, brought her back, tied up, sexually attacked, doused with gasoline and burned alive her and her 11 and 17-year-old daughters. They also attacked Dr. Petit, who survived.



Two points are especially significant.



First, because there is no doubt whatsoever as to guilt of either perpetrator, this case shows clearly how the legal system has been debased into a weapon to torture already victimized loved ones of victims of the clearly guilty. Although Komisarjevsky’s lawyers conceded (4) he is so dangerous that permanent incarceration is required, they sought four months for jury selection alone, followed by two more months before his trial finally begins, while accusing (3) the trial judge of “cringing accommodation to …. speed demanded by the victim….” For his part, the judge pointed out (6): “By the time the jury in this [second] case is impaneled, over four years will have elapsed since the crime.”



Second, most murder victim families and trials receive very little attention; here there has been enormous coverage. However, while the coverage has been unique, the suffering inflicted by the dysfunctional nature of the American “justice” system is not unique at all. Elites – not only judges but elected legislators – have callous contempt for victims, be they publicized or unknown. Prior to signing the highly unpopular Illinois death penalty repeal, Gov. Quinn refused even to meet with the mother of a viciously raped, tortured and murdered girl. Connecticut’s elected governor and legislators strove mightily to show their scorn for democracy generally and Dr. Petit particularly by trying to repeal capital punishment even before Komisarjevsky could be tried. That appears to have been temporarily averted. But those who side with murderers are relentless and promise to come back after the trial, so that the public and Dr. Petit will sooner or later receive their contempt. Repeal is “inevitable,” they promise.



Much delay results from duplicitous abolitionist legislators who seek to deceive the public by voting for popular death penalty legislation only after they insert poison pill provisions to render it ineffective. Such politicians will not fix the system (8) to enable enforcement when their true goal is to make this impossible.



If prominent victims can be tortured, what chance is there for those who suffer unnoticed?



Dr. Petit, his family and friends already have endured not only agony from the barbaric crime, but also from the system. Tragically, this seems likely to continue.



TORTURING THE INNOCENT TO SAVE THE GUILTY



For years, death penalty abolitionists have tried to convince the public that there have been rampant executions of the innocent – even in recent years, with multiple layers of appeals and procedural restrictions. This repeatedly (7-19) has been refuted. In reality, nearly all death penalty litigation lasting decades (374) involves the sentence, not guilt. Even justices who have done the most to undermine capital punishment concede: “a substantial claim of actual innocence [is] extremely rare. … [C]hallenges to … death [sentences] are routinely asserted … [But] …claims of actual innocence are rarely successful.”



Alleged innocence is just a convenient propaganda tool irrelevant to the true objective. Abolitionists do not oppose the death penalty for fear of executing the innocent. They oppose executing the guilty, period. Hence, they fear seeking the truth, lest it limit endless duplicative litigation to drag out any case – regardless of savagery and number of murders committed, recidivism, and overwhelming weight of evidence.



Leading opponent Bryan Stevenson called it “misguided” (25) to focus on the “wrongly convicted.” Carol and Jordan Steiker warned against “too much enthusiasm” for innocence. They cautioned that DNA tests used to attack the death penalty, by claiming “exonerations,” ultimately would provide additional support for and “salvage capital punishment” by establishing guilt conclusively.



So the main weapon is not to claim innocence but to incessantly manipulate the legal system, tying it in knots. Justice Scalia observed (12, 17): “It is just a game, after all.” The name of the game is: delay, delay, delay. When sentence challenges fail, much more delay is caused by litigating execution methods (16-20) for murderers who have inflicted maximum drawn out torture on their victims. As noted, any absurd argument will do.



Endless delays not only cause huge expenditures (not necessarily more than life imprisonment) and strain judicial resources; far worse, as documented above, they further torture already victimized survivors. Opponents thereby seek to compel death penalty supporters to surrender to total abolition. Having grossly abused the system, abolitionists use that very abuse (6) as an argument to end the abuse by ending capital punishment. On March 25, PBS premiered a “documentary,” No Tomorrow, again arguing the death penalty is too costly – based on the case of a brutal triple killer “neither sympathetic nor plausibly innocent”!



Abolitionists will never admit to having anything but compassion for victims, even purporting to act for their benefit. For example, Komisarjevky’s lawyers feigned concern for the Petit family in the very flood of motions attacking that family (e.g. (6), as the “Petit posse”) – contending (3) that not granting a motion would “do a disservice to… the surviving victim and the victims’ loved ones and supporters.” In declaring a 300-pound man’s rape of an 8-year-old girl, requiring painful surgery, insufficiently depraved to warrant the death penalty, a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court claimed (32) to lessen the victim’s ordeal of aiding prosecution – as though she would not have to testify in a non-capital trial!



Gov. Corzine (NJ) said he signed a death penalty repeal to spare loved ones from being “more deeply hurt by long delays and endless appeals….”



Despite this faux concern for victims, those who most stridently oppose the death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment for the guilty have absolutely no compunction about perverting the law to impose such punishment upon the innocent. And so much the better if a public relations coup can be extracted from even a few tortured victims seemingly experiencing Stockholm Syndrome – so that, rather than protesting the abuse inflicted upon them, they submissively join their tormenters to seek abolition of the death penalty on the precise ground that it is cruel and unusual punishment for them instead of convicted murderers.



WAS THE OLD JUSTICE WORSE THAN THE NEW?



“The demands of justice have been satisfied,” began the long July 1, 1882 front-page New York Times report on the Guiteau execution. Today, the same paper deems it injustice to execute even a presidential assassin proud of his deed. Nevertheless, countless polls show the 1882 Times closer to 2011 public values.



Other than abolitionists, few would deny that justice requires not only prevention of convicting the innocent but also protecting the law-abiding and expeditiously meting out punishment deemed just by society (not judges or elite newspapers). Yet, those who now dominate the legal system have no use for an ancient maxim: “justice delayed is justice denied.” For them, justice delayed is justice. However, Chief Justice Burger worried that delay would “drain even a just judgment of its value,” thereby undermining essential public confidence in the courts.



The Sixth Amendment provides: “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.” Decades ago, the Supreme Court held that the right to a public trial is not confined to the accused because the public has a right to be informed. By the same token, if the securing public safety is the first duty of government, justice demands a right to a speedy trial for the public as well as the accused. On its face, it is grievously unjust when, as in the Petit case, it takes more than four years to bring to trial a defendant whose lawyers seek life imprisonment in the “public interest” while complaining about too much speed. Is that what the Constitution’s Framers had in mind? Did their concept of justice intend defendants to have two rights, both to speed and endless delaying tactics subjecting victimized survivors to endless ordeals? Was such cruel punishment of victims “usual” when the Constitution was adopted?



Ironically, it is the innocent who benefit from speed, while interminable delay is the ally of the guilty at the expense of justice for their victims. The examples provided here, both old and new, involve the indisputably guilty. Whatever the claimed defects of the old justice system, today’s safeguards (9-12) make wrongful conviction in capital cases rare at worst, leaving abolitionists in a desperate futile search for an actual execution of an innocent person. By tragic contrast, murders are far from rare: 738,000 homicides in 38 years!



Also far from rare is decades-long litigation aimed, as noted, at saving the guilty, not avoiding conviction of the innocent. The whole purpose of abolitionist tactics is to prevent all executions, using every ludicrous pretext either to void death sentences or keep murderers alive until natural death.



Is it justice when fresh victims are murdered by previously convicted recidivists, causing yet more suffering (3, 10) for loved ones? (The Petit savagery was committed by paroled recidivists.) Is it justice to inflict cruel and unusual punishment on victims in order to enable the barbaric guilty to avoid just punishment?



Surely, there is much to be said for the old legal system. Moreover, by maintaining modern protections for the innocent and abolishing judicial and legislative subterfuges to avoid justly punishing the guilty, a combination of the best of the old and the new can be created.



CONCLUSION: Surrender or Fight?



What can be done about a travesty of justice system declared “impossible to defend” by a state chief justice?



Gail Canzano and Marilyn Flax, quoted at the outset, make clear the choice: Repeal the law or enforce the law. Indefensibly surrender to the indefensible or fight to make the system defensible.



Surrender is especially unjustified because, with great consistency for a very long time, capital punishment has had overwhelming public support, notwithstanding that very many have bought the repeatedly refuted claim that innocents are executed. The only choice is to fight – to fight those fanatically devoted to brutal murderers and unconcerned about victims.



The first step in that fight is to inform the public of the intolerable abuses shown here. The media have egregiously failed. Rectifying that failure is the purpose of this article.



__________________________



Lester Jackson has written articles showing how the media has enabled the Supreme Court to undermine the death penalty. He views mainstream media misrepresentation and suppression of the truth as essential to harmful judicial activism. A former college teacher, he has a Ph.D. in Political Science.



__________________________



Copyright ©: 2011 Lester Jackson, Ph.D.

George Huguely Found Guilty of Murder in the Second degree- Sentence recomendation shows backward thinking re Dating Violence

This crime hits so close to home that I was barely able to glance at
Yeardley Love's autopsy report. Right down to her MRI, the report  so closely parallels injuries inflicted upon me in an eerily similar assault - it all comes rushing back and in the end I am left questioning how I managed to survive and poor Yeardley, did not.

The Jury's decision to convict George Huguely for Murder in the second degree offers little solace, especially considering that one of the original charges was felony murder, (murder committed in the pursuit of a felony ) This would be the theft of Yeardley's computer which contained incriminating threatening e-mails from Huguely saying in part, " I should have killed you" in reference to Yeardley's dating another young man.

For some reason, that email evidence was not allowed to be shown to the Jury and that was a miscarriage of justice:  Those emails showed beyond a doubt MOTIVE and PREMEDITATION.

In the end the Jury decided to convict Huguely of merely two of six charges that the State was seeking.
To make matters worse, after announcing the four not guilty verdicts and the two guilty verdicts,the Jury rather swiftly recomended a twenty six year sentence 25 for the murder and 1 year for the
nded a twenty six year sentence for George Huguley

It should be noted that the two charges that the Jury did find Huguely guilty of, allowed for a sentence of up to sixty years. Clearly this jury didnt feel that Mr Huguley deserved a senetnce that resembled life in prison for taking a life. I have seen far more severe sentences for vehiclar manslaughter. ie accidentally taking a life while driving drunk.

I cannot help but wonder' if Yeardley had not known her attacker, would he have received  the life sentence that he clearly deserves ?  I am certain that at the very least , the sentence would have been far more appropriate than 25 years for a 23 year old. Huguley will still have almost half of his life left when he gets out of prison! This is obscene, and an insult to the victim,  her family and everyone that cared for her.

It almost seems as if society, if  we are to consider this jury a representitive slice, is saying.... "well, we can see how things like this can happen in a relationship, especially with emotionally immature young people and drinking involved...

This is in fact how Huguely's defense attorney depicted this brutal crime: 'a moment of poor judgement by an emotionally immature boy"  This thinking is archaic and the sentence obscenely inappropriate for the violent taking of a life.

Mind you the aforementioned lawyer for Huguley who was in effect saying " boys will be boys .."
is a woman. She was  no doubt  shrewdly chosen for her gender,with her reputation a close second.

I am also bothered by by this Jury's decision to find Huguley not guilty of breaking and entering.
 Although it doesn't carry the biggest of sentences, it is the principal and what that act -and crime - connote
The assertionof power- and control through brute force. The apartment where Miss Love lived was shared by a few fellow female U V. students. The front door was supposedly unlocked, which could have been any of the roommates doing, but Yeardley's bedroom door was locked that night.

This is very telling it speaks of a young woman who was afraid of something. That something was George Huguley. He kicked Yeardley's bedroom door in, proving at once that his intention from the start was violence.

That bedroom was in effect Yeardleys home, her sanctuary, this wasnt the common area's of an apartment shared by others. Huguey had invaded those with probably a minumal look around to ensure noone was around.

My eductated guess is that he'sstalked yerardlyand the apartment, choosing just the right time when noone but Yeardley was home to have his revenge - he did not want witnesses to hear nor see what he was up to.

She locked her door against intruders, and Mr Huguley kicked that door in.  This is breaking and entering. Huguely's hairs were even found in the gaping hole on Yeardley's door.

When I think of this Bully kicking in that door, and Yeardley's shock and fear, I feel an immediate sense of empathy, knowing well what she experienced, as well as an intense anger. My mind skitters to my own assault, where my reaction time was non existent due to surprise, but realizing since that I never should have allowed that space between myself and my attacker to have been crossed. This I learned years subsequent in a good quality self defense class, which included teaching the students to respond defensively even with the "adrenalin dump" that accompanies any real attack.

This class taught me retrospectively how I could have saved myself from incurring life-long injuries and what could have been and should have been death at my assailants hands,.

Knowing how many women and girls are " blitz - attacked" like this, I personally would like to see every young women taught this basic self defense at the earliest possible age. It should be part of a school curriculum, more essential than any sport orr P.E class - While we like to think our children wont ever be faced with such things, statistics say that one of five will and rather than deal with trying to change things at the court level, I suggest as a society we put our efforts into prevention; Self-defense will save lives, as well as change the way our young women of the future think about protecting themselves and living safely and defensively in general.


Yeardley Love died senselessly. She died terrified, surely in pain, from multiple blows from a brain injury inflicted by a young man who had a history of violence. This history included an assault against a Virginia Police woman that resulted in Huguely pleading guilty to resisting arrest in a plea deal. This arrest and  conviction should have resulted in disiplinary action from the School's athletic Department, most likely pulling Huguely from the Lacrosse Team. Despite the incident being public knowledge among teammates and adults on the periphery, no action was taken as the coach's claimed complete ignorance. This undoubtedly added to George Huguley's sense of invincibility and bravado.

Tragically we all learned after her murder that Huguley's history of violence included at least one unreported assault\ against Yeardley herself.

According to a bevy of witnesses after the fact, George Huguley grabbed his then - girlfriend by the neck, choking her in front of an entire party full of students, literally having to be pried off of her by a group of male Lacrosse players who witnessed the attack.

Badly Shaken, Yeardley returned home to distance herself from Huguely immediately after this assault.
This reportedly occurred  months before Huguely murdered her. Tragically, no one reported the incident to police. There is no evidence that Yeardley confided the attack  to her mother, an aunt uncle or perhaps even a counselor of some kind ( Yeardley's dad had sadly died of cancer years before).

Worst of all no one at the party reported the incident which was in fact a  serious crime to Virginia Police, Campus Police, either lacrosse team coach, or any adult at all.

Strangulation is thankfully now considered a felony in most States, as it has finally been recognized as an act of serious violence, and  dangerous batterers and predators will think nothing of grabbing a woman, or girl by her throat.  It is in fact a threat of possible imminent death.  "I can kill you"  they are saying to the victim, " This is how easy it is."  Men that choke are a breed onto themselves, baring a serious instability, volatility and misogyny. The moment this rears it's head is time for the offender to be arrested and put behind bars.

A question we must ask, as a society and individuals is " Why were Yeardley's friends and all of the other young people at this party not aware enough or traumatized enough to report the choking assault?

Was it ignorance? Did they simply did not understand the major red flags that they had just become privy to, as well as the fact that a serious crime had occurred and as witnesses they thus had a responsibility, morally and legally to report it?

Perhaps they felt that this kind of behavior, especially when drinking was involved, was upsetting yes, but just a fluke - the result of  of an extremely passionate couple?!

This is what scares me the most.

In this day and age, our young women and men need to so much more astute and aware of the potential for extreme violence and death, when they see this kind of behavior in any form as part and parcel of a relationship, or any union that has ended recently.

Too often, the violence is behind closed doors, and friends and acquaintances are then shocked when their family member or friend is discovered to have been the victim of ongoing abuse, silently for months, and even years. When a man or a boy actually commits violence in front of witnesses, this is the time to act as a witness, you will quite possibly be saving a life.
 The answer to this epidemic must start with awareness of what abuse is and where it can - and often does, lead in specific terms, as our youth especially suffers from a sense of unrealistic immortality "oh that will never happen to me, that happens to other people..."

But in Yeardley Loves case, as college and college athletics are a highly social atmosphere, the signs were there for many people on the periphery of both Yeardley and Huguely's life, boys and girls and even some adults who needed to step up and get involved, before a life was brutally taken.

None of the dating violence services were apparently used,  although we may never know if Yeardley reached out anonymously to one of the various hot lines or websites for teens and young women in her home town of Baltimore. These services would have surely explained to her that George Huguely's behaviors were not normal nor reflective of  his love. although she felt it difficult to completely break free of him at times, this was part of the abusive cycle, including the " honeymoon phase" that follows an assault, or even threats such as the emails she recieved shortly before her murder.

And that the extra loving and caring attention would soon be followed by a return to the jeolousy and rages which considering the history in this relationship, might result in her being gravely injured or murdered.

There is no doubt in my mind that Yeardley Love was caught in the terrible plight of a battered women's syndrome, and at such a tender age she was even more ill equipped to discern the symptoms of extreme jealousy and possessiveness (which can be mistaken at first by a young girl as intense love) from Socio-pathology. Huguely clearly illustrated that he was a Sociopath when he carefully took the time to unplug and steal Yeardley's computer, after smashing her head into a wall repeatedly,and tossing her face down on her bed, dying from bleeding in her brain stem.

Huguely was aware that Yeardley computer contained threatening emails that he'd written in the days prior to his final murderous act. And he knew that these emails would point Virginia Police straight into his direction as well as serve as hard evidence that he was likely the man who murdered her.

This alone proves that George Huguely was not some panicked young man that accidentally ( isnt it always?) banged his on - again-off again girlfriend's head into a wall, within an " altercation".

Interestingly, this word altercation is an extremely common description of what transpired during partner murders, and severe assaults, especially involving assailants with higher intelligence and articulate personalities. They realize that the word implies an exchange of violence  ie "alter"

The word is chosen most purposefully, as it  intimates that the male assailant was not simply beating upon a much smaller, weaker, lighter person ie a woman, but rather fighting with her, (as huguley tried to claim he "wrestled with his victim" ) taking at least some of the ownice off of himself, if only via the careful use of that word and others: This can actually have a subconscious effect on less savvy Police officers or even Jury members.

As is often the case with what police and FBI call " blitz style attacks" there was no signs of damage to Huguely or defense injuries on poor Yeardley's arms or hands, nor was any skin found beneath her nails. Like me, she probably never saw that first terrible blow coming and was rendered semi- conscious or unconscious immediately, making a perfect rag doll of a victim, even a strong athletic young woman cannot overcome the sudden shocking insult to our brains when so brutally struck against a hard surface.

To this day I myself get angry that I did not fight back during my assault or at least try to block the succession of  blows to my head from my assailant that just never seemed to end.

But the truth was that I couldn't. My brain wasn't fully engaged, it was all I could do to not relent to the darkness that was threatening to envelop me.  I somehow knew that I would not return if I allowed myself to lose consiousness.

Bleeding and bruising in Yeardley Love's brain in the temple areas showed multiple blows to the sides of her head; although those did not kill her, according to the state medical examiner. It was a hard slam or several slams to the back of her head into something hard and immovable, like a wall, that caused bleeding into her brain stem, the area  that controls respiration and heart function.  THIS this is what ultimately killed Yeardley Love.

Huguely's first version of the events that night made to police had zero credibility and only showed the ease with which he lied and his emotional distancing from the fact that he had just taken a life.  Huguley first claimed that he'd only shaken Yeardley during an "altercation" but when he left, she was alive and perfectly "fine"

This story is so ludicrous that it leaves no room for how or why he took Yeardley's computer, left a giant hold in her door where hed kicked it  inif he had not mortally wounded her, why would he be so anxious to remove all evidence of his threats to Yeardley?



Many people on the periphery of Miss Love' Life were privy to previous physical violence committed against
this young girl by George Huguely, including the serious choking incident at a campus party; Not one of the young people who witnessed the assault or pulled Huguely off of Yeardley, reported the crime to anyone. This is unacceptable. It is at these points that a victim's life can be saved. There is a predictable pattern of escalation of violence within such relationships, and it is up to everyone who is aware of threats, physical attacks, or stalking, to report it to Police. No if's ands or but's!

 Seemingly less serious issues within relationships such as extreme jealousy, possessiveness name calling taunting ie emotional abuse, these all need an open forum on every college campus.  This should be readily available for students and trained partner violence/ intimate violence counselors should be part of every schools and peer  on both C,ollege campuses and at the high school level. A deeper awareness & education campaign for all of our young people covering the intricacies of  predators and all of the signs of abuse both within dating relationships and elsewhere-this is where the changes must begin in earnest.

Ramping up our outreach programs and making them as accessible as possible, including informal dialogue sessions about dating behaviors that cue possible future violence, what steps to follow if even seemingly small acts of violence, such as pushing or blocking someone from leaving a room, happen or have happened within a  relationship.

We need mandatory Comprehensive, in depth College  and High School level programs that teach our young women about physical, emotional and sexual violence, be it committed by peers or adults in thier lives. They must grow up fully understanding exactly what it not acceptable and why,  as well  how to get real help, if  they, or a friend has experienced anything from a threat to a full blown assault.


Please Get involved.

R.I.P  Yeardley Love

Connecticut crime lab's accreditation restored...finally.

This is a perfect example of our States terrible marks in it's Criminal/ Judicial system. Once again egos and apathy loom large behind the scenes wherever change or improvement is sought. The crime lab debaucle is but a symptom of an entire state-wide attitude of keeping the status-quo, and dont tell us how to do our jobs.

The only way that change is going to happen is from outside agencies that have power, and even here we see the amount of resistance that just such a powerful agency has run smack into, at a terrible cost to the people of this state. And you'll notice it has not gotten a whole lot of media coverage either, considering the magnitude of a State like Connecticut losing it's crime lab accreditation.

In the meantime...for the most part, the Police keep doing their jobs, putting their lives on the line, getting a first hand view of the carnage, only to see our courts render their hard work moot, as the revolving doors continue to turn for violent offenders and predators.

More on this later..

Connecticut crime lab's accreditation restored- The New Haven Register - Serving New Haven, Connecticut

Joe Biden: Together we must end dating violence

This is an excellent piece by our Vice President, Joe Biden, who is in large part a major founder, author and dogged proponent of the Violence against Woman act  (VAWA) which incidentally needs to be reauthorized by this coming spring. Please visit the NCADV website link on the right to learn if your State Senator has signed the reauthorization bill yet; If not there are form emails on the site to put pressure on the hold outs, Please get involved.

As I've been writing about the Yeardley Love Murder trial in Virginia, the issue of dating violence among teenage and college age girls is heavy on my mind and in my heart.

I agree with Mr. Biden that laws are very important but the essential issue of awareness and involvement, education for our young people, this is going to be where the change is most needed if we are to end this life and death societal epidemic of crime.

Prevention and awareness, literally the entire way we all look at and act upon, any abuse against another human being. Anything.Including a push or a threat.  The involvement and action needs to be made very clear to our youngsters, it  transcends seemingly heroic acts, such as when Yeardley Love was seriously attacked, grabbed by her throat at a party, and other young men at the party stepped in immediately pulling her boyfriend  off of her and protectively  walking her home.

While that was the most basic involvement we need from our young men, more action was necessary and sadly no one at that party informed police or even College Police or any adults. The choking assault happened months and months before George Huegely kicked in Yeardleys off campus bedroom door and murdered her by slamming her head into a wall repeatedly, leaving her unconscious, then grabbing her computer which contained threatening emails from him. He erased the emails and threw her computer in a dumpster and went home, playing Golf the next day.


There is a very well established pattern for men and boys that physically and or sexually abuse - there are classic personality disorders that are usually at the core of the batterer or potential batterer. We need our young people to know and understand  these warning signs of these disorders, as well as the typical evolution that the abusive relationship follows - And it does not usually begin with violence, but rather inordinate amounts of caring and charm which sequeways into possessiveness that might first seem flattering to a girl, who doesn't understand the implications of that excessive jealousy. Especially young women who have self esteem issues who could mistake the jealousy as a sign of extreme love.

These are just some of the things that we need to teach our young people about in depth, inside and out,  if we are to rid ourselves of this social disease that kills and maims so many good human beings, most of them women or girls.

Below is VP Biden's article specifically written for Teen dating violence awareness month:



More than twenty years ago, I read a study of junior high school students in Rhode Island that included one finding I’ve never been able to get out of my head. Students were asked if a man who spent money on a woman during a date was entitled to force her into sexual activity. An astounding 25 percent of the young boys said yes – and even more astounding, 17 percent of the junior high school girls agreed.

You may think that sounds like a long time ago – and it was. But, sadly, dating violence remains a very real problem in our country – especially on college campuses.

My dad used to say that there’s no worse sin than the abuse of power. Whether it was raising a hand to someone weaker, or using any advantage to push people around, he taught me that if you saw abuse, you had an obligation to attempt to stop it. It’s a lesson to remember every day, but especially this February, during Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month.


Awareness is the first step to pushing back against a problem this big. When I held Senate hearings on violence against women more than two decades ago, domestic abuse in American society was rarely spoken about in public. I’ll never forget the stories of abuse I heard in over a thousand hours of hearings. The brutality of family members, acquaintances, and strangers against the women in their lives was absolutely devastating.

It was those hearings that led to the Violence Against Women Act, and since then annual incidents of domestic violence have dropped by more than 50%. But for women in college and younger today, the risk is still much too high.


That’s why I joined with Education Secretary Arne Duncan last April to announce historic new guidelines for colleges and universities about their responsibilities under Title IX to prevent sexual assault. Under the federal civil rights law, schools have an obligation not only to respond appropriately when an assault occurs, but also to create a climate on campus that makes such violence unacceptable.
I also started an initiative called 1is2many to help reduce dating violence and sexual assault among teens and young adults. We harnessed the power of technology to get our message out, launching a national contest to develop “Apps Against Abuse.” The two winning apps – which will be available later this spring – will let you get in touch with your friends quickly and safely so you can call for help if you need it and stop violence in its tracks. We’ve also made sure the National Dating Abuse Helpline can be reached by text, online, or phone 24/7.


Last month, the FBI changed the way the federal government defines rape. The narrow, outdated definition – unchanged since 1929 – said the assault had to be forcible and against a woman’s will to be classified as rape. It’s just not true, and it’s a point that I make on college campuses all across the country. Rape is rape and no means no. No means no whether drunk or sober. No means no whether in the dorm room or on the street. There is never an excuse. Young women and men alike need to understand this. Under the new definition, rape occurs when there is no consent, and it also includes sexual assault against boys and young men in national law enforcement reporting.


These are important changes, but ending dating violence and sexual assault isn’t just a matter of laws and legislation. It’s about education. It’s about attitudes. It’s about your participation. I need your help to address this issue in your dorms and on your campuses. Studies show that men’s ideas about what other men think is one of the strongest determinants of how they act. So guys, you need to speak out.

Today, while in college, nearly one in five women will be a victim of sexual assault and one in ten teens will be hurt on purpose by someone they are dating. These aren’t just statistics, these are people you know: your roommates, your friends, your sisters, your classmates. This is a problem we all have to face.


The ultimate measure of a civilized society is how its laws and culture treat the abuse of women. Attitudes can change. Violence can end. But it can’t happen without universal understanding that dating violence and sexual assault will never be tolerated anywhere, at any time, for any reason. Period. That’s all of our responsibility.



Joe Biden

 Together we must end dating violence UWIRE

George Huguely, suspect in U-Va. murder case, accused of slamming Yeardley Love's head into wall during fight

The brutal murder of this young College Lacrosse player by her ex - boyfriend in 2010  is more than tragic - it is a cautionary tale for all young women and girls of dating ages.

Statistically,it is bears out over and over again, that the period following a break up, separation (or divorce)especially the break- up instigated by the woman, is a dangerous time for any relationship with a partner who has a history of threatening, aggressive or violent behavior.

In this case, George Huguely, the 21 year old ex beau who slammed Yeardley Love's head into a wall multiple times until she died from bruising to her brain, had a history of violence that included several assaults and a serious incident that resulted in arrest with The Virginia Police department over a physical scuffle with a female police officer, which ended with charges of resisting arrest and attacking a police officer.

This is very telling; men that are prone to physically assault women or girls often take particular umbrage to females in positions of power or control, and seeing all of this retrospectively is the true tragedy as it paints such a classic evolution, with signposts everywhere, but no one understood just how dangerous they were.

Particularly tragic in this 2010 case was the fact that many of Miss Loves team mates were apparently aware of a series of threatening emails that Hugely had sent to Yeardley in the days preceding the murder. Some were also aware of a previous attack where Heugley had choked Love at a party resulting in other men present having to physically intervene  in order to pull him off of a gasping Love. This episode caused  Love to break it off and return home to get distance from her clearly mercurial and dangerous ex beau. No one reported the attack to Police, campus police, School staff or Loves family.

The choking attack had occurred months prior to Love's murder and Huegley had tried in typical abuser fashion to apologize profusely and win back his now very wary ex-girlfriend. They dated on and off a short while, but soon enough another incident occurred where Heugly assaulted a boy who he heard had walked love home from a party. That assault also was never reported to campus police or police, although many students and team members were aware of it and the word was that it was an extremely brutal attack on the other young man and Heugly spent months bragging about it to anyone who would listen.

More recently, just  days prior to the murder a scuffle had ensued at Huegley's apartmen between he and Love and it resulted in Yeardley's purse contents being scattered onto the floor at Huguely apartment, resulting in Huegely coming into possession of his once again ex girlfriends cellphone. A friend had to retrive the purse contents for her and yet the phone was "missing"


The common themse running throughout the tragic evolution of this crime is that there were a fair number of friends, teammates and other people in this young girl - and young man's life, that could have and indeed should have intervened - on Yeardley's behalf, perhaps preventing her brutal murder. Police, campus police, College personnel, even her Lacrosse team coach, should have all been made aware of the many instances of violence volatility and the most recent events, including the email threats.

Cyber- stalking and electronic abuse within dating relationships is a growing problem and presents a whole new set of issues for young girls and women in today's world. In this murder, the first thing that Hugely did after smashing Love's head into the wall multiple times and throwing her down on her bed, was to grab her computer which contained the threatening emails that he had been sending her.

This certainly proves that he had a clear presence of mind, he knew that she was dead and he was trying to get rid of evidence that would point to him as the suspect. He later admitted to throwing Loves computer into a dumpster where police soon retrieved it, however, Hugely emails had been "mysteriously" deleted.

This proves an even more sinister post murder clarity where this guy actually went out booted up the computer somewhere, found and deleted his emails from his just slain ex girlfriends computer.

Hugely's lawyer claimed in Court that his client didn't mean to kill Love, that it was a tragic "accident" and would have the Jury believe that Hugely didn't realize Miss Love was dead

However, all evidence disproves any depiction of Hugely as some panicked young kid who accidentally banged his ex-girlfriends head and fled. Hugely had one thing on his mind after he had just taken this girls life - and that was evading arrest and prosecution.

Police managed to procure fragments from the deleted files but not the complete emails, but Fortunately there were multiple witnesses who had seen some of the emails as Yeardley had shown them to various friends and they fortunately testified to the specific threats within the letters.


Every College should have an accessible on campus agency with a protocol for students for dealing with suspicion of dating violence, stalking and/or abusive relationships, and our young people need to be taught just how serious these symptoms are. Sadly University of Virginia learned this lesson that hardest way imaginable and a sweet loving young woman's life was violently extinguished in the process.



George Huguely, suspect in U-Va. murder case, accused of slamming Yeardley Love's head into wall during fight

The “Valentine Against Violence” Campaign « The Pixel Project

This is a great project and a great gift for Valentine's day that's helping an important cause!

The Pixel Project is sponsoring The "Valentine Against Violence Campaign" as a fun, painless and affordable way to raise money and awareness about partner and dating violence.
Check it out at the above link!

Each purchased V-day I-Tunes song comes with an informative tool-kit about Violence against Women, and offers small and large scale ways to get involved.

It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

February is National Teen Dating Awareness Month!-

In order to help our youth understand the warning signs of abusive relationships and how to deal with any dating situation that even seems unhealthy, as adults, we would all do well to get involved!

Follow the link on the NCADV website for ways that we can help our youngsters date and relate with each other safely. Lots of down-loadable information that make great pass-outs at community events and school functions.

Please Let's help extinguish dating and intimate violence from a pro-active and preventive standpoint. My personal desire is that every young girl and young man are taught in depth about the nature of abusive relationships as well as how to keeping safe from adult predators, at the earliest possible age!

We have amassed far too much experience in these areas, lets start really teaching our youth, so that they may be empowered with awareness and knowledge as they embark into their lives!

NYPD Cop from Long Island Shot, miraculously survives and recovering

This story is a bit of a better about a NYPD police officer who was shot on the head while on patrol just days ago, and miraculously, he is cognizant and alert asking for his newborn baby to be brought to him in the hospital!

Doctors are saying that David Brennan, just 29 years old, is doing remarkably well after a life threatening gun injury to the back of his head. The young man was just married last year and his baby girl delivered weeks ago. Family and friends are ecstatic that he not only survived but is so alert and speaking lucidly.

He is having pain naturally, but trying to deal with it with medication and lots of prayers from family, friends and the caring public.

Man Accused Of Hammer Attack To Appear In Court

I am sorry to report that this article in the Courant also centers around an intimate violence crime that happened last month in New Britain Connecticut.

The man who was wanted for attempted murder, multiple felony assault and a slew of other charges, assaulted with a hammer his ex girlfriend, her 16 year old daughter and an 18 year male family friend, who  happened to be at the home, with a hammer.!

The man sustained serious head brain injuries and the two women also sustained serious blunt force trauma from the man beating them with the hammer. All three have had difficult recoveries and continue to need constant medical care. TBI's or traumatic brain injuries are usually permanent, and the results can be devastating to ones daily life.

The charges ranged from attempted murder to assault in the second degree, which I found inappropriate as hitting someone with a hammer should qualify for at the very minimum, assault in the 1st degree ie with a deadly weapon - the hammer.

If not attempted murder for all three victims. It has been my observation that often times police departments are conservative with certain charges in a multiple crime case fearful that just one charge that the court considers inappropriately severe might damage the entire case, or rather damage the chances of obtaining convictions on all of the charges.


I cant say that I am a fan of this practice - it is dangerous in fact as it leaves shorter sentences for crimes of lesser severity than what were actually committed; I am aware of where it stems from and that is the Polices experience with the prosecutorial efforts or lack thereof, and the realistic results of most of the violent crime cases that as first responders, they see the carnage of as opposed to the states attorneys that basically administrate justice in the form of lenient plea deals or even outright dismissals and Nollie's for first second and even third time offenders.


These deals involving no prison time whatsoever are doled out daily in what our states would have us believe are Courts with Domestic Violence specialists. This basically amounts to that particular court having been given grant monies for said domestic violence dockets, grants that were intended to infuse awareness of partner violence and its often life and death consequences, especially if ignored or treated lightly,

In the recent past there have actually been training sessions for Connecticut Police men and women by what amounts to a prosecutorial liaisons that in effect pass on a their own personal brand of misogynistic apathy and frustration for dealing with pardner and domestic violence and thus these police many of them rookies are actually being brainwashed to go easy on the sentencing of anything that can be considered a domestic crime, unless of course three people are almost dead from hammer blows. It is as this point when a weapon is involved and the violence has become life altering and people have been literally maimed that the police at least will take it seriously. It still remains to be seen whether or not the prosecutors handling the crimes will do the same.


My educated guess is that this man who committed these assaults and attempted murders, had a history of arrests, and calls out to the home of former wives and/ or women he was simply dating.

I will also bet that those "brushes" were likely treated lightly in Court, with the man serving no prison time, and quite possibly not even winding up with a criminal record, and or his record ie his convictions if they happened were watered down versions of what he actually committed in terms of severity.

Indeed having a crime like this one, labeled domestic violence does it a distinct disservice, at least in this state, for the victims of these statistically very dangerous crimes.

In this case, this was an ex husband of some duration, who just decided he didn't want his ex wife to be with any man other than him and as such, he would kill or maim her and her new beau, and any innocent other people who happen to be in the house at the time of his attack.

The term domestic violence has become ever widening in this state and this is part of the reason we are seeing this deluge of so called domestic/partner/ex partner crimes. If a woman simply knows the man who assaults or kidnaps her, this crime will likely be placed under the domestic violence docket" which more and more Connecticut courts have installed. And instead of following the national trend, which to take these crimes as seriously or more seriously as their non "domestic counterparts" based upon what this country has learned at both the criminal level the forensic levels and the psycho-social implications connected therein.

Connecticut is actually doing the opposite; there are still too many prosecutors that not only embrace the idea that if an assault is committed by anyone from a boyfriend to a person that a woman once dated or knew, the crimes should be treated more leniently from a sentencing standpoint. They are in fact effectively training our Police professionals to "go easier" with the actual charges that these men are charged with.

There is in fact a completely different scale that exists for a crime committed by someone that a female victim either knows, dated or was married to -  and it is this disparity starting with the very first crimes committed by these men,  treated with veritable slap's on the wrist, that are leading to  escalating violent assaults, and murders by men emboldened by the ease in which they traversed through an apathetic, almost apologetic court system. Case in point this hammer wielding ex boyfriend. This man had a history of assaulting his ex wife and her children. She actuallycommented in a Cournat article about the crimes when they were first committed, warning women everywhere to be on guard agaisnt this charming at first classic predator of women.  When we dig up this mans criminal records I will gurantee that when arrested his crimes were fairly serious and by the time the court was done with him, he did little or no actual time- he probably should have been behind bars in fact making his next crimes imposssible, But alas this rarely if ever happens in Connecticut save a few courts where either a tough judge prevails and controls the sentencing, or the random committed criminal states attorney.


I am certain that he had some kind of police involvement with the woman that he most recently attacked with the hammer along with her teen daughter and a male friend. This all took place at 6: 30 in the morning, when the defendent broke into the home probably hoping to catch the household asleep and off gurad,

These men often have personality disorders to begin with, ie Anti-social PD Narcissistic PD, etc., and the last thing an authority entity such as our Judicial system need do is show these men that there aren't going to be any real consequences unless their victim s is very nearly dead or close to it.

Our State needs to clean up its sentencing issues with all violent crimes NOW. We have an abysmal record for plea dealing Nollie's, A.R's and dismissals in the state of Connecticut. Some Superior courts are admittedly worse and some better than others. But almost without exception, the bulk of the sentencing culpability lies with the prosecutors in these courts as they almost always determine the sentence that an Violent crime offender winds up, care of the Plea deals that they make with  the attorneys for the "defendants".

At a rate of 97 percent of all criminal cases,  the plea deal is Connecticut  adjudication method of choice-and this is actually one of the better outcomes.

Dismissals Nolle's and A.R's ( which equates to a freebie first nolle for crimes as serious as punching a woman full in the face) also occur daily and much more frequently than they should,  leaving men who have committed dangerous violent crimes without criminal records at all or criminal records that do not reflect the actual severity of the crimes theyve committed.

And this doesnt begin to address the sentencing itself. These men, and occasionally women, belong in prison if they have committed a violent crime of any substantiality. We have learned that violent crime and partner crimes such as stalking criminal restraint escalate.


Man Accused Of Hammer Attack To Appear In Court - Hartford Courant