Clarence mcclendon arrested
“Clarence” creator arrested
2024.05.14 09:14 sjsxkksl “Clarence” creator arrested
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2024.05.13 21:11 Hishui21 Retired General McClendon Accused of Sexual Assault of Child Arrested in Sulphur Springs - Ksst Radio
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2024.05.13 00:28 Peacock-Shah-III The Impeachment of Philip La Follette Peacock-Shah Alternate Elections
 | Blind former Senator and presidential nominee Thomas D. Schall, Chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic. submitted by Peacock-Shah-III to Presidentialpoll [link] [comments] COMMITTEE FOR PRESERVATION OF THE REPUBLIC DEMANDS IMPEACHMENT OVER ARRESTS, Howard K. Smith, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, November 17th, 1950 PHILADELPHIA–Former Senator Thomas D. Schall and U.S. Representative Henry S. Breckinridge, Chairmen of the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic, an organization striving to unite opposition to the administration for the 1952 election, issued a formal statement yesterday afternoon endorsing the proposed impeachment of President La Follette on the grounds of the “violation of citizens constitutional rights,” echoing Ben Gitlow’s prior accusation that the President has sought to build “a dictatorship of executive orders.” Centering their call on the arrests of prominent leaders of the opposition, the Committee cited:
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA–Gaston Henry-Haye, French Ambassador to the United States from 1935, testified yesterday to the United States Select Committee to Investigate International Crime chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver (FL-TN) after several prior refusals to appear. The Ambassador testified under oath that he was instructed in 1937 to organize the killing of General Smedley Butler by Secretary of the Treasury Hugh S. Johnson as a means of preventing General Butler from mounting a primary challenge to President Lindbergh in 1940. The Ambassador stated that he is unaware of whether President Lindbergh himself had sanctioned the assassination, but to the sensation of the impeachers, further testified that it was President La Follette who had urged him, and others from within the Administration, to defy the subpoena. The Ambassador’s testimony has buttressed that of Envoy Porfirio Rubirosa, his primary contact in the United States government, detailing an elaborate plot organized through General Raoul Salan involving the blackmail of Butler associate Yvonne Sadoul, whose husband Jacques, imprisoned for communist associations since the beginning of the Petain Regime, was threatened with execution unless Mrs. Sadoul would provide French agents with travel details of General Butler’s tour of Madrid. The Ambassador recounted a phone call from General Salan explaining how Jean Filiol, a member of the Petainist secret police working undercover as an agent of L’Oreal cosmetics, utilized his disguise to lure Butler in for assassination on the pretext of improved makeup for his television appearances. President La Follette has responded by the investigation as a “witch hunt,” denouncing “McCarthyism” and citing the attacks upon economic advisor Leon Keyserling as evidence of the untrustworthiness of Speaker McCarthy. Addressing the possibility of impeachment, President La Follette stated at a press conference last Thursday that “when they go low, we will continue to aim high” as he affirmed his decision to appoint former President Lindbergh to lead the newly founded National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Senator Estes Kefauver interrogates Gaston Henry-Haye on the assassination of Smedley Butler. United States House of Representatives Chamber, July 22nd, 1951 “Stand up, impeachers!” The testimony of Ambassador Henry-Haye had left President La Follette in the crosshairs of Speaker McCarthy and, smelling blood in the water, McCarthy immediately struck for the kill. In typical fashion, the vitriolic Speaker would pillory moderates in a public statement claiming that "you cannot offer friendship to tyrants and murderers without advancing the cause of tyranny and murder” and label Father Charles Coughlin a “subversive” for a radio broadcast on the priest’s weekly program opposed to impeachment. Fearing the possibility of a parry from the executive branch, McCarthy would task Richard Nixon with leading the drafting of articles of impeachment immediately over the last weekend of June. A conciliatory populist on his party’s left ever uncomfortable with Joseph McCarthy’s persona, Eduardo Chibas would ally with the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic to gather support for the impeachment, viewing La Follette as a tyrant. Speaking to the House in a broadcast covered live in Spanish in his native Caribbean, as Nixon and counsel Roy Cohn poured over treatises on constitutional law, Chibas would cite the arrest of Gitlow to declare that “the American people have been disgraced because power has won out over shame.” Three articles would be drafted within days for presentation to the House of Representatives, millions of Americans listening over the radio as the “voice of impeachment,” the voice of Nixon, presented them to Congress and the nation. Article I: Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Philip F. La Follette, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposes of these agencies. Article II: Without lawful cause or excuse, President La Follette directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas. President La Follette thus interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the “sole Power of Impeachment” vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives. Article III: That said President La Follette, unmindful of the high duties of his office, and of his oath of office, in the year of our Lord, 1951, at Washington in the District of Columbia, unlawfully conspired with Charles A. Lindbergh, Secretary of the Air Force, to obstruct a lawful investigation by the United States Select Committee to Investigate International Crime. Finally, echoing from the radios of the presidentially loyal Blackshirts mulling around the capitol building to millions of kitchen tables, Nixon’s voice thundered with the impeachment’s most famous line: “Stand up, impeachers!” A few enthusiastic young representatives like Mississippi’s Rubel Phillips, New Jersey’s Millicent Fenwick, and Massachusetts’s Henry Cabot Lodge would be the first to their feet, jumping to attention within seconds as their hands clutched railings or rose in salutes to the American flag. Within seconds, dozens more would begin to stand, socialist Norman Thomas alongside libertarian Suzanne La Follette as disabled Nebraskan Bob Dole used his good arm to carry paraplegic Michigander Harry Kelly and heed Nixon’s call. Surveying the chamber, one thing was clear: impeachment had a majority. The impeachers standing in victory, the tension of the vote would dissipate for the moment against the certainty of the result, with the most popular of the articles, the first, peaking at 291 votes for and a mere 178 against. In an attempt to conciliate the disparate factions of the opposition, the tapestry of impeachment managers would run the gamut. Leading them, naturally, would be the “voice of impeachment,” Richard Nixon, with Progressive-Federalists also contributing aging former Judge John J. Parker of North Carolina, fiery Mississipian Rubel Phillips, irascible former prosecutor Harold Stassen of Minnesota, and Linwood Holton of Virginia, while veteran old lawyers Henry S. Breckinridge and Jouette Shouse would comprise the Liberty League contingent and McCarthyite conservative Thomas H. Werdel of California and socialist New Yorker Jacob Panken would represent the divisions within the Farmer-Labor opposition itself. For the first time in American history, the President had been impeached. In an advertisement purchased by the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic, Richard Nixon argues the case for impeachment in the court of public opinion. MCCARTHY RESIGNS AS SPEAKER AFTER NEW WAVE OF OPPOSITION ARRESTS, Joseph Alsop, The Saturday Evening Post, August 14th, 1951 GRAND CHUTE, WISCONSIN–Speaker of the House Joseph McCarthy has formally resigned his office after being apprehended by state police this week at his Wisconsin home, where the nation’s most impressive demagogue was charged with sodomy in connection to his frequent attendance at the White Horse Inn, a known place of rendezvous for Milwaukee homosexuals. While initially vowing to hold onto his office and resist what he has dubbed “libel,” the loss of support from California’s young Richard Nixon signaled failure in an upcoming motion to vacate and is credited with triggering his resignation. McCarthy has accused the police investigation of having been under the influence of the La Follette family, all powerful in Wisconsin, while others cite as precedent the harassment of David I. Walsh for his homosexuality by President Luce that famously destroyed the Massachusetts’ Senator’s political career. However, like Walsh, many speculate that McCarthy may seek the presidency following his expected six month prison sentence. In addition to McCarthy, the past two weeks has seen the arrest of several other notables who favored the President’s impeachment including, on charges of accepting kickbacks, J. Parnell Thomas (F-NJ), the irascible Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities who famously called for an end to theater funding on the grounds that such constituted presidential propaganda; on charges of payroll fraud, Ernest K. Bramblett (P-CA); and Walter E. Brehm (P-OH) on charges of fraud. The arrests, however, seem to have galvanized the opposition, and this columnist’s opinion is that an outcome of removal is nearly certain. Turncoat counsel Roy Cohn. The Trial of the Century? With Joseph McCarthy behind bars, President La Follette’s allies would fundraise for their leader’s defense, shocking the public by recruiting for the defense team the former counsel to the impeachers themselves: Roy Cohn. Brought in with a paycheck rumored to be over a million dollars, Cohn’s vicious persistence would be tampered by his insistence that La Follette supporters not engage in threats, arguing that doing so would alienate moderates. Cohn would be joined by another young lawyer, the son of a major Liberty League donor who had recently turned for La Follette and a friend of Vice President Musmanno’s: Robert F. Kennedy. In another attempt to appeal across the aisle, elite lawyer Clark Clifford would lead the defense, utilizing decades worth of Washington connections. Meanwhile, the President would use intermediaries such as General Trades Union President George Meany to appeal to liberal Senators such as Hubert Humphrey, arguing that, regarding the first article, the executive orders represented the nation’s best path to universal healthcare. As Nixon and his cadre perorated eloquently on the values of democracy, Cohn, Clifford, and Kennedy would attempt to constrain the case to the bare intricacies of legal detail, avoiding grand speeches and matters of philosophy to argue narrowly for a decision to acquit. They would find sympathy in Chief Justice Hugo Black, as the former Commandant of the Blackshirts presided over the trial with a consistent willingness to defer to the requests of the defense on matters such as the rules of evidence. Their narrow arguments would target those fundamentally uncomfortable with the nation of a presidential removal as they sought to boil the decision to one of legal nuances rather than the nature of the republic. With the President attempting to behave above the fray and portray himself as the statesman of the national revival to win the peace, his brother Bob Jr. would reluctantly join Clarence Dill in taking the lead in attempting to secure his acquittal. As journalist Herb Klein would report, the siblings’ relationship had been plagued by a growing chasm between the siblings, with Bob feeling his brother had gone too far. Yet, Bob, through private conversations as he insisted that the listener forget he was Majority Leader of the United States Senate, that a return to normalcy would be impossible if the drastic step of presidential removal was taken. Bob would seek to obtain promises from his brother that the presidency would step back if acquitted, removing Lindbergh from power and pausing the implementation of executive orders. Central to the Wisconsin Senator’s mission of convincing would be Vice President Michael A. Musmanno. Slated for the presidency if La Follette were to be removed, Musmanno would portray himself as twice as radical. Speaking to a crowd of supporters in New York City, the Vice President would argue that Phil had “awoken in America a renaissance, a spirit to dare and accomplish that it has not known in decades,” Musmanno would claim that he heard the voice of god while praying at Mount St. Peter Church in his native Pennsylvania, instructing him to lead “the heroic work of the Blackshirts in their purification of American soil.” Musmanno would argue that “patriotic young men” required no warrants to raid the disloyal opposition, leading Bob Jr. to privately declare the Vice President “a dangerous man” who must not be let into the presidency, even momentarily, by a verdict of removal. As Richard Nixon’s closing arguments to implored the men of the body once labeled “the most exclusive club in the world” to “follow the bloody tracks of treason,” Bob Jr. and Dill would arrange for printed copies of Musmanno’s remarks to be spread, continuing to build the argument that a continuing La Follette presidency was the safer option for democracy even as Jacob Panken dismissively reminded the legislators-turned-jurors that the Senate could remove a vice president as well. The President would appeal to Alabama’s Jim Folsom, reminding him of the federal government’s long disassociation with Alabama affairs and promising the reconciliation of Folsom on patronage affairs. Meanwhile, letters from Progressive National Committee Chairman Osro Cobb would promise Henry Bone and Sid McMath bipartisan support in a re-election bid to counter the opposition of the President. Thus, as the day of the decision approached, the final decision would come down to wily Massachusetts’ independent J. Michael Curley, New Mexico Liberty Leaguer Henry F. Ashurst, Alabama reformer Jim Folsom, Georgia liberal Ellis Arnall, Arkansas’s Sid McMath, Nevada Landonite Walter Baring, and the Midwestern progressive Farmer-Laborite of Hubert Humphrey. Former Postmaster General Thomas Duncan would appeal on behalf of La Follette, reminding men such as Curley and Folsom of the looming ability of the administration to pursue the ever present corruption allegations surrounding both. The radical antics of Vice President Michael A. Musmanno would turn several Senators against impeachment. With 66 votes, the unthinkable would be put to action, and the President of the United States removed. 29 votes had been promised against removal, 63 for, as the nation’s eyes turned to the 7 in waiting. As each awaited the call of the Senate clerk to announce their votes, their thoughts on deciding the future undoubtedly raced to the past. 29 votes for acquittal. 63 votes for removal. Walter Baring had been implored time and time again by Alf Landon to vote for impeachment, arguing that La Follette had the destruction of the Farmer-Labor right in mind. Baring had seen his ally Lister Hill driven from power as Speaker of the House for crossing the President, and he saw his chance to strike vengeance. 29 votes for acquittal. 63 votes for removal. Henry F. Ashurst had been a friend of the La Follettes since the 1890s. He had visited Fighting Bob and spoken on his behalf as a Liberal when Aaron Burr Houston sought to destroy his support. He had watched Phil grow up, held the toddler in his arms that now sat in the White House. Michael Musmanno, to Senator Ashurst, was an ever unknown quantity. Bob had warned him of the danger of unknown quantities, and Phil, for all that Ashurst abhorred, was known. He would defeat the President at the ballot box, but he would not defy him now. 30 votes for acquittal. 63 votes for removal. His commanding officer in the Third Pacific War, General David Shoup, visited Sid McMath the night before the vote. Shoup had pointed with abhorrence to the to the two million Japanese civilians left dead after the atomic bombings. Shoup’s words, utterances that had once been orders in their days in the Marines, echoed in McMath’s head; “All I can say is, any man that murders two million Japanese, when it might not even be their war, is not a good man. That is not the American way.” 30 votes for acquittal. 64 votes for removal. Ellis Arnall had gotten a very different visit, a delegation of prominent state businessmen, the very men that had funded his campaign, promising desertion of not merely himself, but the state of Georgia, with a vote for acquittal. He thought of Vice President Musmanno’s words and reassured himself that democracy could be saved. 31 votes for acquittal. 64 votes for removal. “His name is Musmanno, but we call him Curly after you.” The family’s words as they held his young namesake stuck with J. Michael Curley. The working Irish and Italians of Boston and Worcester had two heroes: Michael A. Musmanno and him. He had defied the brahmins of Boston and Harvard, worn powdered wigs to their events to mock them gaily as he rose to absolute power in the city on the back of Revolutionary era redbaiting. Curley had been in the circles of power for a half century, but even in the twilight of his life, he hated men like Phil, born with a silver spoon. His place was among the ward bosses and the machines of politics, and he distrusted the tacit offerings of favors from Thomas Duncan, the implication that the prosecutors already hot on his tail for kickbacks, fraud, and graft might reconsider with a vote for acquittal. Already in 1946 when La Follette first was elected had he served his last prison term, a matter of months then, but he knew the road was coming to an end for him. Michael Curley had never denied being corrupt, but he would take the President down with him. 31 votes for acquittal. 65 votes for removal. Jim Folsom had never lived in a democracy. Born under the reign of Milford W. Howard, he had seen his state grow beyond his wildest dreams, never realizing that he would one day govern it. He had, after all, been rejected by the voters as the reform governor, yet his machine persisted, even as the President sought to crush it. Big Jim had never seen himself in the Governor’s chair until it happened, but Senator Jim looked across the Capitol to that glimmering White House and knew that, within the Farmer-Labor Party, he would never have a way in if he turned against their standard bearer. 32 votes for acquittal. 65 votes for removal. Hubert Humphrey was a pharmacist, not a lawyer. He had swept into office in 1942 on the back of the Luce Administration’s antagonism towards the very Thomas Schall who now led the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic, fully holding that “the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.” Humphrey had followed John L. Lewis in 1948, he had stood against Phil and nearly lost his career for it in 1950. Yet, the piercing arguments of Kennedy and Cohn remained alongside the nature of the impeachment. The reforms he had spent his life fighting for were finding their baptism in fire through the President’s executive orders. Bob, who had guided him when he entered the Senate and, in that friendly manner that made Bob the consummate politician his brother never was, continually checked in on him, had begged him to vote for stability, had used the forbidden word “civil war,” had pointed to the Blackshirts mulling beyond the armed security, and told him that Musmanno would be the Augustus to his brother’s Caesar. 33 votes for acquittal, 65 votes for removal. Shouts from the gallery, journalists rushing out to announce the story as telephone and telegraph lines competed to relay the news first. The presidency of Philip F. La Follette would live to fight another day. The last photo of Eduardo Chibas. The Final Radio Broadcast of Eduardo Chibas, October 27, 1951 “My words last Sunday did not have the resonance the very serious situation demanded. America needs to wake up. But my wakeup call perhaps was not strong enough. America has a great destiny reserved in history. The happy coincidence of natural factors so favorable for a great destiny, together with the high quality of our people, awaits only the honest and capable endeavor of a team of government ready to perform its historical task. Such a team is not the present administration, corrupted to the core and disguised with new ways to cover up its shamelessness. Neither the false opposition of Batista who encourages the return of the militias with the cunning assistance of international communism; nor the scornful group of followers of Admiral Byrd. The only group of government capable of saving America is the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic with their anti-pact platform of political independence that accepts no transactions or settlements. Come on compañeros! For economic independence, political freedom and social justice! Let's get rid of the thieves in the government! People of America, stand up and march! People of America, wake up! This is the final wakeup call!” Other voices cut into the broadcast as chaos traveled over the airwaves. "Tiene una pistola!” “Párenlo! Estas loco?” Millions of Americans widened their eyes as a crash ensued over the radio. Eduardo Chibas had breathed his last. Has American democracy? |
2024.05.10 02:00 yinyanghapa Blue states will not be safe from a Trump presidency
There is no safe haven from Trump and Republicans in America if he becomes president. Trump can use the Insurrection Act to gain powers to send and deputize red state national guard troops and send them to blue states. Along with his intentions to send in soldiers to deal with the supposed crime problems in blue state cities, it can be used as a pretext to occupy blue states. As someone who has shown autocratic intentions, one can’t rule out that he will go after the left in the same way that dictators in other countries have gone against political enemies.
The potential impact of Trump’s extreme deportation and immigration agenda
Stephen Miller is quoted as saying at 1:02 of the PBS video linked above:
"Then, in terms of personnel, you go to the red state governors and you say, give us your National Guard. We will deputize them as immigration enforcement officers. The Alabama National Guard is going to arrest illegal aliens in Alabama and the Virginia National Guard in Virginia.
And if you're going to go into an unfriendly state like Maryland, well, there would just be Virginia doing the arrest in Maryland right, very close, very nearby."
Starting at 2:06 on the PBS Video linked above, Joseph Nunn, a legal expert on U.S. military activites domestically and is from the Brennan Center for Justice, has said that this is legal:
"Donald Trump's proposal to send the National Guard from red states into blue states in order to enforce this deportation program could only be accomplished through invoking the Insurrection Act."..."But the Insurrection Act makes the president the sole judge of whether a given situation warrants invoking the act. In other words, an insurrection is whatever the president says is an insurrection. That's why it's so important for Congress to reform the Insurrection Act to put in place safeguards against abuse, because, as things stand, there are quite literally no guardrails."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-war-on-blue-america/ar-AA1l8LbB
"Even more dramatic are Trump’s open pledges to launch militarized law-enforcement campaigns inside blue cities. He has proposed initiatives that cumulatively could create an occupying federal force in the nation’s largest cities. Trump has indicated that “in cities where there’s been a complete breakdown of public safety, I will send in federal assets, including the National Guard, until law and order is restored.”"
With a Supreme Court friendly enough to Trump that they are in the back pocket of one of the biggest sponsors of Project 2025, they will allow Trump to run roughshod over blue states anyway.
https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority
"If Americans had heard of Leo at all, it was for his role in building the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court. He drew up the lists of potential justices that Donald Trump released during the 2016 campaign. He advised Trump on the nominations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Before that, he’d helped pick or confirm the court’s three other conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito."
Leonard Leo, Koch networks pour millions into groups prepping for potential second Trump administration
"Since 2021, Leo’s network and groups that have gotten funding from it have funneled over $50.7 million to the groups advising the 2025 Presidential Transition Project as part of its “Project 2025 advisory board,” according to tax documents reviewed as part of the analysis by Accountable.US, a progressive advocacy group. That sum includes donations from The 85 Fund, a donor-advised nonprofit group that funnels money from wealthy financiers to other groups, and the Concord Fund, a public-facing organization, which are part of Leo's network of organizations that seek to influence policy."
submitted by yinyanghapa to Discussion [link] [comments]
The potential impact of Trump’s extreme deportation and immigration agenda
Stephen Miller is quoted as saying at 1:02 of the PBS video linked above:
"Then, in terms of personnel, you go to the red state governors and you say, give us your National Guard. We will deputize them as immigration enforcement officers. The Alabama National Guard is going to arrest illegal aliens in Alabama and the Virginia National Guard in Virginia.
And if you're going to go into an unfriendly state like Maryland, well, there would just be Virginia doing the arrest in Maryland right, very close, very nearby."
Starting at 2:06 on the PBS Video linked above, Joseph Nunn, a legal expert on U.S. military activites domestically and is from the Brennan Center for Justice, has said that this is legal:
"Donald Trump's proposal to send the National Guard from red states into blue states in order to enforce this deportation program could only be accomplished through invoking the Insurrection Act."..."But the Insurrection Act makes the president the sole judge of whether a given situation warrants invoking the act. In other words, an insurrection is whatever the president says is an insurrection. That's why it's so important for Congress to reform the Insurrection Act to put in place safeguards against abuse, because, as things stand, there are quite literally no guardrails."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-war-on-blue-america/ar-AA1l8LbB
"Even more dramatic are Trump’s open pledges to launch militarized law-enforcement campaigns inside blue cities. He has proposed initiatives that cumulatively could create an occupying federal force in the nation’s largest cities. Trump has indicated that “in cities where there’s been a complete breakdown of public safety, I will send in federal assets, including the National Guard, until law and order is restored.”"
With a Supreme Court friendly enough to Trump that they are in the back pocket of one of the biggest sponsors of Project 2025, they will allow Trump to run roughshod over blue states anyway.
https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority
"If Americans had heard of Leo at all, it was for his role in building the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court. He drew up the lists of potential justices that Donald Trump released during the 2016 campaign. He advised Trump on the nominations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Before that, he’d helped pick or confirm the court’s three other conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito."
Leonard Leo, Koch networks pour millions into groups prepping for potential second Trump administration
"Since 2021, Leo’s network and groups that have gotten funding from it have funneled over $50.7 million to the groups advising the 2025 Presidential Transition Project as part of its “Project 2025 advisory board,” according to tax documents reviewed as part of the analysis by Accountable.US, a progressive advocacy group. That sum includes donations from The 85 Fund, a donor-advised nonprofit group that funnels money from wealthy financiers to other groups, and the Concord Fund, a public-facing organization, which are part of Leo's network of organizations that seek to influence policy."
2024.05.06 17:05 Ma_name_a_zeebus Razor's cowardly ass won't last a day in the Carbon Canyon hood.
 | submitted by Ma_name_a_zeebus to needforspeed [link] [comments] |
2024.05.06 15:33 Leather_Focus_6535 The 113 inmates executed by Virginia in the post Furman era and their crimes (warning, graphic content, please read at your own risk) [part 2, cases 59-113]
This is part 2 of my list for Virginia's post Furman execution roster. As mentioned in part 1's opening paragraph, character count limitations forced me into splitting my Virginia's execution roster into two separate posts. For the link to part 1, please click here.
59. Kevin Cardwell (1991-1998, lethal injection): Cardwell intercepted Anthony Brown, a 15 year old drug carrier, while he was at a bus stop. He lured Brown into his apartment and searched his belongings for any drugs. Brown was then dragged into the woods, shot to death, and stripped of the cocaine strapped to his legs.
60. Mark Sheppard (~1980s-1999, lethal injection): Sheppard and his accomplice Andre Graham were invited by their dealers, 40 year old Richard and 35 year old Rebecca Rosenbluth, over to their home to buy cocaine. However, an argument broke out during the transaction, and Sheppard shot the couple to death. The pair then drove away from the scene with the couple's car and a few undisclosed stolen items. Sheppard had a long history of violence that dated back to when he was 9 years old.
61. Tony Fry (1994-1999, lethal injection): Fry and his partner shot Leeland Jacobs, a 42 year old car salesman, while robbing his Ford Dealership. The pair tied Jacobs to a car they stole while he was still alive, and dragged him to death.
62. George Quesinberry Jr. (1989-1999, lethal injection): Quesinberry shot 63 year old Thomas Haynes while breaking into his office with an accomplice. When Haynes survived the initial shooting, Quesinberry hit him in the head with the gun and fractured his skull. The pair stole a total of $200 in the robbery.
63. David Fisher (~1970s(?)-1999, lethal injection): Fisher was paid $7,000 by an associate to kill 18 year old David Wilkey in retaliation for abandoning a murder scheme. Originally, Wilkey was part of a conspiracy to seduce and marry a young woman in order to kill her for an insurance policy, but backed out when he genuinely fell in love with the would be victim. He was tricked into going on a hunting trip with Fisher and shot to death by him. Fisher had 25 previous criminal convictions and was involved with organized crime. He was in the witness protection program at the time of Wilkey’s murder.
64. Carl Chichester (1991-1999, lethal injection): During a holdup of a Little Caesars, Chichester shot and killed the manager, 30 year old Timothy Rigney, for refusing to open the cash register. He and his two accomplices ran off with a total of $110.
65. Arthur Jenkins III (1991-1999, lethal injection): Jenkins and his teenage brother shot and killed their uncle, 72 year old Floyd, and their uncle's friend, 69 year old Lee Brinklow. They then stole their wallets and sacked Floyd's home for any money and valuables.
66. Eric Payne (~1980s-1999, lethal injection): Payne broke into the residences of two women, 61 year old Ruth Parham and 57 year old Sally Fazio, and raped them. Both women were beaten to death with a hammer, and he took money from their drawers and pocket books. He had a history of drug possessions and exposing himself to women.
67. Ronald Yeatts (1989-1999, lethal injection): Yeatts and an accomplice invaded 70 year old Ruby Dodson's home and stabbed her to death. The pair grabbed her purse during the burglary and divided up the money they found in it.
68. Tommy Strickler (1989-1999, lethal injection): Strickler and his partner kidnapped 19 year old Leann Whitlock from a mall and crushed her head with a 70 pound boulder. Whitlock's car and credit cards were stolen during the attack.
69. Marlon Williams (~1980s(?)-1999, lethal injection): Williams was paid $4,000 to murder 44 year old Helen Bedsole by his dealer, who was also her estranged husband. The couple were in the midst of a bitter divorce at the time, and the dealer wanted to both collect a life insurance policy and prevent Helen from dividing up their assets. He suck into the couple’s home, and shot and killed Helen in the kitchen. Williams had an extensive criminal history, which included cutting the throat of his ex girlfriend’s grandmother, 71 year old Virgina Parker, during a bungled attempt on her life.
70. Everett Mueller (1990-1999, lethal injection): 10 year old Charity Powers was dropped off at a skating ring by her mother. She was supposed to be picked up by her mother's friend, but they didn't show up due to failing asleep in their home. While Powers was waiting outside the ring in vain for her ride, she was abducted by Mueller. He raped the girl, slashed her throat, and dumped the body in a nearby forest.
71. Jason Joseph (1992-1999, lethal injection): While robbing a Subway with an accomplice, Joseph shot and killed one of the clerks, 22 year old Jeffrey Anderson.
72. Thomas Royal Jr. (~1991-1999, lethal injection): Royal and 3 other gang members fatally shot a police officer, 29 year old Kenneth Wallace, while he was sitting in his patrol car. Wallace was killed as part of the gang's campaign to target law enforcement agents. Royal and his fellow gang members were also suspected in the shooting of James Smith Jr. (age unknown), a Vietnam veteran, outside his trailer, but the charges were dropped from the lack of sufficient evidence.
73. Andre Graham (~1993-1999, lethal injection): Graham assisted the above mentioned Mark Sheppard in the Rosenbluth murders. He also shot and killed a waitress, 20 year old Sheryl Stack, and injured a 23 year old man while robbing a restaurant on his own, and is suspected in a total of 10 murders.
74. Douglas Thomas (1990-2000, lethal injection): The parents of Thomas' 14 year old girlfriend, 33 year old James and 33 year Kathy Wiseman, barred her from seeing him. In a bid to continue their relationship, Thomas and his girlfriend shot them to death in their home.
75. Steve Roach (1993-2000, lethal injection): Roach shot and killed 70 year old Mary Hughes on her doorstep and stole her credit card. He was caught on tape trying to use Hughes' stolen cards to pull money out of an ATM machine in North Carolina.
76. Lonnie Weeks Jr. (1993-2000, lethal injection): Weeks was pulled over by a state trooper, 50 year old Jose Cavazos, for speeding while driving a stolen car. In the confrontation that followed, he shot Cavazos dead after climbing out of the car, and fled the scene. He was captured hiding in a nearby motel after an hour long manhunt.
77. Michael Clagett (1994-2000, electric chair): Clagett's girlfriend was fired from her job as a hotel waitress by the management, and the couple decided to retaliate by robing the establishment. They shot and killed the owner Lam Van Son, a 41 year old Vietnamese refugee, a waitress, 31 year old Karen Rounds, two other employees, 31 year old Karen Rounds and 32 year old Wendell Parish Jr., and a customer Abdelaziz Gren, a 34 year old Moroccan immigrant, and took $400 in cash from the register. Van Son’s 3 year old son was sleeping in the backroom during the attack, but the couple left him unharmed.
78. Russel Burket (1993-2000, lethal injection): Burket snuck into the home of 30 year old Katherine Tafelski while her Navy SEALs husband was deployed overseas, and sexually assaulted her. Katherine and her 5 year old daughter Ashley were both beaten to death with a "rusty" crowbar.
79. Derek Barnabei (1993-2000, lethal injection): Barnabei seduced a fellow Old Dominion University student, 17 year old Sarah Wisnosky, into a relationship with him and kidnapped her. She was raped, partially strangled, beaten to death with a hammer, and dumped into a river near campus grounds. Due to him being of Italian ancestry, his death sentence and execution sparked outrage in Italy.
80. Bobby Ramdass (1992-2000, lethal injection): Ramdass was condemned for the shooting death of Mohammed Kayani, a 34 year old Pakistani immigrant working as a clerk, during a convenience store robbery. He also shot dead 19 year old Darrell Ferguson in an alley and wounded a cab driver in other robberies.
81. Christopher Goins (1994-2000, lethal injection): Goins broke into the home of his 14 year old girlfriend (who was 7 months pregnant with his child). He shot and killed her parents, 35 year old James and 29 year old Daphne Jones, and her siblings, 9 year old Nicole and 4 year old David. The girlfriend and her youngest sibling, 21 month old Kenya, were also shot in the attack. Both of them survived, but the unborn child was lost in the shooting.
82. Thomas Akers (1998-2001, lethal injection): Akers and his accomplice were driving with their friend, 24 year old Wesley Smith. When they pulled over on a road to urinate, they pounced on Smith. In the attack, he was strangled with a belt and beaten to death with a baseball bat. They pair then grabbed $200 from his wallet and dumped his body in a creek. While on death row, Akers demanded his execution and made threats against the judge who sentenced him if it wasn't carried out.
83. Christopher Beck (1995-2001, lethal injection): Out of anger for being fired, Beck invaded the house of his former employer, 52 year old William Miller. He waited for him and his two roommates, 54 year old Florence Marks and 34 year old David Kaplan, to return home and shot and stabbed them all to death. Marks was also raped in the attack. Although Beck claimed that he "only" staged a sexual assault on her, a medical examination confirmed that she was abused in that manner. Beck stole several guns, bicycles, and money in the robbery.
84. James Patterson (1987-2002, lethal injection): Patterson held his friend's mother, 56 year old Joyce Aldridge, in her home at knifepoint. Enraged that she only had a few coins in her purse, he raped Aldridge, stabbed her 3 times, and left her to die. When Aldridge managed to crawl to a phone to call her son for help, Patterson returned and stabbed her 14 more times. Although Aldridge's murder was left unsolved for years, Patterson was later imprisoned for raping an 18 year old girl, and DNA found at the murder was traced to his samples filed in the inmate database in 2000.
85. Daniel Zirkle (1999-2002, lethal injection): Zirkle's girlfriend broke off their relationship due to his violent behavior and filed protective orders against him. He was arrested for violating them and sentenced to a few months in jail. After his release, Zirkle went to his ex girlfriend's home without her permission to visit their daughter, 4 year old Christina. However, the ex girlfriend's other daughter, 14 year old Jessica Shifflett, blocked him from coming inside. He stabbed her to death and kidnapped Christina. He then drove Christina to the George Washington National Forest, slit her throat, and stabbed himself in a failed suicide attempt.
86. Walter Mickens Jr. (~1974-2002, lethal injection): Mickens ambushed and sodomized 17 year old Timothy Hall, and stabbed him 143 times. He stripped the boy of nearly all of his clothing, and left him to die in an abandoned apartment. A long time sexual predator and career criminal, Mickens had several robbery and sodomy convictions dating back to the 70s. One of his previous incidents involved breaking into an elementary school, and coercing a teacher of her purse by threatening the life of a 7 year old student. He also had a conviction for sexually assaulting a cellmate.
87. Aimal Kasi (1993-2002, lethal injection): In his efforts to fight against American foreign policy regarding Islamic nations, Kasi attacked the Langley CIA headquarters with a Type 56 assault rifle. He shot dead 2 CIA employees, 66 year old Lansing Bennett and 28 year old Frank Darling, and wounded 3 others. Kasi then fled to Afghanistan, but was lured into his native Pakistan to be captured in a joint FBI-CIA led operation, and extradited back to the United States to face trial.
88. Earl Bramblett (~1970s(?)-2003, electric chair): Bramblett had molested 11 year old Winter Hodges and feared that her parents, 41 year old William and 37 year old Teresa, were planning on reporting him to the police. In an attempt to prevent that from happening, he attacked the family in their home. Teresa was strangled, while William, Winter, and another daughter, 3 year old Anah, were shot dead. Bramblett then set the house on fire to destroy any evidence of the murders. He had several abuse allegations and was also suspected in the 1977 disappearances of two 14 year old girls, Tammy Akers and Angela Rader, that worked for him, but was never charged for any of them.
89. Bobby Swisher (1997-2003, lethal injection): Swisher abducted 22 year old Dawn Snyder from her flower shop at knife point and raped her. He slashed Snyder's throat and dumped her into a nearby river. Despite managing to swim back to shore, Snyder succumbed to her injuries on the river bank.
90. Brian Cherrix (1994-2004, lethal injection): Cherrix ambushed 23 year old Tessa Van Hart while she was trying to deliver a pizza. He sodomized and shot Van Hart twice in the head, and left the body in her car. The crime was left unsolved until Cherrix was arrested for shooting and wounded his brother two years later. In an attempt to secure leniency, Cherrix disclosed some details of Van Hart's murder, but tried pinning it on a deceased cousin. He only confessed when investigators learned that the cousin couldn't have possibly done it.
91. Dennis Orbe (1998-2004, lethal injection): Orbe fatally shot Richard Burnett, a 39 year old clerk, while robbing a grocery store, and seized $90 from the register.
92. Mark Bailey (1998-2004, lethal injection): Bailey shot and killed his wife, 22 year old Katherine, and their 2 year old son, Nathan, while they were laying in bed. He claimed to investigators that the murders were done out of anger for Katherine's alleged infidelity.
93. James Hudson (2002-2004, lethal injection): In a feud over a driveway, Hudson broke into the home of the Cole family (consisting of brothers, 64 year old Thomas and 56 year old Walter, and Thomas' wife, 64 year old Patsy) to confront them with a shotgun. He shot all three of the Coles dead and drove away from the scene. Hudson was captured after nearly a day long manhunt.
94. James Reid (1996-2004, lethal injection): Reid stabbed 87 year old Annie Lester 22 times with a pair of scissors, beat her with a can of milk, and strangled her with the cord of a heating pad. He left the body in her bedroom and fled her house. Although the evidence for his guilt was overwhelming (which included the blood on his clothes matched Lester's DNA, several of his fingerprints were discovered on the murder weapons, samples of his saliva were found on a cigarette butt in her house, and his handwriting was identical to the writing of a death threat sent to Lester), Reid's death sentence and execution was contested on the grounds of him allegedly having brain damage from a car accident, seizures, and alcoholism. The motivations behind Lester's murder remain unknown, but prosecutors suspected that it might have been part of a bungled robbery or rape attempt.
95. Dexter Vinson (1997-2006, lethal injection): Vinson attacked his ex girlfriend, 25 year old Angela Felton, near her home. Felton tried to escape by driving away, but he rammed her car with his, and forced her inside it. She was then dragged into a vacant house, raped, beaten, and stabbed in the face, neck, arms, buttocks, stomach, and vagina. The body was left in the house as Vinson fled the scene.
96. Brandon Hedrick (1997-2006, electric chair): Hendrick kidnapped a sex worker, 23 year old Lisa Crider, while he was cruising for prostitutes. Initially, Crider and Hendrick had engaged in paid consensual relations, but the situation turned violent when he robbed her of $50 at gunpoint. She was then raped, shot in the face, and dumped into a river.
97. Michael Lenz (~1990s-2006, lethal injection): While serving 29 years for a burglary and weapons possession conviction, Lenz stabbed a fellow inmate, 41 year old Brent Parker, to death. Both were part of a Nordic Neopaganism sect, and the killing was committed over Parker allegedly not expressing enough devotion to their deities. Parker was serving a life sentence for killing a friend during a drunken rage at the time of his own murder.
98. John Schmitt (1999-2006, lethal injection): During a holdup of a bank, Schmitt shot and killed the guard, 39 year old Shelton Dunning, and took $35,000 from the vaults.
99. Kevin Green (1998-2008, lethal injection): Green and his teenage nephew stormed a convenience store, and forced the owners, 68 year old Lawrence Vaughan and his wife, 53 year old Patricia, to hand over $9,000 in cash. They then shot the couple, killing Patricia and wounding Lawrence.
100. Robert Yarbrough (1997-2008, lethal injection): Yarbrough and his accomplice tied up 77 year old Cyril Hamby while robbing his grocery store. They subjected Hamby to beatings and nearly decapitated him with a pocket knife. The pair then stole beer, wine, cigarettes, and an undisclosed amount of money.
101. Kent Jackson (2000-2008, lethal injection): Jackson and an accomplice attacked 79 year old Beulah Kaiser in her apartment, and raped her. She was stabbed several times in the neck, beaten, and her cane was shoved down her throat after she was anally penetrated with it. A cigarette butt found at the crime scene was traced to the pair.
102. Christopher Emmett (2001-2008, lethal injection): Emmett was staying at a motel room with a coworker, 43 year old John Langley, while they were working on an out of town roofing job. The pair played cards until Langley went to bed. As he slept, Emmett bludgeoned him to death with a lamp, and stole $100 from his wallet. He used the stolen money to buy crack cocaine.
103. Edward Bell (~1990s-2008, lethal injection): While running away from officers trying to arrest him for a parole violation, Bell shot and killed one of his pursers, 32 year old Sergeant Ricky Timbrook. Bell had a long criminal record, which included several felony and misdemeanor convictions of assault, burglary, carrying conceal weapons, and was found to have stolen a car during the investigations of Timbrook's murder.
104. John Muhammad (~1999-2008, lethal injection): The so called “D.C. Sniper”, Muhammad shot and killed 17 random people between the ages of 21-76 with the help of a teenage accomplice in mostly sniper attacks. The killings took place in the national capital, hence the epithet, and across several states. Due to his affiliation with the Nation of Islam and the accomplice’s accounts of planning terrorist attacks and training camps, Muhammad’s murder spree are often considered to be acts of Islamic extremism in the media. However, experts believe that his real intentions was to kill his estranged wife using the sniper attacks as a mask. Muhammad had a long history of domestic violence, and had abducted his children from his estranged wife on numerous occasions. His accomplice had also accused him of sexual abuse a few years after his execution.
105. Larry Elliott (2001-2008, electric chair): Elliott, a former military counterintelligence agent, was in an online "sugar daddy" relationship with a much younger woman. At the woman's request, Elliott sent her over $450,000, which she used to pay for a home, credit card, car, breast enhancement surgery, and enrolling her children in a private school. The woman was also involved with a bitter custody dispute with her children's father, 30 year old Robert Finch. In an attempt to win the woman's devotion, Elliott shot and killed Finch in his home, and beat Finch's girlfriend, 25 year old Dana Thrall, to death with the butt of his gun.
106. Paul Powell (1999-2010, electric chair): Angry that his friend, 16 year old Stacie Reed, was in an interracial relationship, Powell made an attempt to rape her in her home. When she fought back, Powell stabbed her to death. He also tied up Stacie's 14 year old sister to be raped, stabbed, and strangled, and left the girl to die in the family's basement. The sister managed to survive with the timely arrival of their stepfather, who called the police and the paramedics to the scene. On the mistaken belief that the death penalty was off the table, Powell sent letters flaunting the lewd details of the murder to taunt the prosecutors, judge, and the victims’ family.
107. Darick Walker (~1996-2010, lethal injection): In 1996, Walker walked up to the door of 36 year old Stanley Beale, and angrily accused him of showing up at his home despite the fact that they were complete strangers. He then shot Beale dead in front of his children and girlfriend, and ran away from the scene. A year later, Walker forced himself into an apartment, and shot 34 year old Clarence Threat seven times while he was laying in bed with his girlfriend. Walker had a history of violence and frequently stole from his friends and family. In one reported incident, he kicked the stomach of a pregnant woman in an act of rage.
108. Teresa Lewis (2002-2010, lethal injection): Lewis conspired with two men that she had a sexual relationship with to kill her husband, 51 year old Julian, and her stepson, 25 year old Charles. Charles was about to be deployed to participate in the then upcoming invasion of Iraq, which gave him a $250,000 life insurance policy that Lewis wanted to collect from both him and his father. She let her accomplices inside their trailer, and shot Julian and Charles while they were sleeping. Charles was killed immediately, while Julian, who witnessed Lewis pay the attackers, survived long enough to notify the responders of his wife's involvement.
109. Jerry Jackson (2001-2011, lethal injection): Jackson broke into the apartment of 88 year old Ruth Phillips, and woke her up while he was rummaging through her room. Despite Phillips' pleas for her life, Jackson raped her and suffocated her to death with a pillow. He stole her car and a total of $60 in the break in, and spent the stolen money on marijuana.
110. Robert Gleason (2007+(?)-2013, electric chair): In 2007, Gleason shot and killed 54 year old Michael Jamerson, in order to prevent him from testifying about his drug trafficking activities, and was given a life sentence for the murder. While incarcerated, he tied up and strangled his cellmate, 63 year old Harvey Watson (who serving a life sentence for a mass shooting). Prison officials then transferred him to a high security prison to await trial for Watson’s murder, but he managed to strangle another inmate, 26 year old Aaron Cooper (who was serving 34 years for robbery), to death with the wire that separated their cages. Gleason demanded the death penalty, which was given to him by the courts. He also claimed that he committed several other killings before Jamerson, but his additional confessions currently remain unverifiable.
111. Alfredo Prieto (~1984-2015, lethal injection): Prieto was both a serial killer of young women and a member of the Pomona Northside street gang. His sexual crimes involved the abductions, rapes, and shooting deaths of at least 4 females, 24 year old Tina Jefferson, 22 year old Rachael Raver, 19 year old Stacey Siegrist, and 15 year old Yvette Woodruff. Raver and Siegrist’s partners, 22 year old Warren Fulton III and 21 year old Anthony Gianuzzi, were also murdered during their kidnappings. The other known victims, 27 year old Manuel Sermeno, and couple, 71 year old Lula and 65 year old Herbert Farley, were shot dead during robberies. In the home invasion that killed Woodruff, Prieto and his fellow gang members also abducted her 17 year old friend and the friend’s 33 year old mother. The mother and daughter pair were gang-raped, shot and stabbed together, but they managed to escape with their lives. Prieto was sentenced to death in both California and Virginia, but stayed in California’s San Quentin until his death warrant was signed in Virginia. He had also shot and injured 3 gang members over his suspicions of them sleeping with his wife, but was lightly sentenced due to the victims' gang affiliations.
112. Ricky Gray (~2005-2017, lethal injection): Gray and his similarly aged nephew murdered at least 9 people, which composed of a lone woman, 35 year old Treva Gray, and two entire families, the Harveys (consisting of parents, 49 year old Bryan and 39 year old Kathryn, and their daughters, 9 year old Stella and 4 year old Ruby), and the Baskerville-Tuckers (consisting of 21 year old Ashley, her 46 year old mother Mary, and Mary’s 55 year old husband Percyell) in a week long burglary spree. Almost all of the victims were tied up and gagged in their homes, and beaten to death with hammers or had their throats slit. Before she was killed by them with her parents, victim Ashley Baskerville had assisted Gray and his nephew in several of their robberies. The pair stole any items and valuables they could carry, and were reported to have taken money, computers, television sets, wedding rings, and even cookies. They were also linked to several non fatal assaults, one of which involved a 26 year old man being beaten into a coma.
113. William Morva (~2005-2017, lethal injection): Morva, a son of Hungarian immigrants, and an accomplice were arrested while trying rob a grocery store at gunpoint. While awaiting trial, he badly sprained his ankle and wrist in prison, and was transferred to the Montgomery Regional Hospital for treatment. He overpowered a deputy guarding him with a metal toilet-paper container, stole his gun, fatally shot Derrick McFarland, a 25 year old hospital security guard, and escaped. Morva then fled to Virginia Tech’s campus, and shot and killed 40 year old Eric Sutphin, one of the police officers chasing him.
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59. Kevin Cardwell (1991-1998, lethal injection): Cardwell intercepted Anthony Brown, a 15 year old drug carrier, while he was at a bus stop. He lured Brown into his apartment and searched his belongings for any drugs. Brown was then dragged into the woods, shot to death, and stripped of the cocaine strapped to his legs.
60. Mark Sheppard (~1980s-1999, lethal injection): Sheppard and his accomplice Andre Graham were invited by their dealers, 40 year old Richard and 35 year old Rebecca Rosenbluth, over to their home to buy cocaine. However, an argument broke out during the transaction, and Sheppard shot the couple to death. The pair then drove away from the scene with the couple's car and a few undisclosed stolen items. Sheppard had a long history of violence that dated back to when he was 9 years old.
61. Tony Fry (1994-1999, lethal injection): Fry and his partner shot Leeland Jacobs, a 42 year old car salesman, while robbing his Ford Dealership. The pair tied Jacobs to a car they stole while he was still alive, and dragged him to death.
62. George Quesinberry Jr. (1989-1999, lethal injection): Quesinberry shot 63 year old Thomas Haynes while breaking into his office with an accomplice. When Haynes survived the initial shooting, Quesinberry hit him in the head with the gun and fractured his skull. The pair stole a total of $200 in the robbery.
63. David Fisher (~1970s(?)-1999, lethal injection): Fisher was paid $7,000 by an associate to kill 18 year old David Wilkey in retaliation for abandoning a murder scheme. Originally, Wilkey was part of a conspiracy to seduce and marry a young woman in order to kill her for an insurance policy, but backed out when he genuinely fell in love with the would be victim. He was tricked into going on a hunting trip with Fisher and shot to death by him. Fisher had 25 previous criminal convictions and was involved with organized crime. He was in the witness protection program at the time of Wilkey’s murder.
64. Carl Chichester (1991-1999, lethal injection): During a holdup of a Little Caesars, Chichester shot and killed the manager, 30 year old Timothy Rigney, for refusing to open the cash register. He and his two accomplices ran off with a total of $110.
65. Arthur Jenkins III (1991-1999, lethal injection): Jenkins and his teenage brother shot and killed their uncle, 72 year old Floyd, and their uncle's friend, 69 year old Lee Brinklow. They then stole their wallets and sacked Floyd's home for any money and valuables.
66. Eric Payne (~1980s-1999, lethal injection): Payne broke into the residences of two women, 61 year old Ruth Parham and 57 year old Sally Fazio, and raped them. Both women were beaten to death with a hammer, and he took money from their drawers and pocket books. He had a history of drug possessions and exposing himself to women.
67. Ronald Yeatts (1989-1999, lethal injection): Yeatts and an accomplice invaded 70 year old Ruby Dodson's home and stabbed her to death. The pair grabbed her purse during the burglary and divided up the money they found in it.
68. Tommy Strickler (1989-1999, lethal injection): Strickler and his partner kidnapped 19 year old Leann Whitlock from a mall and crushed her head with a 70 pound boulder. Whitlock's car and credit cards were stolen during the attack.
69. Marlon Williams (~1980s(?)-1999, lethal injection): Williams was paid $4,000 to murder 44 year old Helen Bedsole by his dealer, who was also her estranged husband. The couple were in the midst of a bitter divorce at the time, and the dealer wanted to both collect a life insurance policy and prevent Helen from dividing up their assets. He suck into the couple’s home, and shot and killed Helen in the kitchen. Williams had an extensive criminal history, which included cutting the throat of his ex girlfriend’s grandmother, 71 year old Virgina Parker, during a bungled attempt on her life.
70. Everett Mueller (1990-1999, lethal injection): 10 year old Charity Powers was dropped off at a skating ring by her mother. She was supposed to be picked up by her mother's friend, but they didn't show up due to failing asleep in their home. While Powers was waiting outside the ring in vain for her ride, she was abducted by Mueller. He raped the girl, slashed her throat, and dumped the body in a nearby forest.
71. Jason Joseph (1992-1999, lethal injection): While robbing a Subway with an accomplice, Joseph shot and killed one of the clerks, 22 year old Jeffrey Anderson.
72. Thomas Royal Jr. (~1991-1999, lethal injection): Royal and 3 other gang members fatally shot a police officer, 29 year old Kenneth Wallace, while he was sitting in his patrol car. Wallace was killed as part of the gang's campaign to target law enforcement agents. Royal and his fellow gang members were also suspected in the shooting of James Smith Jr. (age unknown), a Vietnam veteran, outside his trailer, but the charges were dropped from the lack of sufficient evidence.
73. Andre Graham (~1993-1999, lethal injection): Graham assisted the above mentioned Mark Sheppard in the Rosenbluth murders. He also shot and killed a waitress, 20 year old Sheryl Stack, and injured a 23 year old man while robbing a restaurant on his own, and is suspected in a total of 10 murders.
74. Douglas Thomas (1990-2000, lethal injection): The parents of Thomas' 14 year old girlfriend, 33 year old James and 33 year Kathy Wiseman, barred her from seeing him. In a bid to continue their relationship, Thomas and his girlfriend shot them to death in their home.
75. Steve Roach (1993-2000, lethal injection): Roach shot and killed 70 year old Mary Hughes on her doorstep and stole her credit card. He was caught on tape trying to use Hughes' stolen cards to pull money out of an ATM machine in North Carolina.
76. Lonnie Weeks Jr. (1993-2000, lethal injection): Weeks was pulled over by a state trooper, 50 year old Jose Cavazos, for speeding while driving a stolen car. In the confrontation that followed, he shot Cavazos dead after climbing out of the car, and fled the scene. He was captured hiding in a nearby motel after an hour long manhunt.
77. Michael Clagett (1994-2000, electric chair): Clagett's girlfriend was fired from her job as a hotel waitress by the management, and the couple decided to retaliate by robing the establishment. They shot and killed the owner Lam Van Son, a 41 year old Vietnamese refugee, a waitress, 31 year old Karen Rounds, two other employees, 31 year old Karen Rounds and 32 year old Wendell Parish Jr., and a customer Abdelaziz Gren, a 34 year old Moroccan immigrant, and took $400 in cash from the register. Van Son’s 3 year old son was sleeping in the backroom during the attack, but the couple left him unharmed.
78. Russel Burket (1993-2000, lethal injection): Burket snuck into the home of 30 year old Katherine Tafelski while her Navy SEALs husband was deployed overseas, and sexually assaulted her. Katherine and her 5 year old daughter Ashley were both beaten to death with a "rusty" crowbar.
79. Derek Barnabei (1993-2000, lethal injection): Barnabei seduced a fellow Old Dominion University student, 17 year old Sarah Wisnosky, into a relationship with him and kidnapped her. She was raped, partially strangled, beaten to death with a hammer, and dumped into a river near campus grounds. Due to him being of Italian ancestry, his death sentence and execution sparked outrage in Italy.
80. Bobby Ramdass (1992-2000, lethal injection): Ramdass was condemned for the shooting death of Mohammed Kayani, a 34 year old Pakistani immigrant working as a clerk, during a convenience store robbery. He also shot dead 19 year old Darrell Ferguson in an alley and wounded a cab driver in other robberies.
81. Christopher Goins (1994-2000, lethal injection): Goins broke into the home of his 14 year old girlfriend (who was 7 months pregnant with his child). He shot and killed her parents, 35 year old James and 29 year old Daphne Jones, and her siblings, 9 year old Nicole and 4 year old David. The girlfriend and her youngest sibling, 21 month old Kenya, were also shot in the attack. Both of them survived, but the unborn child was lost in the shooting.
82. Thomas Akers (1998-2001, lethal injection): Akers and his accomplice were driving with their friend, 24 year old Wesley Smith. When they pulled over on a road to urinate, they pounced on Smith. In the attack, he was strangled with a belt and beaten to death with a baseball bat. They pair then grabbed $200 from his wallet and dumped his body in a creek. While on death row, Akers demanded his execution and made threats against the judge who sentenced him if it wasn't carried out.
83. Christopher Beck (1995-2001, lethal injection): Out of anger for being fired, Beck invaded the house of his former employer, 52 year old William Miller. He waited for him and his two roommates, 54 year old Florence Marks and 34 year old David Kaplan, to return home and shot and stabbed them all to death. Marks was also raped in the attack. Although Beck claimed that he "only" staged a sexual assault on her, a medical examination confirmed that she was abused in that manner. Beck stole several guns, bicycles, and money in the robbery.
84. James Patterson (1987-2002, lethal injection): Patterson held his friend's mother, 56 year old Joyce Aldridge, in her home at knifepoint. Enraged that she only had a few coins in her purse, he raped Aldridge, stabbed her 3 times, and left her to die. When Aldridge managed to crawl to a phone to call her son for help, Patterson returned and stabbed her 14 more times. Although Aldridge's murder was left unsolved for years, Patterson was later imprisoned for raping an 18 year old girl, and DNA found at the murder was traced to his samples filed in the inmate database in 2000.
85. Daniel Zirkle (1999-2002, lethal injection): Zirkle's girlfriend broke off their relationship due to his violent behavior and filed protective orders against him. He was arrested for violating them and sentenced to a few months in jail. After his release, Zirkle went to his ex girlfriend's home without her permission to visit their daughter, 4 year old Christina. However, the ex girlfriend's other daughter, 14 year old Jessica Shifflett, blocked him from coming inside. He stabbed her to death and kidnapped Christina. He then drove Christina to the George Washington National Forest, slit her throat, and stabbed himself in a failed suicide attempt.
86. Walter Mickens Jr. (~1974-2002, lethal injection): Mickens ambushed and sodomized 17 year old Timothy Hall, and stabbed him 143 times. He stripped the boy of nearly all of his clothing, and left him to die in an abandoned apartment. A long time sexual predator and career criminal, Mickens had several robbery and sodomy convictions dating back to the 70s. One of his previous incidents involved breaking into an elementary school, and coercing a teacher of her purse by threatening the life of a 7 year old student. He also had a conviction for sexually assaulting a cellmate.
87. Aimal Kasi (1993-2002, lethal injection): In his efforts to fight against American foreign policy regarding Islamic nations, Kasi attacked the Langley CIA headquarters with a Type 56 assault rifle. He shot dead 2 CIA employees, 66 year old Lansing Bennett and 28 year old Frank Darling, and wounded 3 others. Kasi then fled to Afghanistan, but was lured into his native Pakistan to be captured in a joint FBI-CIA led operation, and extradited back to the United States to face trial.
88. Earl Bramblett (~1970s(?)-2003, electric chair): Bramblett had molested 11 year old Winter Hodges and feared that her parents, 41 year old William and 37 year old Teresa, were planning on reporting him to the police. In an attempt to prevent that from happening, he attacked the family in their home. Teresa was strangled, while William, Winter, and another daughter, 3 year old Anah, were shot dead. Bramblett then set the house on fire to destroy any evidence of the murders. He had several abuse allegations and was also suspected in the 1977 disappearances of two 14 year old girls, Tammy Akers and Angela Rader, that worked for him, but was never charged for any of them.
89. Bobby Swisher (1997-2003, lethal injection): Swisher abducted 22 year old Dawn Snyder from her flower shop at knife point and raped her. He slashed Snyder's throat and dumped her into a nearby river. Despite managing to swim back to shore, Snyder succumbed to her injuries on the river bank.
90. Brian Cherrix (1994-2004, lethal injection): Cherrix ambushed 23 year old Tessa Van Hart while she was trying to deliver a pizza. He sodomized and shot Van Hart twice in the head, and left the body in her car. The crime was left unsolved until Cherrix was arrested for shooting and wounded his brother two years later. In an attempt to secure leniency, Cherrix disclosed some details of Van Hart's murder, but tried pinning it on a deceased cousin. He only confessed when investigators learned that the cousin couldn't have possibly done it.
91. Dennis Orbe (1998-2004, lethal injection): Orbe fatally shot Richard Burnett, a 39 year old clerk, while robbing a grocery store, and seized $90 from the register.
92. Mark Bailey (1998-2004, lethal injection): Bailey shot and killed his wife, 22 year old Katherine, and their 2 year old son, Nathan, while they were laying in bed. He claimed to investigators that the murders were done out of anger for Katherine's alleged infidelity.
93. James Hudson (2002-2004, lethal injection): In a feud over a driveway, Hudson broke into the home of the Cole family (consisting of brothers, 64 year old Thomas and 56 year old Walter, and Thomas' wife, 64 year old Patsy) to confront them with a shotgun. He shot all three of the Coles dead and drove away from the scene. Hudson was captured after nearly a day long manhunt.
94. James Reid (1996-2004, lethal injection): Reid stabbed 87 year old Annie Lester 22 times with a pair of scissors, beat her with a can of milk, and strangled her with the cord of a heating pad. He left the body in her bedroom and fled her house. Although the evidence for his guilt was overwhelming (which included the blood on his clothes matched Lester's DNA, several of his fingerprints were discovered on the murder weapons, samples of his saliva were found on a cigarette butt in her house, and his handwriting was identical to the writing of a death threat sent to Lester), Reid's death sentence and execution was contested on the grounds of him allegedly having brain damage from a car accident, seizures, and alcoholism. The motivations behind Lester's murder remain unknown, but prosecutors suspected that it might have been part of a bungled robbery or rape attempt.
95. Dexter Vinson (1997-2006, lethal injection): Vinson attacked his ex girlfriend, 25 year old Angela Felton, near her home. Felton tried to escape by driving away, but he rammed her car with his, and forced her inside it. She was then dragged into a vacant house, raped, beaten, and stabbed in the face, neck, arms, buttocks, stomach, and vagina. The body was left in the house as Vinson fled the scene.
96. Brandon Hedrick (1997-2006, electric chair): Hendrick kidnapped a sex worker, 23 year old Lisa Crider, while he was cruising for prostitutes. Initially, Crider and Hendrick had engaged in paid consensual relations, but the situation turned violent when he robbed her of $50 at gunpoint. She was then raped, shot in the face, and dumped into a river.
97. Michael Lenz (~1990s-2006, lethal injection): While serving 29 years for a burglary and weapons possession conviction, Lenz stabbed a fellow inmate, 41 year old Brent Parker, to death. Both were part of a Nordic Neopaganism sect, and the killing was committed over Parker allegedly not expressing enough devotion to their deities. Parker was serving a life sentence for killing a friend during a drunken rage at the time of his own murder.
98. John Schmitt (1999-2006, lethal injection): During a holdup of a bank, Schmitt shot and killed the guard, 39 year old Shelton Dunning, and took $35,000 from the vaults.
99. Kevin Green (1998-2008, lethal injection): Green and his teenage nephew stormed a convenience store, and forced the owners, 68 year old Lawrence Vaughan and his wife, 53 year old Patricia, to hand over $9,000 in cash. They then shot the couple, killing Patricia and wounding Lawrence.
100. Robert Yarbrough (1997-2008, lethal injection): Yarbrough and his accomplice tied up 77 year old Cyril Hamby while robbing his grocery store. They subjected Hamby to beatings and nearly decapitated him with a pocket knife. The pair then stole beer, wine, cigarettes, and an undisclosed amount of money.
101. Kent Jackson (2000-2008, lethal injection): Jackson and an accomplice attacked 79 year old Beulah Kaiser in her apartment, and raped her. She was stabbed several times in the neck, beaten, and her cane was shoved down her throat after she was anally penetrated with it. A cigarette butt found at the crime scene was traced to the pair.
102. Christopher Emmett (2001-2008, lethal injection): Emmett was staying at a motel room with a coworker, 43 year old John Langley, while they were working on an out of town roofing job. The pair played cards until Langley went to bed. As he slept, Emmett bludgeoned him to death with a lamp, and stole $100 from his wallet. He used the stolen money to buy crack cocaine.
103. Edward Bell (~1990s-2008, lethal injection): While running away from officers trying to arrest him for a parole violation, Bell shot and killed one of his pursers, 32 year old Sergeant Ricky Timbrook. Bell had a long criminal record, which included several felony and misdemeanor convictions of assault, burglary, carrying conceal weapons, and was found to have stolen a car during the investigations of Timbrook's murder.
104. John Muhammad (~1999-2008, lethal injection): The so called “D.C. Sniper”, Muhammad shot and killed 17 random people between the ages of 21-76 with the help of a teenage accomplice in mostly sniper attacks. The killings took place in the national capital, hence the epithet, and across several states. Due to his affiliation with the Nation of Islam and the accomplice’s accounts of planning terrorist attacks and training camps, Muhammad’s murder spree are often considered to be acts of Islamic extremism in the media. However, experts believe that his real intentions was to kill his estranged wife using the sniper attacks as a mask. Muhammad had a long history of domestic violence, and had abducted his children from his estranged wife on numerous occasions. His accomplice had also accused him of sexual abuse a few years after his execution.
105. Larry Elliott (2001-2008, electric chair): Elliott, a former military counterintelligence agent, was in an online "sugar daddy" relationship with a much younger woman. At the woman's request, Elliott sent her over $450,000, which she used to pay for a home, credit card, car, breast enhancement surgery, and enrolling her children in a private school. The woman was also involved with a bitter custody dispute with her children's father, 30 year old Robert Finch. In an attempt to win the woman's devotion, Elliott shot and killed Finch in his home, and beat Finch's girlfriend, 25 year old Dana Thrall, to death with the butt of his gun.
106. Paul Powell (1999-2010, electric chair): Angry that his friend, 16 year old Stacie Reed, was in an interracial relationship, Powell made an attempt to rape her in her home. When she fought back, Powell stabbed her to death. He also tied up Stacie's 14 year old sister to be raped, stabbed, and strangled, and left the girl to die in the family's basement. The sister managed to survive with the timely arrival of their stepfather, who called the police and the paramedics to the scene. On the mistaken belief that the death penalty was off the table, Powell sent letters flaunting the lewd details of the murder to taunt the prosecutors, judge, and the victims’ family.
107. Darick Walker (~1996-2010, lethal injection): In 1996, Walker walked up to the door of 36 year old Stanley Beale, and angrily accused him of showing up at his home despite the fact that they were complete strangers. He then shot Beale dead in front of his children and girlfriend, and ran away from the scene. A year later, Walker forced himself into an apartment, and shot 34 year old Clarence Threat seven times while he was laying in bed with his girlfriend. Walker had a history of violence and frequently stole from his friends and family. In one reported incident, he kicked the stomach of a pregnant woman in an act of rage.
108. Teresa Lewis (2002-2010, lethal injection): Lewis conspired with two men that she had a sexual relationship with to kill her husband, 51 year old Julian, and her stepson, 25 year old Charles. Charles was about to be deployed to participate in the then upcoming invasion of Iraq, which gave him a $250,000 life insurance policy that Lewis wanted to collect from both him and his father. She let her accomplices inside their trailer, and shot Julian and Charles while they were sleeping. Charles was killed immediately, while Julian, who witnessed Lewis pay the attackers, survived long enough to notify the responders of his wife's involvement.
109. Jerry Jackson (2001-2011, lethal injection): Jackson broke into the apartment of 88 year old Ruth Phillips, and woke her up while he was rummaging through her room. Despite Phillips' pleas for her life, Jackson raped her and suffocated her to death with a pillow. He stole her car and a total of $60 in the break in, and spent the stolen money on marijuana.
110. Robert Gleason (2007+(?)-2013, electric chair): In 2007, Gleason shot and killed 54 year old Michael Jamerson, in order to prevent him from testifying about his drug trafficking activities, and was given a life sentence for the murder. While incarcerated, he tied up and strangled his cellmate, 63 year old Harvey Watson (who serving a life sentence for a mass shooting). Prison officials then transferred him to a high security prison to await trial for Watson’s murder, but he managed to strangle another inmate, 26 year old Aaron Cooper (who was serving 34 years for robbery), to death with the wire that separated their cages. Gleason demanded the death penalty, which was given to him by the courts. He also claimed that he committed several other killings before Jamerson, but his additional confessions currently remain unverifiable.
111. Alfredo Prieto (~1984-2015, lethal injection): Prieto was both a serial killer of young women and a member of the Pomona Northside street gang. His sexual crimes involved the abductions, rapes, and shooting deaths of at least 4 females, 24 year old Tina Jefferson, 22 year old Rachael Raver, 19 year old Stacey Siegrist, and 15 year old Yvette Woodruff. Raver and Siegrist’s partners, 22 year old Warren Fulton III and 21 year old Anthony Gianuzzi, were also murdered during their kidnappings. The other known victims, 27 year old Manuel Sermeno, and couple, 71 year old Lula and 65 year old Herbert Farley, were shot dead during robberies. In the home invasion that killed Woodruff, Prieto and his fellow gang members also abducted her 17 year old friend and the friend’s 33 year old mother. The mother and daughter pair were gang-raped, shot and stabbed together, but they managed to escape with their lives. Prieto was sentenced to death in both California and Virginia, but stayed in California’s San Quentin until his death warrant was signed in Virginia. He had also shot and injured 3 gang members over his suspicions of them sleeping with his wife, but was lightly sentenced due to the victims' gang affiliations.
112. Ricky Gray (~2005-2017, lethal injection): Gray and his similarly aged nephew murdered at least 9 people, which composed of a lone woman, 35 year old Treva Gray, and two entire families, the Harveys (consisting of parents, 49 year old Bryan and 39 year old Kathryn, and their daughters, 9 year old Stella and 4 year old Ruby), and the Baskerville-Tuckers (consisting of 21 year old Ashley, her 46 year old mother Mary, and Mary’s 55 year old husband Percyell) in a week long burglary spree. Almost all of the victims were tied up and gagged in their homes, and beaten to death with hammers or had their throats slit. Before she was killed by them with her parents, victim Ashley Baskerville had assisted Gray and his nephew in several of their robberies. The pair stole any items and valuables they could carry, and were reported to have taken money, computers, television sets, wedding rings, and even cookies. They were also linked to several non fatal assaults, one of which involved a 26 year old man being beaten into a coma.
113. William Morva (~2005-2017, lethal injection): Morva, a son of Hungarian immigrants, and an accomplice were arrested while trying rob a grocery store at gunpoint. While awaiting trial, he badly sprained his ankle and wrist in prison, and was transferred to the Montgomery Regional Hospital for treatment. He overpowered a deputy guarding him with a metal toilet-paper container, stole his gun, fatally shot Derrick McFarland, a 25 year old hospital security guard, and escaped. Morva then fled to Virginia Tech’s campus, and shot and killed 40 year old Eric Sutphin, one of the police officers chasing him.
2024.05.04 04:44 Leather_Focus_6535 The currently 98 offenders executed by the state of Missouri since the 1970s and their crimes (warning, graphic content, please read at your own risk) [part 1, cases 1 to 49]
Here is my list for Missouri's post Furman execution roster that I wrote for my personal death penalty project. I'll probably release Florida next, and I'm currently working on completing my list for Texas.
As always, the dates given are a time frame of the offender's earliest known criminal activities to their execution. Many of cases described here are extremely depraved in nature, so please read at your own risk. Missouri has also scheduled David Hosier for execution on June 11, and is filling death warrants for Christopher Collings and Marcellus Williams. If these future executions are carried out as planned, then I might update this post with their information.
Due to it exceeding the character count limitations that reddit allows for submissions, I had to divide this list into two separate posts. For the link to part 2, please click here.
The currently executed 98 offenders, cases 1 to 49:
1. George Mercer (~1960s-1989, lethal injection): Mercer was the president of the Missing Links MC motorcycle gang, a title he inherited after his predecessor was killed in a bar fight. Under his leadership, the gang involved itself heavily with organized crime, and had a well earned reputation for extreme violence. The gang harassed and assaulted what they deemed to be "political undesirables" such as left leaning hippies and prohibitionists, and terrorized those aligned with rival motorcycle gangs. They were also predatory towards teenage girls and young women. In one incident, Mercer beat a Vietnam veteran unconscious when the man tried to stop him from sexually harassing underaged girls at a concert, and gang-raped a kidnapped 17 year old girl with some associates in another. One of his followers lured Karen Keeton, a 22 year old tavern waitress, to Mercer's home as a "birthday present" for him. Mercer raped Keeton in his bedroom, and manually strangled her to death. Mercer and his gang members were also speculated to be involved in the murder of 15 year old David Eyman by some webslueths due to his ties with them, but credible evidence is currently lacking.
2. Gerald Smith (1983-1990, lethal injection): Smith beat his girlfriend, 22 year old Karen Roberts, to death with a metal pipe out of fear of her having a venereal disease. While awaiting execution, he stabbed a few death row inmate, 35 year old Robert Baker, with the help of another death row inmate, Frank Guinan. Baker was originally sentenced to death when he shot and killed a detective in a robbery.
3. Winford Stokes (~1969-1990, lethal injection): In 1969, Stokes and his accomplices shot and killed 60 year old Ignatius DiManuele while robbing his tavern. The trio were arrested weeks after the murder. During the trial, they made an escape attempt, but were all recaptured. Stokes was released from prison in 1977, and assaulted a 71 year old man with a claw hammer during a burglary a month later. He fatally shot 73 year old Marie Montgomery and stole her watch in one home invasion, and strangled and stabbed 33 year old Pamela Benda to death in another. Stokes seized Benda's jewelry after rummaging through her drawers.
4. Leonard Laws (1980-1990, lethal injection): Laws and his girlfriend's brothers (one of which was George Gilmore) decided to that the easiest way to earn money for their families was to rob and murder the elderly. He acted as a lookout while the Gilmore murdered and robbed the victims. They were responsible for a total of 5 killings.
5. George Gilmore (1980-1990, lethal injection): Gilmore, his brother, and their sister's boyfriend, the above mentioned Leonard Laws, targeted the elderly in a string of robberies. Their victims, 83 year old Elizabeth Roderique, 83 year old Mary Watters, 65 year old Woodrow Elliott, 83 year old Clarence Williams, and his 81 year old wife Lottie, were shot, stabbed, or strangled to death. After the gang sacked everything of value, they lit the homes on fire. The trio were also suspected in the strangulation murder of 75 year old Edna Winter, but the prosecution weren't able to convict them of it in court.
6. Maurice Byrd (1980-1991, lethal injection): Byrd stormed the Pope’s Cafeteria, a restaurant in a Des Peres mall, and shot 4 employees dead. He stole a total of $9,000 in the robbery. The victims include the manager, 51 year old James Woods, and cooks, 68 year old Edna Ince, and 51 year old Carolyn Turner, and 37 year old Judy Cazaco.
7. Ricky Grubbs (1984-1991, lethal injection): Grubbs and his brother tied 46 year old Jerry Thornton up with neck ties, and stabbed him to death in his trailer. The brothers stole an undisclosed amount of money and food stamps, and burned down the trailer to destroy any evidence of their crime.
8. Martsay Bolder (1973-1993, lethal injection): In 1973, a then teenage Bolder shot and killed 69 year old Louis Donovan in a robbery, and given a life sentence for it. While incarcerated, Bolder feuded with a fellow inmate, 24 year old Theron King. He stabbed King to death for allegedly yelling sexual obscenities at him, and received a death sentence for the killing. King was serving a life sentence for robbery at the time of his murder.
9. Walter Blair Jr. (~1979-1993, lethal injection): Blair allegedly shot and killed 16 year old Sandy Shannon in a robbery, but he wasn't convicted due to the apparent witnesses refusing to testify at the trail. After Blair was cleared of Shannon's murder, he was hired to kill 21 year old Katherine Allen by a man she accused of rape. Blair kidnapped Allen from her apartment, robbed her boyfriend, and shot her to death. His case received notoriety due to the number of his family members that were also convicted for unrelated high profile crimes. One of Blair’s brothers, Terry, was a serial killer that raped and murdered a minimum of 7 sex workers. Another brother, Clifford, abducted and sodomized a woman during a robbery. His sister Warnetta and her husband killed a man together in a robbery and murdered her boyfriend for trying to cut off her drug supply. One of her sons, Nolla IV, later murdered her husband as well. Two more of Warnetta’s, sons, Diamond and William had several robbery convictions. Last but not least, Blair’s mother Janice shot her children's stepfather to death during an argument.
10. Frederick Lashley (1981-1993, lethal injection): Lashley fatally stabbed his foster mother, 55 year old Janie Tracy, during an ambush in their home and stole $15 from her. Tracey had been raising Lashley since he was 2 years old, and had several infirmities, including heart diseases, diabetes and a neuromuscular disorder, at the time of her death.
11. Frank Guinan (~1964-1993, lethal injection): While serving a 40 year sentence for armed robbery, Guinan and another inmate, Richard Zeitvogel, stabbed a fellow prisoner, 30 year old John McBroom (who was incarcerated for drug dealing), to death. Gunian received the death penalty for Pugh's murder. On death row, Gunian assisted the previously mentioned Gerald Smith in the killing of Robert Baker. Guinan had a troubled youth, and was involved with several burglaries and a high speed car chase with police. He had also gotten into several fights with other inmates, and badly injured his cellmate, 38 year old Thomas Pugh (who was also serving a prison sentence for robbery), in one of his incidents.
12. Emmitt Foster (1983-1995, lethal injection): Foster and his accomplice forced themselves into the house that their acquaintance, 26 year old Travis Walker, shared with his girlfriend at gunpoint. The pair shot the couple, killing Walker and injuring his girlfriend. She survived by playing dead. They then sacked the home of any valuables and left. After Foster and his accomplice departed from the scene, Walker's girlfriend wrote down the attackers' names and ran out of the home for help.
13. Larry Griffin (1980-1995, lethal injection): According to prosecutors, Griffin shot and killed 19 year old Quinton Moss while was dealing drugs in a drive by shooting. As Moss was allegedly involved in the murder of Griffin's brother, the investigators believed that it was a revenge killing. His death sentence and execution was controversial, as Griffin's supporters and attorneys alleged that police misconduct occurred during the investigation. However, a posthumous review of his case in 2005 concluded Griffin's guilt.
14. Robert Murray (1985-1995, lethal injection): Murray and his brother held up two men, 27 year old Jeffrey Jackson and 26 year old Craig Stewart, and two women at gunpoint in an apartment. The brothers tied all four of them up, and raped both of the women. They extorted an undisclosed amount of money from their hostages with beatings and shot Stewart and Jackson in the head. The female captives on the other hand managed to jump out of windows to safety.
15. Robert Sidebottom (1985-1995, lethal injection): Sidebottom was upset by how little inheritance that his grandmother, 74 year old May, gave him and decided to grab more money by force in the form of collecting a life insurance policy from her. He broke into May's home and beat her unconscious with chair. As she was incapacitated from the beating, Sidebottom set the house on fire. Although the firefighters were able to put out the flames before she was seriously harmed by them, May died of the injuries she received in the assault.
16. Anthony LaRette (1976-1995, lethal injection): LaRette raped and murdered a minimum of 16 women between the ages of 18-60, but he might have been responsible for a total of 31 murders. All of his known victims were killed in stabbing attacks in their own homes and apartments. While awaiting trial, LaRette was also convicted of conspiring to murder a county jail guard with his father.
17. Robert O'Neal (1979-1995, lethal injection): O'Neal and an accomplice broke into a house that was owned by a prominent doctor, and encountered Ralph Sharick, the homeowner's 78 year old father in law. The pair bound Sharick, locked him in a closet, and shot him to death. They stole several musical instruments and guns in the robbery. O'Neal was captured a few days later and given a life sentence for the murder. During his time in prison, he joined the Aryan Brotherhood, and fatally stabbed a black inmate, 33 year old Arthur Dade, on the behalf on the local leadership. The motives for Dade's killing vary greatly on the source. Some claimed that he was murdered out of racism, while others asserted that it was over a drug trafficking related dispute.
18. Jeffrey Sloan (1985-1996, lethal injection): Sloan entered the bedroom of his parents, 41 year old Paul and 38 year old Judith, and shot them to death while they were in bed. He turned his attention towards his brothers, 18 year old Timothy and 9 year old Jason, and shot them dead in their rooms as well.
19. Doyle Williams (~1967-1996, lethal injection): In 1980, Williams and his partner shot and stabbed A. H. Domann, a 68 year old physician, while breaking into his office, and stole several prescription drugs. His partner's roommate, 28 year old Kerry Bummett, found the stolen drugs baring Domann's name, and the pair abducted her to eliminate a loose end. She was bound with handcuffs that Williams borrowed from a friend in the police force, taken to the Missouri river, and pistol whipped. Bummett jumped into the river in an attempt to escape, but ended up drowning in the process. William had several previous convictions for stealing cars and boats.
20. Emmett Nave (~1958-1996, lethal injection): In 1983, Nave shot his landlady, 53 year old Geneva Roling, dead after he knocked on her door. He then abducted his wife and forced her to drive him to a hospital. On arrival, Nave took 6 nurses hostage, and forced them to inject Demoral and Valium into his body. The kidnapped nurses were then taken to a house and raped. Most of them managed to escape, but Nave forced the remaining captive to administer more Demoral and Valium into him. Nave went unconscious from an overdose and was hospitalized after he was apprehended. He had a criminal record dating back to 1958, and many of his previous arrests include armed robbery, burglary, sexual assault, soliciting prostitutes, and joyriding.
21. Thomas Battle (~1979-1996, lethal injection): Battle and his brother-in-law's brother invaded the home of 80 year old Birdie Johnson and raped her. She was beaten and stabbed to death with a butcher knife. A year before Johnson's murder, Battle was fined for filing a false police report.
22. Richard Oxford (~1968-1996, lethal injection): Oxford and his cellmate escaped from the Conner Correctional Center in 1986, and kidnapped a married couple, 63 year old Harold and 57 year old Melba Wample, from their farm. The Wamples were missing for two months until the discovery of their bodies in a motel parking lot. Both of them had been bound and shot in the head. At the time of his escape and the murders, Oxford was serving a 85 year sentence for a rape and robbery spree, and had several previous convictions of burglary and theft that started when he was 11 years old.
23. Richard Zeitvogel (~1974-1996, lethal injection): While serving a combined total of 20 years in prison for rape and armed robbery, Zeitvogel assisted the above mentioned Guinan in killing John McBroom. He was given a life sentence for his part in the murder. A few years later, he fatally strangled his cellmate, 24 year old Gary Dew (who was also convicted of armed robbery), in their cell and was given the death penalty for it. Allegedly, Guinan and Zeitvogel were in a sexual relationship, and prosecutors believed that he murdered Dew to be placed on death row in a bid to be reunited with him.
24. Eric Schneider (1985-1997, lethal injection): Schneider and two accomplices broke into a home that two school teachers, 53 year old Richard Schwendemann and 55 year old Ronald Thompson, shared together. The homeowners were both bound with rope, wire, chains, and Christmas lights. Schwendemann was choked with a dog leash tied around his neck and shot twice in the head. Thompson suffered from 17 stab wounds in his neck, back, side, and head. A total of $1,800 in cash was stolen from their safe and car.
25. Ralph Feltrop (1987-1997, lethal injection): Feltrop got into an argument with his girlfriend, 27 year old Barbara Roam, in their home and stabbed her to death. He then cut off her head, hands, and legs from her body, and a foot from her one of her already dismembered legs, and tossed them into several garbage bags. In an attempt to dispose of Roam's remains, Feltrop dumped them into nearby ponds.
26. Donald Reese (1986-1997, lethal injection): Reese fatally shot four men, 38 year old Christopher Griffith, 54 year old James Watson, 57 year old John Burford, and Burford's 64 year old brother-in-law Donald Vanderlinden, at a shooting range. He took a total of $1,200 and all the victims' wallets from the scene.
27. Andrew Six (1984-1997, lethal injection): In Iowa, Six beat 41 year old Sarah Link, her 20 year son Justin Hook, and Hook's 19 year old fiance Tina Lade, to death with an unknown blunt instrument in their trailer. A few years later, Six and his uncle stormed a trailer that a pregnant 17 year old girl lived in with her family to rape her. They bound the target and her parents, and sexually assaulted her. The pair then abducted Kathy Allen, the target's cognitively disabled 13 year old sister, and slit their mother's throat in a failed attempt to kill her as they left. Allen was taken to Missouri, where she was repeatedly raped. Her throat was slit and and she was dumped in a ditch. Although Six was captured and sentenced to death for Allen's murder, the triple killings of Link, Hook, and Lade went unsolved until a DNA test in 2014, some 30 years after the murders and 16 years after Six's execution.
28. Samuel McDonald Jr. (~1960s-1997, lethal injection): McDonald held up 46 year old Robert Jordan at gunpoint while he was shopping with his 11 year old daughter. When Jordan pulled out his wallet, McDonald realized that he was a police officer, and shot him. Although he killed Jordan in the shooting, McDonald was wounded by his return fire. McDonald was captured after he was taken to the hospital by a friend. According a blogger that allegedly corresponded with McDonald on death row, he had killed an elderly woman and an infant in a village sweep during the Vietnam War, and lived as a petty criminal with several robbery convictions after his discharge from service.
29. Alan Bannister (~1980s-1997, lethal injection): Bannister accepted an offer for $4,000 by a man to kill 43 year old Darrell Ruetsman. The client wanted Ruetsman dead for running off with his wife. With the help of a piece of paper with Ruetsman's address, Bannister tracked his target to his trailer and shot him dead at his front door. At the time of the murder, Bannister was on parole for rape and armed robbery convictions.
30. Reginald Powell (1986-1998, lethal injection): Powell and his friends beat and stabbed two brothers, 39 year old Freddie and 29 year old Lee Miller, to death during a party. A total of $3 and a pack of cigarettes was stolen in the attack. Earlier that day, the Miller brothers had both refused to buy Powell and his friends (who were then below drinking age) alcohol for them. Powell had a conviction for receiving stolen property at the time of the murders.
31. Milton Griffin-El (1986-1998, lethal injection): Griffin-El went to an apartment to burglarize it. He tied up the residents, 22 year old Jerome Redden and his 19 year old girlfriend Loretta Trotter, and assaulted them in front of their 4 month old son. Trotter was fatally stabbed and Redden was bludgeoned to death with a wrench. Several electronics, including a stereo set and a television set, was stolen in the robbery.
32. Glennon Sweet (~1976-1998, lethal injection): In 1987, Sweet was pulled over by Russell Harper, a 45 year old officer, for speeding. Sweet opened fire on the officers as he climbed out of his truck, and killed Harper. He had several felonies and misdemeanors on his record, which included several charges of disturbing the peace, public intoxication, assault, drug possession, and theft.
33. Kelvin Malone (~1979-1999, lethal injection): Malone kidnapped at least 4 men and women, 62 year old William Parr, 55 year old Myrtle Benham, 51 year old Minnie White, and 39 year old James Rankin, in several robberies across California and Missouri. Most of his victims were shot in the head, but Benham was raped and beaten to death with a pipe. Belongings such as cars and credit cards were taken in the attacks. He was given a death sentence in both states, but chose to be incarcerated in California's San Quentin. Marlone was deported to Missouri when governor Mel Carnahan signed his death warrant. Beyond his murders, he was involved in several non fatal robbery abductions and robbed a judge at gunpoint in the man's own home.
34. James Rodden Jr. (1983-1999, lethal injection): Rodden got into a fight with his ex girlfriend on the phone, and threatened to have sex with Terry Trunnel, a 23 year old women he picked up from a bar, in an apparent attempt to make her jealous. After shouting more threats at his ex girlfriend, Rodden stabbed Trunnel and his roommate, 40 year old Joseph Arnold, to death. He then tried to burn their bodies in an attempt to destroy them.
35. Roy Roberts (~1970s-1999, lethal injection): In 1983, while serving an 18 year sentence for robbery, Roberts allegedly assisted in the stabbing death of Tom Jackson, a 62 year old correctional officer during a prison riot. His death sentence and execution was controversial due to wildly contradicting accounts from eyewitness testimonies. Some of the witnesses claimed to have seen him partaking in Jackson's murder, while others swore that they encountered Roberts in a different prison wing at the time of the murder. Roberts had other previous convictions such as theft and witness tampering at the time of the murder.
36. Roy Ramsey Jr. (1986-1999, lethal injection): Ramsay, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend held a couple, 65 year old Garrett and 63 year old Betty Ledford, at gunpoint after they opened their front door for them. The trio stole a combined total of $7,500 in cash, jewelry, silver coins, and guns, and shot both of the Ledfords dead. Ramsay had several previous robbery convictions, and sodomized a man during one of those incidents.
37. Ralph Davis (1986-1999, lethal injection): Davis shot his estranged wife, 35 year old Susan, to death in their car. Despite the fact that her body was never found, traces of Susan's blood and bone fragments were discovered in the vehicle. Furthermore, shotgun pellets were also recovered from the seats, and they matched to Davis' shotgun. He had a history of domestic abuse before the murder, and Susan's friends reported that Davis threatened to kill her when she filed for divorce.
38. Jessie Wise (1971-1999): In 1971, Wise ambushed 39 year old Ralph Gianino, and beat him to death with a pipe wrench. He then stole $26 from Gianino's wallet, and took his car on a joyride with the body still in the backseat. After Wise's capture, he was given a life sentence, but was paroled in 1983. A few years after his release, Wise went to the apartment of 49 year old Geraldine McDonald to discuss a job relating to washing her car. They got into an argument over money, and he beat her to death with a pipe wrench. Wise stole McDonald's credit cards, jewelry, and undisclosed amount of money. Some of the stolen jewelry was bartered for cocaine and the rest was given to his wife.
39. Bruce Kilgore (1979-1999, lethal injection): One of Kilgore's friends was fired from a restaurant after a coworker, 54 year old Marilyn Wilkins, reported him stealing food. Kilgore, the friend, and his friend then conspired a revenge scheme against Wilkins together. They accosted Wilkins in the restaurant's parking lot and dragged her into their car. During the abduction, Kilgore and his accomplices snatched her rings, slit her throat, and sold two of the stolen rings to a pawn shop. Kilgore had several robbery convictions prior to Wilkins' murder.
40. Robert Walls (1984-1999, lethal injection): Walls and two accomplices forced themselves inside the home of 88 year old Fred Hampton. They attacked Hampton, and broke several of his ribs and fractured his skull in a beating. Hampton was then stuffed alive in a freezer, and he succumbed to a combination of suffocation, hypothermia, and his injuries. The trio stole $100 and Hampton's car in the robbery. Walls had several robbery convictions prior to the murder.
41. David Leisure (~1980s-1999, lethal injection): Leisure, a Syrian immigrant, operated as an enforcer for the Leisure gang, a criminal syndicate under the rule of his cousins. During a gang war over the control of a labor union, he assassinated 75 year old James Michael Sr., a rival crime boss, with a car bomb.
42. James Hampton (~1950s-2000, lethal injection): Hampton abducted 58 year old Frances Keaton and her fiance Allen Mulholland in their own home. He bound them both and demanded $30,000 at gunpoint. After he detected the presence of arriving police officers with a police scanner, Hampton dragged Keaton to his car, and left Mulholland tied up alone in the house. Not wanting to be encumbered with a hostage while on the run, he beat Keaton to death with a hammer, buried her body, and burned her belongings. Hampton fled to New Jersey, and shot and killed 48 year old Christine Schurman during a botched kidnapping. He had spent most of his life in and out of prison for various crimes such as robbery, assault, and drug trafficking, and was first arrested at the age of 11.
43. Bert Hunter (~1963-2000, lethal injection): In 1968, Hunter shot and killed 64 year old John Lyle while robbing his tavern. He was given a life sentence for the murder, but was able to leave prison on parole in the 70s. After his release, Hunter partnered up with another ex convict, Tomas Ervin, for several robbery schemes. They invaded the home that 75 year old Mildred Hodges shared with her 49 year old son Richard. Hunter and Ervin bound the mother and son with duct tape, and ransacked the house for money. Despite their captives' desperate pleas for their lives, the pair suffocated them both with plastic bags. The pair then stole the Hodges' car and burned it in a motel parking lot. Hunter had several burglary arrests as a teenager.
44. Gary Roll (1992-2000, lethal injection): Roll and two other robbers tricked 47 year old Sherry Scheper into letting them inside her home by posing as police officers. They forced Sherry and her 17 year old son Randy to lie on the ground at gunpoint. After he shot Randy in the head, Roll beat Sherry to death with the butt of his gun. The trio also encountered Sherry's older son, 22 year old Curtis, and they fatally stabbed him during a scuffle. A total of $215 and some bags of marijuana were stolen in the robbery.
45. George Harris (~1982-2000, lethal injection): Harris entrusted his illegal submachine guns that he won in a crabs game to a friend for safe keeping. The friend then tasked his younger brothers with hiding the firearms, which they hid in the home of 20 year old Stanley Willoughby without telling him. When Harris returned to retrieve his guns, the friend redirected him to Willoughby's house. However, Willoughby had no clue of what Harris was talking about when he asked for his guns back. It quickly turned into a heated argument, and Harris shot and killed Willoughby out of anger. Years before he murdered Willoughby, Harris was arrested and convicted for armed robbery. He was also captured weeks after the killing while committing another armed robbery.
46. James Chambers (~1971-2000, lethal injection): Chambers struck 33 year old Jerry Oestricker in the head with his pistol and shot and killed him during a bar fight. He also had previous convictions of fraud, burglary, and attempted murder. The attempted murder conviction was for an incident involving him shooting a man in another bar fight.
47. Stanley Lingar (1985-2001, lethal injection): After Lingar lured 16 year old Thomas Allen into his jeep, he tried to force him to masturbate at gunpoint. When Allen was too terrified to obey, Lingar shot him. Allen survived the initial shooting, but he was finished off by a beating with a tire iron and Lingar running him over with the jeep. His execution was a source of minor controversy, as Lingar claimed that he was condemned solely for his sexuality.
48. Tomas Ervin (~1967-2001, lethal injection): In 1967, Ervin stabbed Robert Berry, a 36 year old cab driver, to death in a robbery, and was given a life sentence. After he was paroled in the 80s, he linked up with the above mentioned Bert Hunter, and assisted him in the robbery murders of Mildred and Richard Hodges.
49. Mose Young Jr. (1975-2001, lethal injection): Young fatally shot 3 pawn shop employees, 80 year old Sol Marks, 33 year old James Scneider, and 22 year old Kent Bicknese, after they refused to buy stolen jewelry from him. A fourth employee, who was also Mark's grandson, was injured in the shooting. He had a long criminal history, which included convictions for drug possession and first degree assault.
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As always, the dates given are a time frame of the offender's earliest known criminal activities to their execution. Many of cases described here are extremely depraved in nature, so please read at your own risk. Missouri has also scheduled David Hosier for execution on June 11, and is filling death warrants for Christopher Collings and Marcellus Williams. If these future executions are carried out as planned, then I might update this post with their information.
Due to it exceeding the character count limitations that reddit allows for submissions, I had to divide this list into two separate posts. For the link to part 2, please click here.
The currently executed 98 offenders, cases 1 to 49:
1. George Mercer (~1960s-1989, lethal injection): Mercer was the president of the Missing Links MC motorcycle gang, a title he inherited after his predecessor was killed in a bar fight. Under his leadership, the gang involved itself heavily with organized crime, and had a well earned reputation for extreme violence. The gang harassed and assaulted what they deemed to be "political undesirables" such as left leaning hippies and prohibitionists, and terrorized those aligned with rival motorcycle gangs. They were also predatory towards teenage girls and young women. In one incident, Mercer beat a Vietnam veteran unconscious when the man tried to stop him from sexually harassing underaged girls at a concert, and gang-raped a kidnapped 17 year old girl with some associates in another. One of his followers lured Karen Keeton, a 22 year old tavern waitress, to Mercer's home as a "birthday present" for him. Mercer raped Keeton in his bedroom, and manually strangled her to death. Mercer and his gang members were also speculated to be involved in the murder of 15 year old David Eyman by some webslueths due to his ties with them, but credible evidence is currently lacking.
2. Gerald Smith (1983-1990, lethal injection): Smith beat his girlfriend, 22 year old Karen Roberts, to death with a metal pipe out of fear of her having a venereal disease. While awaiting execution, he stabbed a few death row inmate, 35 year old Robert Baker, with the help of another death row inmate, Frank Guinan. Baker was originally sentenced to death when he shot and killed a detective in a robbery.
3. Winford Stokes (~1969-1990, lethal injection): In 1969, Stokes and his accomplices shot and killed 60 year old Ignatius DiManuele while robbing his tavern. The trio were arrested weeks after the murder. During the trial, they made an escape attempt, but were all recaptured. Stokes was released from prison in 1977, and assaulted a 71 year old man with a claw hammer during a burglary a month later. He fatally shot 73 year old Marie Montgomery and stole her watch in one home invasion, and strangled and stabbed 33 year old Pamela Benda to death in another. Stokes seized Benda's jewelry after rummaging through her drawers.
4. Leonard Laws (1980-1990, lethal injection): Laws and his girlfriend's brothers (one of which was George Gilmore) decided to that the easiest way to earn money for their families was to rob and murder the elderly. He acted as a lookout while the Gilmore murdered and robbed the victims. They were responsible for a total of 5 killings.
5. George Gilmore (1980-1990, lethal injection): Gilmore, his brother, and their sister's boyfriend, the above mentioned Leonard Laws, targeted the elderly in a string of robberies. Their victims, 83 year old Elizabeth Roderique, 83 year old Mary Watters, 65 year old Woodrow Elliott, 83 year old Clarence Williams, and his 81 year old wife Lottie, were shot, stabbed, or strangled to death. After the gang sacked everything of value, they lit the homes on fire. The trio were also suspected in the strangulation murder of 75 year old Edna Winter, but the prosecution weren't able to convict them of it in court.
6. Maurice Byrd (1980-1991, lethal injection): Byrd stormed the Pope’s Cafeteria, a restaurant in a Des Peres mall, and shot 4 employees dead. He stole a total of $9,000 in the robbery. The victims include the manager, 51 year old James Woods, and cooks, 68 year old Edna Ince, and 51 year old Carolyn Turner, and 37 year old Judy Cazaco.
7. Ricky Grubbs (1984-1991, lethal injection): Grubbs and his brother tied 46 year old Jerry Thornton up with neck ties, and stabbed him to death in his trailer. The brothers stole an undisclosed amount of money and food stamps, and burned down the trailer to destroy any evidence of their crime.
8. Martsay Bolder (1973-1993, lethal injection): In 1973, a then teenage Bolder shot and killed 69 year old Louis Donovan in a robbery, and given a life sentence for it. While incarcerated, Bolder feuded with a fellow inmate, 24 year old Theron King. He stabbed King to death for allegedly yelling sexual obscenities at him, and received a death sentence for the killing. King was serving a life sentence for robbery at the time of his murder.
9. Walter Blair Jr. (~1979-1993, lethal injection): Blair allegedly shot and killed 16 year old Sandy Shannon in a robbery, but he wasn't convicted due to the apparent witnesses refusing to testify at the trail. After Blair was cleared of Shannon's murder, he was hired to kill 21 year old Katherine Allen by a man she accused of rape. Blair kidnapped Allen from her apartment, robbed her boyfriend, and shot her to death. His case received notoriety due to the number of his family members that were also convicted for unrelated high profile crimes. One of Blair’s brothers, Terry, was a serial killer that raped and murdered a minimum of 7 sex workers. Another brother, Clifford, abducted and sodomized a woman during a robbery. His sister Warnetta and her husband killed a man together in a robbery and murdered her boyfriend for trying to cut off her drug supply. One of her sons, Nolla IV, later murdered her husband as well. Two more of Warnetta’s, sons, Diamond and William had several robbery convictions. Last but not least, Blair’s mother Janice shot her children's stepfather to death during an argument.
10. Frederick Lashley (1981-1993, lethal injection): Lashley fatally stabbed his foster mother, 55 year old Janie Tracy, during an ambush in their home and stole $15 from her. Tracey had been raising Lashley since he was 2 years old, and had several infirmities, including heart diseases, diabetes and a neuromuscular disorder, at the time of her death.
11. Frank Guinan (~1964-1993, lethal injection): While serving a 40 year sentence for armed robbery, Guinan and another inmate, Richard Zeitvogel, stabbed a fellow prisoner, 30 year old John McBroom (who was incarcerated for drug dealing), to death. Gunian received the death penalty for Pugh's murder. On death row, Gunian assisted the previously mentioned Gerald Smith in the killing of Robert Baker. Guinan had a troubled youth, and was involved with several burglaries and a high speed car chase with police. He had also gotten into several fights with other inmates, and badly injured his cellmate, 38 year old Thomas Pugh (who was also serving a prison sentence for robbery), in one of his incidents.
12. Emmitt Foster (1983-1995, lethal injection): Foster and his accomplice forced themselves into the house that their acquaintance, 26 year old Travis Walker, shared with his girlfriend at gunpoint. The pair shot the couple, killing Walker and injuring his girlfriend. She survived by playing dead. They then sacked the home of any valuables and left. After Foster and his accomplice departed from the scene, Walker's girlfriend wrote down the attackers' names and ran out of the home for help.
13. Larry Griffin (1980-1995, lethal injection): According to prosecutors, Griffin shot and killed 19 year old Quinton Moss while was dealing drugs in a drive by shooting. As Moss was allegedly involved in the murder of Griffin's brother, the investigators believed that it was a revenge killing. His death sentence and execution was controversial, as Griffin's supporters and attorneys alleged that police misconduct occurred during the investigation. However, a posthumous review of his case in 2005 concluded Griffin's guilt.
14. Robert Murray (1985-1995, lethal injection): Murray and his brother held up two men, 27 year old Jeffrey Jackson and 26 year old Craig Stewart, and two women at gunpoint in an apartment. The brothers tied all four of them up, and raped both of the women. They extorted an undisclosed amount of money from their hostages with beatings and shot Stewart and Jackson in the head. The female captives on the other hand managed to jump out of windows to safety.
15. Robert Sidebottom (1985-1995, lethal injection): Sidebottom was upset by how little inheritance that his grandmother, 74 year old May, gave him and decided to grab more money by force in the form of collecting a life insurance policy from her. He broke into May's home and beat her unconscious with chair. As she was incapacitated from the beating, Sidebottom set the house on fire. Although the firefighters were able to put out the flames before she was seriously harmed by them, May died of the injuries she received in the assault.
16. Anthony LaRette (1976-1995, lethal injection): LaRette raped and murdered a minimum of 16 women between the ages of 18-60, but he might have been responsible for a total of 31 murders. All of his known victims were killed in stabbing attacks in their own homes and apartments. While awaiting trial, LaRette was also convicted of conspiring to murder a county jail guard with his father.
17. Robert O'Neal (1979-1995, lethal injection): O'Neal and an accomplice broke into a house that was owned by a prominent doctor, and encountered Ralph Sharick, the homeowner's 78 year old father in law. The pair bound Sharick, locked him in a closet, and shot him to death. They stole several musical instruments and guns in the robbery. O'Neal was captured a few days later and given a life sentence for the murder. During his time in prison, he joined the Aryan Brotherhood, and fatally stabbed a black inmate, 33 year old Arthur Dade, on the behalf on the local leadership. The motives for Dade's killing vary greatly on the source. Some claimed that he was murdered out of racism, while others asserted that it was over a drug trafficking related dispute.
18. Jeffrey Sloan (1985-1996, lethal injection): Sloan entered the bedroom of his parents, 41 year old Paul and 38 year old Judith, and shot them to death while they were in bed. He turned his attention towards his brothers, 18 year old Timothy and 9 year old Jason, and shot them dead in their rooms as well.
19. Doyle Williams (~1967-1996, lethal injection): In 1980, Williams and his partner shot and stabbed A. H. Domann, a 68 year old physician, while breaking into his office, and stole several prescription drugs. His partner's roommate, 28 year old Kerry Bummett, found the stolen drugs baring Domann's name, and the pair abducted her to eliminate a loose end. She was bound with handcuffs that Williams borrowed from a friend in the police force, taken to the Missouri river, and pistol whipped. Bummett jumped into the river in an attempt to escape, but ended up drowning in the process. William had several previous convictions for stealing cars and boats.
20. Emmett Nave (~1958-1996, lethal injection): In 1983, Nave shot his landlady, 53 year old Geneva Roling, dead after he knocked on her door. He then abducted his wife and forced her to drive him to a hospital. On arrival, Nave took 6 nurses hostage, and forced them to inject Demoral and Valium into his body. The kidnapped nurses were then taken to a house and raped. Most of them managed to escape, but Nave forced the remaining captive to administer more Demoral and Valium into him. Nave went unconscious from an overdose and was hospitalized after he was apprehended. He had a criminal record dating back to 1958, and many of his previous arrests include armed robbery, burglary, sexual assault, soliciting prostitutes, and joyriding.
21. Thomas Battle (~1979-1996, lethal injection): Battle and his brother-in-law's brother invaded the home of 80 year old Birdie Johnson and raped her. She was beaten and stabbed to death with a butcher knife. A year before Johnson's murder, Battle was fined for filing a false police report.
22. Richard Oxford (~1968-1996, lethal injection): Oxford and his cellmate escaped from the Conner Correctional Center in 1986, and kidnapped a married couple, 63 year old Harold and 57 year old Melba Wample, from their farm. The Wamples were missing for two months until the discovery of their bodies in a motel parking lot. Both of them had been bound and shot in the head. At the time of his escape and the murders, Oxford was serving a 85 year sentence for a rape and robbery spree, and had several previous convictions of burglary and theft that started when he was 11 years old.
23. Richard Zeitvogel (~1974-1996, lethal injection): While serving a combined total of 20 years in prison for rape and armed robbery, Zeitvogel assisted the above mentioned Guinan in killing John McBroom. He was given a life sentence for his part in the murder. A few years later, he fatally strangled his cellmate, 24 year old Gary Dew (who was also convicted of armed robbery), in their cell and was given the death penalty for it. Allegedly, Guinan and Zeitvogel were in a sexual relationship, and prosecutors believed that he murdered Dew to be placed on death row in a bid to be reunited with him.
24. Eric Schneider (1985-1997, lethal injection): Schneider and two accomplices broke into a home that two school teachers, 53 year old Richard Schwendemann and 55 year old Ronald Thompson, shared together. The homeowners were both bound with rope, wire, chains, and Christmas lights. Schwendemann was choked with a dog leash tied around his neck and shot twice in the head. Thompson suffered from 17 stab wounds in his neck, back, side, and head. A total of $1,800 in cash was stolen from their safe and car.
25. Ralph Feltrop (1987-1997, lethal injection): Feltrop got into an argument with his girlfriend, 27 year old Barbara Roam, in their home and stabbed her to death. He then cut off her head, hands, and legs from her body, and a foot from her one of her already dismembered legs, and tossed them into several garbage bags. In an attempt to dispose of Roam's remains, Feltrop dumped them into nearby ponds.
26. Donald Reese (1986-1997, lethal injection): Reese fatally shot four men, 38 year old Christopher Griffith, 54 year old James Watson, 57 year old John Burford, and Burford's 64 year old brother-in-law Donald Vanderlinden, at a shooting range. He took a total of $1,200 and all the victims' wallets from the scene.
27. Andrew Six (1984-1997, lethal injection): In Iowa, Six beat 41 year old Sarah Link, her 20 year son Justin Hook, and Hook's 19 year old fiance Tina Lade, to death with an unknown blunt instrument in their trailer. A few years later, Six and his uncle stormed a trailer that a pregnant 17 year old girl lived in with her family to rape her. They bound the target and her parents, and sexually assaulted her. The pair then abducted Kathy Allen, the target's cognitively disabled 13 year old sister, and slit their mother's throat in a failed attempt to kill her as they left. Allen was taken to Missouri, where she was repeatedly raped. Her throat was slit and and she was dumped in a ditch. Although Six was captured and sentenced to death for Allen's murder, the triple killings of Link, Hook, and Lade went unsolved until a DNA test in 2014, some 30 years after the murders and 16 years after Six's execution.
28. Samuel McDonald Jr. (~1960s-1997, lethal injection): McDonald held up 46 year old Robert Jordan at gunpoint while he was shopping with his 11 year old daughter. When Jordan pulled out his wallet, McDonald realized that he was a police officer, and shot him. Although he killed Jordan in the shooting, McDonald was wounded by his return fire. McDonald was captured after he was taken to the hospital by a friend. According a blogger that allegedly corresponded with McDonald on death row, he had killed an elderly woman and an infant in a village sweep during the Vietnam War, and lived as a petty criminal with several robbery convictions after his discharge from service.
29. Alan Bannister (~1980s-1997, lethal injection): Bannister accepted an offer for $4,000 by a man to kill 43 year old Darrell Ruetsman. The client wanted Ruetsman dead for running off with his wife. With the help of a piece of paper with Ruetsman's address, Bannister tracked his target to his trailer and shot him dead at his front door. At the time of the murder, Bannister was on parole for rape and armed robbery convictions.
30. Reginald Powell (1986-1998, lethal injection): Powell and his friends beat and stabbed two brothers, 39 year old Freddie and 29 year old Lee Miller, to death during a party. A total of $3 and a pack of cigarettes was stolen in the attack. Earlier that day, the Miller brothers had both refused to buy Powell and his friends (who were then below drinking age) alcohol for them. Powell had a conviction for receiving stolen property at the time of the murders.
31. Milton Griffin-El (1986-1998, lethal injection): Griffin-El went to an apartment to burglarize it. He tied up the residents, 22 year old Jerome Redden and his 19 year old girlfriend Loretta Trotter, and assaulted them in front of their 4 month old son. Trotter was fatally stabbed and Redden was bludgeoned to death with a wrench. Several electronics, including a stereo set and a television set, was stolen in the robbery.
32. Glennon Sweet (~1976-1998, lethal injection): In 1987, Sweet was pulled over by Russell Harper, a 45 year old officer, for speeding. Sweet opened fire on the officers as he climbed out of his truck, and killed Harper. He had several felonies and misdemeanors on his record, which included several charges of disturbing the peace, public intoxication, assault, drug possession, and theft.
33. Kelvin Malone (~1979-1999, lethal injection): Malone kidnapped at least 4 men and women, 62 year old William Parr, 55 year old Myrtle Benham, 51 year old Minnie White, and 39 year old James Rankin, in several robberies across California and Missouri. Most of his victims were shot in the head, but Benham was raped and beaten to death with a pipe. Belongings such as cars and credit cards were taken in the attacks. He was given a death sentence in both states, but chose to be incarcerated in California's San Quentin. Marlone was deported to Missouri when governor Mel Carnahan signed his death warrant. Beyond his murders, he was involved in several non fatal robbery abductions and robbed a judge at gunpoint in the man's own home.
34. James Rodden Jr. (1983-1999, lethal injection): Rodden got into a fight with his ex girlfriend on the phone, and threatened to have sex with Terry Trunnel, a 23 year old women he picked up from a bar, in an apparent attempt to make her jealous. After shouting more threats at his ex girlfriend, Rodden stabbed Trunnel and his roommate, 40 year old Joseph Arnold, to death. He then tried to burn their bodies in an attempt to destroy them.
35. Roy Roberts (~1970s-1999, lethal injection): In 1983, while serving an 18 year sentence for robbery, Roberts allegedly assisted in the stabbing death of Tom Jackson, a 62 year old correctional officer during a prison riot. His death sentence and execution was controversial due to wildly contradicting accounts from eyewitness testimonies. Some of the witnesses claimed to have seen him partaking in Jackson's murder, while others swore that they encountered Roberts in a different prison wing at the time of the murder. Roberts had other previous convictions such as theft and witness tampering at the time of the murder.
36. Roy Ramsey Jr. (1986-1999, lethal injection): Ramsay, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend held a couple, 65 year old Garrett and 63 year old Betty Ledford, at gunpoint after they opened their front door for them. The trio stole a combined total of $7,500 in cash, jewelry, silver coins, and guns, and shot both of the Ledfords dead. Ramsay had several previous robbery convictions, and sodomized a man during one of those incidents.
37. Ralph Davis (1986-1999, lethal injection): Davis shot his estranged wife, 35 year old Susan, to death in their car. Despite the fact that her body was never found, traces of Susan's blood and bone fragments were discovered in the vehicle. Furthermore, shotgun pellets were also recovered from the seats, and they matched to Davis' shotgun. He had a history of domestic abuse before the murder, and Susan's friends reported that Davis threatened to kill her when she filed for divorce.
38. Jessie Wise (1971-1999): In 1971, Wise ambushed 39 year old Ralph Gianino, and beat him to death with a pipe wrench. He then stole $26 from Gianino's wallet, and took his car on a joyride with the body still in the backseat. After Wise's capture, he was given a life sentence, but was paroled in 1983. A few years after his release, Wise went to the apartment of 49 year old Geraldine McDonald to discuss a job relating to washing her car. They got into an argument over money, and he beat her to death with a pipe wrench. Wise stole McDonald's credit cards, jewelry, and undisclosed amount of money. Some of the stolen jewelry was bartered for cocaine and the rest was given to his wife.
39. Bruce Kilgore (1979-1999, lethal injection): One of Kilgore's friends was fired from a restaurant after a coworker, 54 year old Marilyn Wilkins, reported him stealing food. Kilgore, the friend, and his friend then conspired a revenge scheme against Wilkins together. They accosted Wilkins in the restaurant's parking lot and dragged her into their car. During the abduction, Kilgore and his accomplices snatched her rings, slit her throat, and sold two of the stolen rings to a pawn shop. Kilgore had several robbery convictions prior to Wilkins' murder.
40. Robert Walls (1984-1999, lethal injection): Walls and two accomplices forced themselves inside the home of 88 year old Fred Hampton. They attacked Hampton, and broke several of his ribs and fractured his skull in a beating. Hampton was then stuffed alive in a freezer, and he succumbed to a combination of suffocation, hypothermia, and his injuries. The trio stole $100 and Hampton's car in the robbery. Walls had several robbery convictions prior to the murder.
41. David Leisure (~1980s-1999, lethal injection): Leisure, a Syrian immigrant, operated as an enforcer for the Leisure gang, a criminal syndicate under the rule of his cousins. During a gang war over the control of a labor union, he assassinated 75 year old James Michael Sr., a rival crime boss, with a car bomb.
42. James Hampton (~1950s-2000, lethal injection): Hampton abducted 58 year old Frances Keaton and her fiance Allen Mulholland in their own home. He bound them both and demanded $30,000 at gunpoint. After he detected the presence of arriving police officers with a police scanner, Hampton dragged Keaton to his car, and left Mulholland tied up alone in the house. Not wanting to be encumbered with a hostage while on the run, he beat Keaton to death with a hammer, buried her body, and burned her belongings. Hampton fled to New Jersey, and shot and killed 48 year old Christine Schurman during a botched kidnapping. He had spent most of his life in and out of prison for various crimes such as robbery, assault, and drug trafficking, and was first arrested at the age of 11.
43. Bert Hunter (~1963-2000, lethal injection): In 1968, Hunter shot and killed 64 year old John Lyle while robbing his tavern. He was given a life sentence for the murder, but was able to leave prison on parole in the 70s. After his release, Hunter partnered up with another ex convict, Tomas Ervin, for several robbery schemes. They invaded the home that 75 year old Mildred Hodges shared with her 49 year old son Richard. Hunter and Ervin bound the mother and son with duct tape, and ransacked the house for money. Despite their captives' desperate pleas for their lives, the pair suffocated them both with plastic bags. The pair then stole the Hodges' car and burned it in a motel parking lot. Hunter had several burglary arrests as a teenager.
44. Gary Roll (1992-2000, lethal injection): Roll and two other robbers tricked 47 year old Sherry Scheper into letting them inside her home by posing as police officers. They forced Sherry and her 17 year old son Randy to lie on the ground at gunpoint. After he shot Randy in the head, Roll beat Sherry to death with the butt of his gun. The trio also encountered Sherry's older son, 22 year old Curtis, and they fatally stabbed him during a scuffle. A total of $215 and some bags of marijuana were stolen in the robbery.
45. George Harris (~1982-2000, lethal injection): Harris entrusted his illegal submachine guns that he won in a crabs game to a friend for safe keeping. The friend then tasked his younger brothers with hiding the firearms, which they hid in the home of 20 year old Stanley Willoughby without telling him. When Harris returned to retrieve his guns, the friend redirected him to Willoughby's house. However, Willoughby had no clue of what Harris was talking about when he asked for his guns back. It quickly turned into a heated argument, and Harris shot and killed Willoughby out of anger. Years before he murdered Willoughby, Harris was arrested and convicted for armed robbery. He was also captured weeks after the killing while committing another armed robbery.
46. James Chambers (~1971-2000, lethal injection): Chambers struck 33 year old Jerry Oestricker in the head with his pistol and shot and killed him during a bar fight. He also had previous convictions of fraud, burglary, and attempted murder. The attempted murder conviction was for an incident involving him shooting a man in another bar fight.
47. Stanley Lingar (1985-2001, lethal injection): After Lingar lured 16 year old Thomas Allen into his jeep, he tried to force him to masturbate at gunpoint. When Allen was too terrified to obey, Lingar shot him. Allen survived the initial shooting, but he was finished off by a beating with a tire iron and Lingar running him over with the jeep. His execution was a source of minor controversy, as Lingar claimed that he was condemned solely for his sexuality.
48. Tomas Ervin (~1967-2001, lethal injection): In 1967, Ervin stabbed Robert Berry, a 36 year old cab driver, to death in a robbery, and was given a life sentence. After he was paroled in the 80s, he linked up with the above mentioned Bert Hunter, and assisted him in the robbery murders of Mildred and Richard Hodges.
49. Mose Young Jr. (1975-2001, lethal injection): Young fatally shot 3 pawn shop employees, 80 year old Sol Marks, 33 year old James Scneider, and 22 year old Kent Bicknese, after they refused to buy stolen jewelry from him. A fourth employee, who was also Mark's grandson, was injured in the shooting. He had a long criminal history, which included convictions for drug possession and first degree assault.
2024.05.02 04:20 fyibtwjsyk Administration threatens protesters with arrest and expulsion unless protest is shut down, nine hours after President McInnis sends campus-wide email about the protest claiming the university "promotes free speech and public assembly."
 | submitted by fyibtwjsyk to SBU [link] [comments] |
2024.04.30 12:31 rusticgorilla U.S. Supreme Court manages to threaten the 8th amendment, women’s lives, and democracy in one very bad week
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Representing Smith: Michael Dreeben
Links Transcript and audio
Sauer opened arguments by claiming that allowing a former president to be prosecuted for “official acts” would expose “every current president” to “de facto blackmail and extortion by his political rivals while he is still in office.” The conservative members of the court latched onto Sauer’s distinction between official and personal acts, saying that they do not have the information to determine what is and is not an official act: “What concerns me is, as you know, the court of appeals did not get into a focused consideration of what acts we're talking about,” Chief Justice John Roberts told Dreeban after an extended back-and-forth worrying about whether prosecutors bringing charges against former presidents “will act in good faith.”
Justice Gorsuch echoed Roberts’ concern about unfair prosecution, saying he is “concerned about future uses of the criminal law to target political opponents based on accusations about their motives.” Justice Kavanaugh, meanwhile, suggested that Congress must include a “clear statement” in legal statutes saying that they directly apply to the president:
Justice Barrett seemed amenable to granting some form of immunity for “official acts,” but allowing Smith’s prosecution to move forward for acts classified as “private”:
Idaho appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case and lifted the injunction, putting the abortion ban back into effect.
Representing the federal government: U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar
Links: Transcript and audio
Anyone who has paid attention to the Supreme Court could accurately guess where most of the justices stand in the case. The three liberals—Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson—were highly skeptical of Turner’s arguments, pressing him to explain why Idaho’s law isn’t subject to the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution:
The district court and 9th Circuit ruled against Grants Pass, holding that the city’s policies violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment by (a) punishing people based on an involuntary status and (b) imposing excessive fines that are “grossly disproportionate to the gravity of the offense.” The most relevant case law comes from the U.S. Supreme Court itself, which ruled in Robinson v. California (1962) that the criminalization of the status of being an addict violates the Eighth Amendment. There, the court ruled, an act—using drugs—could be punished, but a person’s condition as an addict may not. As summarized by the respondent’s brief:
Representing respondents (a class of plaintiffs of involuntarily unhoused persons living in Grants Pass): Kelsi Corkran
Links: Transcript and audio
The court’s three liberal justices unsurprisingly came out swinging against the city, questioning how it squares criminalizing homelessness with the precedent in Robinson that a status cannot be punished:
Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch posited what some might call a middle ground that seemed appealing to Kavanaugh, as well: unhoused people charged under Grants Pass law could invoke the necessity defense, allowing a person to claim in court that they had no choice but to violate the law. The problem with this approach, as mentioned by Justice Kagan, would be the increased police interactions with unhoused people and hardships faced by having to go to court and defend themselves against a law they had no choice but to break.
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Trump immunity
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Trump’s challenge to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution for crimes committed while attempting to overturn the 2020 election.Background
A grand jury indicted Trump in August 2023 on charges of obstructing Congress’ certification of the electoral vote, attempting to defraud the U.S. through obstructing the certification, and participating in a conspiracy to deprive citizens of the right to vote and have one’s vote counted. Trump filed a lawsuit to block Smith’s prosecution late last year, arguing that he is immune to all criminal charges for actions taken while president. A three-judge panel of the DC appellate court quickly dismissed the idea, writing, “For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant…any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power — the recognition and implementation of election results. Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count.
At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three Branches. Presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that, as to the President, the Congress could not legislate, the Executive could not prosecute and the Judiciary could not review. We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter. Careful evaluation of these concerns leads us to conclude that there is no functional justification for immunizing former Presidents from federal prosecution in general or for immunizing former President Trump from the specific charges in the Indictment. In so holding, we act, “not in derogation of the separation of powers, but to maintain their proper balance.” See Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 754.
Arguments
Representing Trump: John SauerRepresenting Smith: Michael Dreeben
Links Transcript and audio
Sauer opened arguments by claiming that allowing a former president to be prosecuted for “official acts” would expose “every current president” to “de facto blackmail and extortion by his political rivals while he is still in office.” The conservative members of the court latched onto Sauer’s distinction between official and personal acts, saying that they do not have the information to determine what is and is not an official act: “What concerns me is, as you know, the court of appeals did not get into a focused consideration of what acts we're talking about,” Chief Justice John Roberts told Dreeban after an extended back-and-forth worrying about whether prosecutors bringing charges against former presidents “will act in good faith.”
Justice Gorsuch echoed Roberts’ concern about unfair prosecution, saying he is “concerned about future uses of the criminal law to target political opponents based on accusations about their motives.” Justice Kavanaugh, meanwhile, suggested that Congress must include a “clear statement” in legal statutes saying that they directly apply to the president:
Kavanaugh: Well, it's a serious constitutional question whether a statute can be applied to the president's official acts. So wouldn't you always interpret the statute not to apply to the president, even under your formulation, unless Congress had spoken with some clarity?The most eyebrow-raising statements came from Justice Alito, who said that holding presidents accountable for criminal acts would only encourage more criminal acts to stay in power:
Dreeben: I don't think -- I don't think across the board that a serious constitutional question exists on applying any criminal statute to the president.
Kavanaugh: The problem is the vague statute, you know, obstruction and 371, conspiracy to defraud the United States, can be used against a lot of presidential activities historically with a creative prosecutor who wants to go after a president.
Alito: All right. Let me end with just a question about what is required for the functioning of a stable democratic society, which is something that we all want. I'm sure you would agree with me that a stable democratic society requires that a candidate who loses an election, even a close one, even a hotly contested one, leave office peacefully if that candidate is the incumbent.The liberal justices were highly skeptical of Sauer’s arguments, with Justice Sotomayor getting him on record (again) that a president could be immune from prosecution for assassinating a political rival.
Dreeben: Of course.
Alito: All right. Now, if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy? And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process, where the loser gets thrown in jail.
Dreeben: So I think it's exactly the opposite, Justice Alito. There are lawful mechanisms to contest the results in an election. And outside the record but I think of public knowledge, Petitioner and his allies filed dozens of electoral challenges and, in my understanding, has lost all but one that was not outcome determinative in any respect. There were judges that -- that said, in order to sustain substantial claims of fraud that would overturn an election result that's certified by a state, you need evidence, you need proof. And none of those things were manifested. So there is an appropriate way to challenge things through the courts with evidence. If you lose, you accept the results. That has been the nation's experience. I think the Court is well familiar with that.
Justice Barrett seemed amenable to granting some form of immunity for “official acts,” but allowing Smith’s prosecution to move forward for acts classified as “private”:
Barrett: So you concede that private acts don't get immunity?One possible outcome (though definitely not certain) is that the majority of justices will deny absolute immunity for Trump, but may send the case back to the lower courts to determine whether any of Trump’s crimes fall under an “official act” that cannot be prosecuted. However, even if the court denies all immunity—for all acts—their timing will be critical to whether Trump faces trial before the election.
Sauer: We do.
Barrett: Okay. So, in the Special Counsel's brief on pages 46 and 47, he urges us, even if we were to decide or assume that there was some sort of immunity for official acts, that there were sufficient private acts in the indictment for the case to go back and the trial to begin immediately. And I want to know if you agree or disagree about the characterization of these acts as private. ‘Petitioner turned to a private attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims of election fraud to spearhead his challenges to the election results.’ Private?
Sauer: As alleged. I mean, we dispute the allegation, but --
Barrett: Of course.
Sauer: -- that sounds private to me.
Emergency abortion care
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the Biden Administration’s challenge to Idaho’s anti-abortion law preventing doctors from providing a standard of medical care consistent with federal law.Background
Idaho's Defense of Life Act, which took effect in 2022, makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to perform or assist in performing an abortion in the state. The law contains an exception when a physician determines in “good faith medical judgment” that the abortion “was necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman,” but as we’ve seen in other states , this exception has little effect in practice. In Idaho, doctors are unable to provide an abortion to preserve a woman’s health and have resorted to airlifting patients to neighboring states for emergency pregnancy terminations.“Is she sick enough? Is she bleeding enough? Is she septic enough for me to do this abortion and not risk going to jail and losing my license?” Souza said doctors ask themselves, during a press call ahead of the Supreme Court hearing. “And when the guessing game gets too uncomfortable, we transfer the patients out at a very high cost to another state where the doctors are allowed to practice medicine.” Sending patients away is a wasteful use of hospital resources and is dangerous to patients, he added.The U.S. Department of Justice sued Idaho shortly after the law took effect, arguing that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) preempts the state’s ban on abortion care in emergency situations. According to EMTALA, any hospital with an emergency room that receives Medicare funds (which is virtually all hospitals) is required to provide stabilizing treatment to all patients—even when that treatment is an abortion. Both the district and appellate courts sided with the federal government, issuing and upholding an injunction blocking Idaho’s law.
Idaho appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case and lifted the injunction, putting the abortion ban back into effect.
Arguments
Representing Idaho: Idaho Solicitor General Joshua TurnerRepresenting the federal government: U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar
Links: Transcript and audio
Anyone who has paid attention to the Supreme Court could accurately guess where most of the justices stand in the case. The three liberals—Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson—were highly skeptical of Turner’s arguments, pressing him to explain why Idaho’s law isn’t subject to the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution:
Justice Jackson: I had thought that this case was about preemption and that the entirety of our preemption jurisprudence is the notion that the federal government in certain circumstances can make policy pronouncements that differ from what the state may want or what anybody else may want, and the Supremacy Clause says that what the federal government says takes precedent. So you've been saying over and over again Idaho is, you know, a state and we have healthcare policy choices and we've set a standard of care in this situation. All that's true. But the question is to what extent can the federal government say: No, in this situation, our standard is going to apply? That's what the government is saying, and I don't understand how, consistent with our preemption jurisprudence, you can be saying otherwise.Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch appeared to agree with Turner, expressing skepticism that EMTALA—as spending legislation that encapsulates an agreement between the government and hospitals that receive Medicare funds—should be allowed to interfere with an outside party: the state. “How does the Congress’ ability to do that authorize it to impose duties on another party that has not agreed to accept this money?” Alito asked. He later went on an extended line of questioning designed to defend the “unborn child,” who, he contended, takes precedence over the life of the mother:
Turner: Yeah, if I can put a finer point on it. I don't think the question is necessarily what can Congress do but what did Congress do here with EMTALA, and --
Justice Jackson: All right. So what did it do here?
Turner: It opened the Medicare Act by saying the federal government shall not control the practice of medicine. And then, in EMTALA itself, it says state laws are not preempted. And then, when you get to --
Jackson: State laws are only preempted to the extent of a direct conflict. And so now we are identifying a direct conflict. So why is preemption not working there?
Turner: Whether there's a direct conflict based on this Court's longstanding precedent includes clear statement canons that we think we win on the text…So the Spending Clause condition nature of this requires Congress to speak clearly and unequivocally that it is imposing a abortion mandate. That's not here in the statute.
Alito: We've now heard an hour and a half of argument on this case, and one potentially very important phrase in EMTALA has hardly been mentioned. Maybe it hasn't even been mentioned at all. And that is EMTALA's reference to the woman's "unborn child." Isn't that an odd phrase to put in a statute that imposes a mandate to perform abortions? Have you ever seen an abortion statute that uses the phrase "unborn child"?The result of the case is likely to come down to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, both of whom questioned how doctors were supposed to determine when it is legal to provide an abortion under Idaho’s law. In the following exchange, Justice Sotomayor went through a long list of examples of women who were denied abortions and forced to bleed out while they waited for doctors to be “medically certain” that they were actively dying:
Prelogar: It's not an odd phrase when you look at what Congress was doing in 1989. There were well-publicized cases where women were experiencing conditions, their own health and life were not in danger, but the fetus was in grave distress and hospitals weren't treating them. So what Congress did --
Alito: Well, have you seen abortion statutes that use the phrase "unborn child"? Doesn't that tell us something?
Prelogar: It tells us that Congress wanted to expand the protection for pregnant women so that they could get the same duties to screen and stabilize when they have a condition that's threatening the health and well-being of the unborn child. But what it doesn't suggest is that Congress simultaneously displaced the independent preexisting obligation to treat a woman who herself is facing grave life and health consequences.
…
Alito: Under (e)(1), the term "emergency medical condition" is defined to include a condition that places the health of the woman's unborn child in serious jeopardy. So, in that situation, the hospital must stabilize the threat to the unborn child. And it seems that the plain meaning is that the hospital must try to eliminate any immediate threat to the child, but performing an abortion is antithetical to that duty…Doesn't what I've read to you show that the statute imposes on the hospital a duty to the woman certainly and also a duty to the child? And it doesn't tell the hospital how it is to adjudicate conflicts between those interests and it leaves that to state law… what you're asking us to do is to construe this statute that was enacted back during the Reagan administration and signed by President Reagan to mean that there's an obligation under certain circumstances to perform an abortion even if doing that is a violation of state law.
Sotomayor: Let me go to another one. Imagine a patient who goes to the ER with PPROM 14 weeks. Again, abortion is the excepted. She's up -- she was in and out of the hospital up to 27 weeks. This particular patient, they tried -- had to deliver her baby. The baby died. She had a hysterectomy, and she can no longer have children. All right? You're telling me the doctor there couldn't have done the abortion earlier?
Turner: Again, it goes back to whether a doctor can in good-faith medical judgment make --
Sotomayor: That's a lot for the doctor to risk when Idaho law changed to make the issue whether she's going to die or not or whether she's going to have a serious medical condition. There's a big daylight by your standards, correct?
Turner: It is very case by case.
Sotomayor: That's the problem, isn't it?
Barrett: Counsel, I'm kind of shocked actually because I thought your own expert had said below that these kinds of cases were covered.
Turner: Yeah.
Barrett: And you're now saying they're not?
Turner: No, I'm not saying that. That's just my point, Your Honor, is that --
Barrett: Well, you're hedging. I mean, Justice Sotomayor is asking you ‘would this be covered or not’, and it was my understanding that the legislature's witnesses said that these would be covered.
Turner: Yeah, and those doctors said, if they were exercising their medical judgment, they could in good faith determine that life-saving care was necessary. And that's my point. This is a subjective standard.
Barrett: But some doctors might reach a contrary conclusion, I think …What if the prosecutor thought differently? What if the prosecutor thought, well, I don't think any good-faith doctor could draw that conclusion, I'm going to put on my expert?
Turner: And that, Your Honor, is the nature of prosecutorial discretion
Homelessness
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could allow localities to jail people experiencing homelessness even if no available shelter exists.Background
The city of Grants Pass, in southern Oregon, has experienced a “population explosion” that far outpaced the development of affordable housing. With a minuscule vacancy rate and high rental costs, hundreds of residents became homeless. Instead of addressing the crisis with direct solutions like homeless shelters, increased housing, and rental assistance programs, city leaders crafted a multi-layered system that effectively makes it a crime to be homeless by fining, then jailing, people who sleep outdoors with as little as a blanket.Excerpt from the respondent’s brief: Two “anti-camping” ordinances prohibit “occupy[ing] a campsite” on “any … publicly-owned property” at any time, with “campsite” defined expansively as “any place where bedding, sleeping bag, or other material used for bedding purposes … is placed … for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live.” The ordinances also prohibit sleeping in a car in a parking lot for two or more consecutive hours between midnight and 6:00 am. And an “anti-sleeping” ordinance prohibits sleeping “on public sidewalks, streets, or alleyways at any time” or “in any pedestrian or vehicular entrance to public or private property abutting a public sidewalk.”The president of Grants Pass City Council even admitted that the scheme’s goal was to “make it uncomfortable enough for [homeless persons] in our city so they will want to move on down the road.” This seems to also be the principle of the only transitional housing service in town, with only about 100 beds, that forces participants to attend Christian religious services, requires them to work full-time without pay, discriminates against the disabled and LGBTQ+, and limits stays to 30 days.
These ordinances collectively “prohibit individuals from sleeping in any public space in Grants Pass while using any type of item that falls into the category of ‘bedding’ or is used as ‘bedding’”—language that extends far beyond “camping” to prohibit sleeping with so much as a blanket or “a bundled up item of clothing as a pillow.”
The district court and 9th Circuit ruled against Grants Pass, holding that the city’s policies violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment by (a) punishing people based on an involuntary status and (b) imposing excessive fines that are “grossly disproportionate to the gravity of the offense.” The most relevant case law comes from the U.S. Supreme Court itself, which ruled in Robinson v. California (1962) that the criminalization of the status of being an addict violates the Eighth Amendment. There, the court ruled, an act—using drugs—could be punished, but a person’s condition as an addict may not. As summarized by the respondent’s brief:
The district court further noted this Court’s recognition in the cruel and unusual punishment context that “‘even one day in prison would be cruel and unusual punishment for the “crime” of having a common cold.’” Id. (quoting Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 667 (1962)). In other words, the district court explained, “[a]ny fine is excessive if it is imposed on the basis of status and not conduct.” Id. Here, the conduct for which the class members face punishment—“sleep[ing] outside beneath a blanket because they cannot find shelter”—is “inseparable from their status as homeless individuals, and therefore, beyond what the City may constitutionally punish.”
- Note that neither court barred Grants Pass from implementing restrictions on entire homeless camps (e.g. with tents) in public areas, on the time of day that bedding may be used, or on the amount of bedding allowed per individual. Furthermore, according to a previous 9th Circuit ruling (Martin v. Boise), an individual may be cited under anti-camping laws when shelter beds are available but they do not accept the offer.
Arguments
Representing Grants Pass: Theane EvangelisRepresenting respondents (a class of plaintiffs of involuntarily unhoused persons living in Grants Pass): Kelsi Corkran
Links: Transcript and audio
The court’s three liberal justices unsurprisingly came out swinging against the city, questioning how it squares criminalizing homelessness with the precedent in Robinson that a status cannot be punished:
Kagan: Could you criminalize the status of homelessness?When Evangelis attempted to argue that the law doesn’t criminalize homelessness, just sleeping outside, Kagan fired back that unhoused people cannot avoid a “biological necessity” like sleeping just because they don’t have a shelter over their head:
Evangelis: Well, I don't think that homelessness is a status like drug addiction, and Robinson only stands for that.
Kagan: Well, homelessness is a status. It's the status of not having a home.
Evangelis: I actually -- I disagree with that, Justice Kagan, because it is so fluid, it's so different. People experiencing homelessness might be one day without shelter, the next day with. The federal definition contemplates various forms.
Kagan: At the period with which -- in the period where -- where you don't have a home and you are homeless, is that a status?
Evangelis: No.
Evangelis: The statute does not say anything about homelessness. It's a generally applicable law. It's very important that it applies to everyone--After Evangelis attempted to argue that the law applies to everyone, Justice Sonya Sotomayor pointed out that Grants Pass police officers admitted they selectively fine and arrest homeless people who fall asleep outside:
Kagan: Yeah, I got that.
Evangelis: -- even people who are camping.
Kagan: But it's a single person with a blanket. You don't have to have a tent. You don't have to have a camp. It's a single person with a blanket.
Evangelis: And sleeping in public is considered conduct. And this Court -- this Court in Clark discussed that, that that is conduct.
Kagan: Well, sleeping is a biological necessity. It's sort of like breathing. I mean, you could say breathing is conduct too, but, presumably, you would not think that it's okay to criminalize breathing in public.
Evangelis: I would like to point to the federal regulations which I brought up.
Kagan: And for a homeless person who has no place to go, sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public.
Evangelis: We think Robinson was wrongly decided and should not be extended, but we don't think that the Court needs to overrule it here because it's still saying --Most of the conservative justices appeared ready to side with the city, with Chief Justice John Roberts comparing Corkran’s argument that homelessness is a status to saying that being a “bank robber” is a status. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas embraced Evangelis’ claim that because the law does not explicitly state it is illegal to be homeless, it must not be criminalizing homelessness. And Justice Brett Kavanaugh worried that the 9th Circuit’s limitation on banning homeless people from sleeping outside is handcuffing cities from creating “effective homeless policy.”
Sotomayor: All right. Assuming it's there, it prohibits you criminalizing homelessness, right? So what you do is say only homeless people who sleep outdoors will be arrested? That's the testimony of your chief of police and two or three officers, which is, if you read the crime, it's only stopping you from sleeping in public for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live. And the police officers testified that that means that if a stargazer wants to take a blanket or a sleeping bag out at night to watch the stars and falls asleep, you don't arrest them. You don't arrest babies who have blankets over them. You don't arrest people who are sleeping on the beach, as I tend to do if I've been there a while. You only arrest people who don't have a home. Is that correct?
Evangelis: So, no. These laws are generally applicable. They apply to everyone.
Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch posited what some might call a middle ground that seemed appealing to Kavanaugh, as well: unhoused people charged under Grants Pass law could invoke the necessity defense, allowing a person to claim in court that they had no choice but to violate the law. The problem with this approach, as mentioned by Justice Kagan, would be the increased police interactions with unhoused people and hardships faced by having to go to court and defend themselves against a law they had no choice but to break.
2024.04.30 04:06 AuntieMameDennis The latest FAFO Yellowstone winner...
Incident details
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- A 40-year-old male, Clarence Yoder, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, approached a bison too closely (within 25 yards) on the afternoon of April 21, 2024, and was injured by the bison.
- The incident occurred on the West Entrance Road near the Seven Mile Bridge, located 7 miles east of the park’s West Entrance.
- Rangers responded to the area after receiving a report of an individual who harassed a herd of bison and kicked a bison in the leg. They located the suspect's vehicle near the West Entrance and stopped it in the town of West Yellowstone, Montana.
- Yoder was arrested and charged with 1) being under the influence of alcohol to a degree that may endanger oneself, 2) disorderly conduct as to create or maintain a hazardous condition, 3) approaching wildlife, and 4) disturbing wildlife.
- The driver of the vehicle Yoder traveled in, 37-year-old McKenna Bass, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, was also arrested and cited for 1) driving under the influence, 2) interference for failure to yield to emergency light activation, and 3) disturbing wildlife.
- Yoder sustained minor injuries from the encounter with the bison.
- Rangers transported Yoder to a nearby medical facility where he was medically evaluated, treated and released from medical care. He then was transported to the Gallatin County Detention Center.
- Yoder and Bass appeared in court on April 22 and pleaded not guilty to the charges. At this point, these are merely allegations, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
- Each violation can result in fines up to $5,000 and six months in jail.
- The incident remains under investigation, and there is no additional information to share.
- This is the first reported incident of a visitor being injured by a bison in 2024. The last reported incident occurred on July 17, 2023. There was one reported incident in 2023 and three in 2022.
2024.04.25 16:30 kittehgoesmeow What A Day: Abort The Court by Julia Claire & Crooked Media (04/24/24)
"It’s really not about President Trump. Yes, right now, it’s about President Trump. But he’s not running for President Trump." - Trump lawyer Alina Habba giving us a word salad/Beetlejuice moment
Republicans were finally persuaded to vote for the package because it includes a provision that requires social media giant TikTok’s Chinese parent company to divest from the app or face a national ban. The law gives the Chinese parent company nine months to orchestrate the sale, which TikTok CEO Shou Chew vowed to fight on First Amendment grounds. TikTok is particularly popular among young Americans, a demographic with whom President Biden is already struggling mightily.
Five military horses—including one that appeared to be covered in blood(!)—got loose in central London on Wednesday near Buckingham Palace. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said the horses escaped “during routine exercise” in the morning. We’ll try to ignore the fact that a blood-soaked horse running wild through the streets feels like a doomsday scene from the Book of Revelation after the gates of hell have opened.
Rep. Donald Payne, Jr., (D-NJ) has died at the age of 65 after what his office called a “cardiac episode.”
About 1 in 4 U.S. adults over 50 who have not yet retired say they expect to never retire, and the same share of that demographic has no retirement savings at all, according to a new AARP survey.
The University of Texas at Austin called in Texas Department of Public Safety to arrest pro-Palestinian student protesters on Wednesday. DPS—the same department known for their “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training” in the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, TX in 2022—arrived at the scene in full riot gear. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX)—the “free speech on college campuses” guy—said the pro-Palestinian protesters “belong in jail.” Thanks for clarifying what you mean by “free speech,” Greg!
Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) won her primary on Tuesday night by a staggering 20 points, fending off a centrist challenger who focused on her pro-ceasefire stance in the Israel-Gaza war.
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Extreme Court
The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday in a landmark case that could weaken the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.- At the center of the most consequential Supreme Court case since the disastrous Dobbs decision is Idaho’s ultra-restrictive abortion ban, which the Biden Administration claims violates federal law. Idaho’s abortion ban does not provide exceptions for serious pregnancy-related medical complications, unless the patient is so compromised that they face imminent death. Therefore, the government argues that the ban infringes on a patient’s right to a screening examination and stabilizing emergency medical care under EMTLA.
- The Court’s three liberal justices closely scrutinized the lawyer representing Idaho, Joshua Turner. When Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked if the state’s ban would prevent abortion in a situation in which a woman would otherwise lose an organ or have serious medical complications, Turner said, “Yes, Idaho law does say that abortions in that case aren’t allowed.” The Court’s most conservative Justice (or at least in a tie with Justice Clarence Thomas) Samuel Alito was not persuaded by the arguments of the federal government or his liberal female colleagues, and said they were just giving hypothetical examples. There go those hysterical women again, amiright fellas! Justice Elena Kagan shot back that Idaho’s largest hospital alone needed to to transfer six women out of state for emergency abortions since January.
- Idaho’s lawyer and Alito both made “fetal personhood” arguments, with Turner saying “there are two patients to consider,” when pregnant women seek emergency care. The federal government’s lawyer, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, pointed out that the mentions of “unborn child” in EMTLA refer only to when a woman goes to an emergency room and her pregnancy is in danger but her own health is not at risk—not for the fetal life to take precedence over the mother’s. She also pointed out that life-threatening pregnancy emergencies that require an abortion almost always involve a non-viable fetus, or no possibility for a live birth. In such cases, she said, “what Idaho is doing is waiting for women to wait and deteriorate and suffer the lifelong health consequences with no possible upside for the fetus. It stacks tragedy upon tragedy.”
Look No Further Than Crooked Media
If you’ve ever dreamed of following a podcast around like the Grateful Dead, this is your year! Pod Save America has a ton of great shows coming up on their Democracy or Else tour, headed to Brooklyn, Boston, Madison, Phoenix, Philly, and Ann Arbor. They will also be at the LA Times festival of books on April 21st with appearances by Dan Pfeiffer, Tommy Vietor, Jon Favreau, and Hysteria’s own Erin Ryan! To get tickets, head to https://crooked.com/events now.Under The Radar
President Biden signed a $95.3 billion foreign aid package that had long been stalled in Congress on Wednesday. The package will provide weapons and financial support to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, which Biden said will “make the world safer,” and “continues America’s leadership in the world.” The president said his commitment to Israel is “ironclad” amid significant and ever-growing backlash from within the Democratic party for his willingness to continue providing weapons to Israel. Despite more Congressional Democrats speaking out on the issue, all but two Democratic senators—Sens. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR)—voted for the aid package, which sends $26 billion to Israel to continue its military campaign in Gaza. The package allocates $1 billion to humanitarian relief in Gaza. The 15 Republican senators who opposed the package were mostly of the MAGA variety, who fiercely oppose additional funding to Ukraine.Republicans were finally persuaded to vote for the package because it includes a provision that requires social media giant TikTok’s Chinese parent company to divest from the app or face a national ban. The law gives the Chinese parent company nine months to orchestrate the sale, which TikTok CEO Shou Chew vowed to fight on First Amendment grounds. TikTok is particularly popular among young Americans, a demographic with whom President Biden is already struggling mightily.
What Else?
Democrats in the Arizona state legislature advanced their third attempt to repeal the draconian Civil War-era abortion ban that the state’s Supreme Court reinstated. This time, three Republican lawmakers in the lower chamber broke ranks and voted with Dems, sending the bill to the state Senate.Five military horses—including one that appeared to be covered in blood(!)—got loose in central London on Wednesday near Buckingham Palace. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said the horses escaped “during routine exercise” in the morning. We’ll try to ignore the fact that a blood-soaked horse running wild through the streets feels like a doomsday scene from the Book of Revelation after the gates of hell have opened.
Rep. Donald Payne, Jr., (D-NJ) has died at the age of 65 after what his office called a “cardiac episode.”
About 1 in 4 U.S. adults over 50 who have not yet retired say they expect to never retire, and the same share of that demographic has no retirement savings at all, according to a new AARP survey.
Be Smarter
GOP Speaker Mike Johnson emerged from the tree where he makes cookies on Wednesday to do a publicity stunt visit at Columbia University as the student protests there continue. Johnson was repeatedly and loudly booed by students and faculty during his press conference, in which he called for the university’s President Nemat "Minouche" Shafik to resign. For his part, President Biden is pursuing a cautious, middle-of-the road approach in an effort to navigate the delicate response to the antiwar protests popping up at college campuses all over the country. (If you missed Monday’s newsletter, we did a full rundown of the current landscape).The University of Texas at Austin called in Texas Department of Public Safety to arrest pro-Palestinian student protesters on Wednesday. DPS—the same department known for their “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training” in the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, TX in 2022—arrived at the scene in full riot gear. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX)—the “free speech on college campuses” guy—said the pro-Palestinian protesters “belong in jail.” Thanks for clarifying what you mean by “free speech,” Greg!
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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced on Wednesday new rules that will require airlines to give passengers automatic cash refunds when they cancel or significantly delay flights, or if they lose a passenger’s bags. If President Biden spent his entire four years waging war on junk fees he would be in the running for Mount Rushmore.Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) won her primary on Tuesday night by a staggering 20 points, fending off a centrist challenger who focused on her pro-ceasefire stance in the Israel-Gaza war.
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carl marks on Twitter: "the people’s princess"
2024.04.18 15:39 Peacock-Shah-III The Farmer-Labor National Convention of 1948 Peacock-Shah Alternate Elections
 | To a level never before reached, an intra-party contest asks: what is Farmer-Labor? A party of the workers, or a party for the laborer to collaborate through? Thus, a conflict prepares to unfold to provide a fundamental reckoning on Farmer-Labor’s soul. submitted by Peacock-Shah-III to Presidentialpoll [link] [comments] Philip La Follette: “Win the peace.” The heir to one of the nation’s great political dynasties, Philip Fox La Follette would emerge from the Great War and Revolution as a war hero, a reputation that, with his last name, would carry the once outspokenly anti-war young man to the Governor’s office, Lindbergh’s Supreme Court, and finally the upper echelons of the Army, where his ability to avoid taking positions on controversial issues would win him the Farmer-Labor nomination for the presidency in 1944–and finally the White House itself. Alienating much of his constituency from the outset with his determination to prosecute the war effort to its fullest, La Follette would respond to the battlefield use of two atomic weapons by Japan with a series of nuclear strikes upon the Japanese mainland that would claim final victory for the United States at the cost of the lives of over two million Japanese civilians. Appointing General Douglas MacArthur, hardly a Farmer-Laborite, as Secretary of State, La Follette has pursued the rebuilding and rearmament of a ring of anti-communist nations in Asia while pledging to avoid any future war. Declaring that, with the age of war having closed, the republic must “win the peace,” La Follette has allied himself with much of Charles Lindbergh’s base of support, saluting alongside the fascists of Alabama as he has presided over the sharpest GDP growth in American history. To win the peace, La Follette has begun via executive order eugenics programs and secured the passage of federal funding to municipalize utilities, the reformation of organized farmers’ co-operatives, amd immigration restrictions, while, in a series of attempts largely blocked by Speaker of the House J. Lister Hill, calling for universal healthcare, an interstate highway system, the nationalization of the Federal Reserve and its submission to executive control, national systems of hydroelectric and nuclear power, immigration restrictions, and a constitutional amendment instituting a referendum system, while failing in an attempt to create a new Department of Information and promising new solutions to inflation in his second term. Yet most controversially of all, Phil has called for a fundamental re-envisioning of Farmer-Labor from a party centered upon the interests of the laboring class to a broad based party aiming to fold the interests of the workers into those of the wealthy and middle class, while forming the independent National Progressives of America to advocate his vision. Attempting to codify his view through a proposal to organize a nationalized employers’ union and maintain the nationalization of the General Trades Union, the issue has boiled the question for many down to class collaboration or class interest? To his detractors, the President has committed the greatest apostasy of all, to his defenders, he has blazed the only trail forward to enshrine Farmer-Labor foreseeably as the nation’s majority party. John L. Lewis: “The hour of labor’s redemption has arrived.” When Philip La Follette was taking his first steps, John L. Lewis was beginning the same tendency to strike in wartime that would lead to his censure in 1945 by organizing in the mines of Appalachia; when the nation’s president was pressing his first trigger, John L. Lewis was emerging as labor’s strongest bulwark against the Revolution; now, as the President stands by the nationalization of the General Trades Union, led by Lewis for nearly two decades, and the broadening of the party of pickaxes and plowshares, the 68-year-old longtime union leader and two-time Secretary of Labor rises to the altar with the gravitas of an old lion to demand that a party baptized in the blood of strikers hold fast to a uniquely working class line. In the words of biographer Saul Alinsky, Lewis has taken on “a final all-or-nothing gamble.” John L. Lewis is no socialist. It was, after all, he, who infuriated them as he crowned Landon and Lindbergh; after all, he, who continues to wax eloquently on the “free play of natural economic laws” and “genuine collective bargaining without government interference.” Yet, John L. Lewis, even with his small government turn, remains, above all, a labor man, and for the preponderance of the Farmer-Labor left, that is enough. Exploiting every old union contact, calling in every old labor favor, Lewis has won the support of disparate elements, all organized by campaign manager Jimmy Hoffa, from Dorothy Day’s socialists clinging to their best hope for change, to Father Charles Coughlin’s devout isolationists unwilling to accept La Follette as a continuation of Lindberghism, to Alf Landon and J. Lister Hill’s state-weary conservatives dismayed at the president’s dismissal of legislative power. Yet, few men in America can claim a record with more definitely dictatorial tendencies than John L. Lewis as President of the General Trades Union, ruthlessly pulling every lever of patronage, even, by some accounts, recruiting lieutenant Tony Boyle to wage a veritable guerrilla war on non-union miners. Yet Lewis’s efficiency would carry labor rights to the fore and demonstrate a willingness to buck hesitancy elsewhere in Farmer-Labor in organizing groups such as black workers, long conceded to Federal Republicanism and its heirs. In the words of Texas Congressman Lyndon Johnson, “Phil suckled at the teat of the Federal Republican Party until it was dry,” and, indeed, the sort of men who support John L. Lewis are the sort of men to whom decades-old partisan apostasy nearly trumps ideological difference. Focusing on the scandal surrounding the First Lady’s cutlery, Lewis has claimed that labor is “not asking for gold goblets, only a slim crust of bread.” The old miner’s roots are seen throughout his platform, advocating a retirement age of 62, isolationism, support for coal subsidies, opposition to nuclear and hydroelectric power, and, in his own fundamental break from both the president and Farmer-Labor orthodoxy, support for corporate subsidies and sympathy to big business, viewing large corporations as easier to negotiate with than the small businesses promoted in the vein of the Great Commoner. Minor Candidates: Votes for these candidates may only be cast via a write-in vote in the comments. Marion Zioncheck: Whereas the vast majority of Farmer-Labor socialists have rallied around John L. Lewis as their best hope of toppling revisionism, a small group dedicated to an independent presence have put forth Representative Marion Zioncheck. A former revolutionary who has long suffered from mental health issues, with behavior including biting a journalist on the neck, beating his landlord and calling her a communist, behaving like a dog, marrying a woman a week into knowing her, dancing in a Washington water fountain, driving on the Lindbergh White House lawn, and attempting suicide, Zioncheck has put himself forth as a sacrificial lamb in the quixotic campaign to spare any other socialist the ire that such a run would give to their national career, declaring that “I am a radical. I guess I always have been. I hope I always will be…my only hope in life is to improve the condition of an unfair economic system that holds no promise to those without all the wealth of a decent chance to survive, let alone live.” However, Zioncheck himself is actually ineligible to serve in the presidency owing to having been born in Austria-Hungary. https://preview.redd.it/fim4dlkem8vc1.jpg?width=660&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1640d7befada73d5f3a8d0accb1066a78000f3a6 The Primaries: The opening salvo of primary season would be anticlimactic, as Wisconsin gave the President a victory with a two to one margin and Kentucky matched for John L. Lewis with 55.1% of the vote. Similarly, with Phil having won the backing of the Mormon Church, he would sweep the Missouri primary with 81.8% of the vote. However, the first true contest would follow in Cuba, expected as a victory for Lewis. However, a young former CIO organizer named Fidel Castro would emerge as the primary figure in the state’s Zioncheck campaign, tying Lewis and Governor Batista together, while many union workers, encouraged by their homegrown candidate, would vote for the first time in the Progressive primaries instead for Batista, driving the Lewis campaign to snatch defeat from the jaws of ostensible victory, with 45.2% of the vote to 7.5% for Zioncheck and 47.3% for the President, a resounding defeat in the winner-take-all race that would give La Follette a significant delegate lead out of the gate. With elderly La Follette acolyte Jacob Coxey unable to organize a campaign effort equal to that of veteran Lewis ally and U.S. Senator Herbert S. Bigelow, Lewis would follow with a narrow victory in Ohio with 49.9% of the vote alongside a sweep of Colorado’s delegates, only to lose Massachusetts to Fighting Phil. In Texas, the battle would become one between Senators Arlon Davis and Maury Maverick, however, a small Zioncheck contingent would prove enough to turn the race to La Follette with 49.1% of the vote to 48.8% for Lewis. Despite the loyal conservative organization of Sheridan Downey holding Wyoming for Lewis in a landslide, La Follette would outdo the union leader with a victory in Connecticut, only to lose Nevada in the first black majority contest and last primary before the Super Tuesday cluster, despite the support of Senator Edgar George Brown for the President. Having entered the race as a lion seeming poised to slay the young and inexperienced President, Lewis had forced on the ropes with defeat after defeat, stripping the coal miner of his air of invincibility. Yet, his campaign would manage to rebound on Super Tuesday, capturing Illinois, Puerto Rico, Florida, Tennessee, New Mexico, and even Michigan, where the support of both the party left and Charles Coughlin would unexpectedly propel him to 57.1% of the vote to a mere 39.8% for the President. However, Dumarsais Estime’s revival of the Haitian Farmer-Labor Party would buoy La Follette, while support from the Blackshirts would give him a sweep of South Carolina and Santo Domingo alongside narrow victories in Houston, New Jersey, and Shoshone. Further, the President and J. Edgar Hoover would announce an investigation into the Tennessee primaries, alleging a campaign of intimidation by armed CIO miners that Lewis would fiercely deny. Despite carrying his home state of Virginia, Lewis would win by an unexpectedly small five percent margin, as Marion Zioncheck won 12.8% of the vote, largely from the western counties that had once stood as the last refuge of Richard F. Pettigrew and his Revolution. Meanwhile, La Follette would handily carry Vermont, New Hampshire, and Delaware, only to be parried the next week as Lewis made a clean sweep of North Carolina, aided by Landonite conservatives, Iowa, and, most importantly, the crucial winner-take-all New York primary. Despite the arduous efforts of Norman Thomas and his allies, the margin would largely come down to the political machine of former Chief Justice Dudley Field Malone, driven from the bench by Charles Lindberg and plotting his vengeance ever since. With New York, and soon Nebraska, Lewis would retake the lead despite expected victories from the President in Alabama and Indiana. Further extending his campaign’s return to frontrunner status, Lewis would win the support of the Long family to sweep Louisiana, alongside Dakota, Oregon, and Arkansas, while holding the President to a 1% margin in Maine. The following weeks would be the La Follette campaign’s darkest, as Rhode Island, Tijuana, Montana, and Minnesota all joined Lewis’s column by astounding margins. However, the final days of the primary would see an injection of money by Nancy Astor and the consequences of infighting between Lewis lieutenants Thomas Kennedy and W.A. Boyle. In narrow, but nonetheless consequential, results, President La Follette would carry Mississippi, Vancouver, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and even Georgia, placing Lewis’s lead to a mere dozen delegates and centering the race on the final primary: California, which allocated half of its delegates to the statewide winner and the remainder proportionally. Lewis would throw himself into the campaign alongside Hollywood stars such as Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan and Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas, working with agricultural workers and the unionized on the state’s interior; Phil, meanwhile, would rely largely on the local media dominance of Elinor McClatchy, a longtime right wing Progressive who would cross the aisle to back the President, alongside ally Earl Warren, a co-chair of the President’s loyal NPA. McClatchy’s backing would be enough, hoisting La Follette to a bare majority of pledged delegates as he triumphed over Lewis statewide by a mere 12,376 votes–three thousand less than the 15,929 votes won by Marion Zioncheck. Pro-Lewis CIO picketeers at the convention gates. The Convention: 88 degrees. July 12th, 1948, a blazing day in the Windy City. Countless descended upon Chicago’s International Amphitheatre, from party workers, delegates, and enthused supporters of the President and his challenger, to more sinister elements. Thousands of armed Blackshirts under the command of Joe Tolbert Jr., who had packed trains from Alabama to Illinois. Joining them were several hundred self-styled “Destroying Angels” of the Mormon Church. Although formally dissolved as an organization following the 1874 death of Joseph Smith, young admirers of violence past, men such as their leader, churlish Gordon Kahl, continued to organize under the banner of Holy War. These men taking up arms for La Follette were not alone. Thousands of CIO workers, whose fathers had fought for John L. Lewis to bid death to homegrown communism, stood now prepared to carry the fight to presidential fascism. The thousands outside, strewn throughout the streets of Chicago and poised to violence, would hang over every minute of the proceedings within the Amphitheatre. The war within the convention hall would begin with the election of a Chairman, as La Follette allies proposed Clarence Dill, initially expected to easily carry the day. However, initially scattering their votes between Ohio Senator Herbert S. Bigelow, former Chief Justice Dudley Field Malone, and Michigan Governor George W. Welsh, the opposition would unexpectedly manage to block Dill, forcing the Chair election to three successive ballots as Lewis and Zioncheck forces would manage to coalesce around former Representative Ruth Bryan Owen, daughter of William Jennings Bryan and as close as there might be to Farmer-Labor royalty. With Dill embroiled in an uprising in the Washington delegation by Zioncheck and Scoop Jackson, the heiress would carry the day to cheers from the Lewis delegates, seeing blood in the water from the La Follette camp. Jimmy Hoffa, Bill Boyle, Walter Reuther, and Joseph Yablonski would hold a backroom meeting of union leaders at a private booth in Marriott’s Family Diner across the street from the convention–however, if newspaper accounts are to be believed, Chicago politico Richard Daley has privately accused owner J. Willard Marriott, a devout Mormon who had donated to the Church’s fundraiser for the La Follette campaign, of planting recording devices in the booth. As the union leaders frantically attempted to cajole delegates into switching their allegiance to Lewis in return for lavish promises of union support, the mood within the convention hall would rise ever further, with small groups of CIO and Blackshirt men such as young Charles Evers roaming about, the latter leading crowds to shout down pro-Lewis Florida Senator Claude Pepper as he attempted to plea the party to “be the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves,” replying with “you clearly can!” Jimmy Hoffa takes to a phone booth for an impromptu campaign call. Meanwhile, largely unable to find space in the convention hall, hundreds of Blackshirts, Destroying Angels, and CIO workers would assemble in a nearby packing yard, following news of the convention amidst tension between the groups. Over their radios, Fola La Follette, ever liberal and known to be privately discomfited with her brother, would rise to nominate him in a meek speech sure to be lost to history, however, a seconding speech by Rush Holt would stun the delegates as she declared that, if La Follette were not to be renominated, “the NPA will not obey this political decision by a corrupted body.” With that, delegates previously won over by Hoffa’s effort would be lost, fearing cleaving the party in two if they were to desert Phil. As Bronson Cutting told the apoplectic labor leader, “when the West Wing cracks the whip, we’ve got to listen.” Former Vice President Lena Morrow Lewis, nominating Zioncheck, would implore the party to "save its democratic soul" in a mournful speech barely covering the cries of "full powers for the President!" from convention Blackshirts. Rising to place the name of John L. Lewis into the nomination would be a Chicago plumber with GTU and CIO leadership positions, Martin Durkin. Attempting to choke out phrases of praise for the old lion, crowds would shout him down, until, raising his voice over the microphone to screech through the loudspeakers in a plea to implore delegates to “deny a personal party to a fascistic President intensely ambitious to hold power!” The convention would explode into cheers and jeers, shouts of hate and exclamations of glee, as the plumber left the stage and a worried Bryan Owen gavelled the convention to order to begin balloting. As the vote began, New York Congressman Joe McWilliams would rise on a platform to address the Blackshirts and Destroying Angels holding the standoff outside, shouting that “that son of a bitch Hoffa is going to be buying delegates! Either Phil wins or it’s all rigged! God bless you, you’ll have first choice on the extermination squads when we annihilate–” Armed union men at the so-called \"Battle of 42nd Street.\" The sharp crack of singular shot rang out as Joe McWilliams, whose bluster had called for the brutal killing of his opponents for a decade and a half, met his end with a whimper, folding over and falling into a mess of Blackshirts. Five hundred feet away, from the top of a telephone booth, stood 28 year old CIO truck driver Frank Sheeran. Silence would rule for several seconds until Destroying Angel Ervil LeBaron fired back, CIO men armed with bundles of dynamite soon joining in to defend their own as war broke out on the streets of Chicago. For the first time since the days of Revolution, Americans were drawing American blood. “Unanimous, Madame Chairman, the Empire State has ninety-four votes for John Lleweyllyn Lewis!” “Pennsylvania gives forty-three votes to Philip La Follette, twenty-six to John L. Lewis, and one for Marion Zioncheck!” The proceedings within continued unabated, delegates ignorant of the carnage that would greet them as they exited. News trickled in to the pounding of a gavel and the Chairwoman’s calls to order, pained implorations to continue and let the police handle the chaos. As alphabetical order brought states to announce their final tally, Jimmy Hoffa bit his nails; in the La Follette corner, Elinor McClatchy would draft a telegram to declare an separate candidacy by the NPA in anticipation of defeat. Lewis up by three. La Follette up by one. Lewis up by five. La Follette up by two. Lewis up by one. La Follette up by three. Lewis up by seven. Lewis up by four. La Follette up by two. La Follette up by five. La Follette up by eleven, La Follette up by nineteen. Clarence Dill would rise to announce the vote of the state of Washington. “Three for Mr. Marion Zioncheck, three for John L. Lewis, and, Madame Chairman, sixteen for the President of the United States–Madame Chairman, I am proud to stay that the great state of Washington has given our valiant President SIX HUNDRED AND SIXTY DELEGATES, MADAME CHAIRMAN, PHILIP FOX LA FOLLETTE IS NOMINATED BY THE FARMER-LABOR PARTY FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.”
Not wanting to risk the chaos a second day might bring, La Follette delegates would block a motion to adjourn. Next, Alabama House candidate George Wallace would introduce a resolution rephrasing the opening to the Farmer-Labor platform. Where it committed the party to the “fight of Thomas Dorr,” “the Christian spirit of our Great Commoner, William Jennings Bryan,” and other past party giants, Wallace would propose the addition of a commitment to the “justice and progress of Milford W. Howard and his fascism.” Despite the departure of moderate La Follette delegates, the resolution would pass with the support of Charles Coughlin’s erstwhile Lewis delegation from Michigan. Next, a resolution to cut short the Farmer-Labor platform and add that, first and foremost, “The Farmer-Labor Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s Win the Peace agenda.” Although the remainder of the platform would be retained, the resolution would pass to cries of anguish from Lewis supporters. Called in the night to be asked about the news on the Progressive campaign trail, a tired Ben Gitlow would firmly tell a reporter, “"If we can organize the people for massive resistance to this order I think that in time the rest of the country will realize that fascism is not going to be accepted." Sweat on his brow, Secret Service agents crowding him as he met with Chicago Police officers, President La Follette would finally take to the stage to accept the nomination. Blackshirts by his side, the President’s face betrayed a feel of uncomfortability, of horror at the night’s violence, yet his speech would let sparks fly. President La Follette screams into a microphone as his opponents sing \"The International\" in reply. “When I entered office, I met a raging economic fire with no national government action to combat it. It has now been solved.” Declaring that “this generation holds in its palm the fate of civilization” and repeating his call to “win the peace.” From the crowd, groups of left wing delegates would begin to sing “The International,” raising banners of Smedley Butler and shouting “murder! His anger piqued, La Follette would finally turn to address the night’s events as singing from the crowd’s masses pierced his words. “I feared that this convention might adopt a more radical platform and endorse radical candidates who would appeal only to the Left–” “Arise ye workers from your slumbers…” “These men, left wingers, theoreticians and malcontents, desire to emphasize the Marxian ideal of class struggle–!” “On tyrants only we’ll make war…” “From these men comes the the assurance that the role of the individual is ended; that a bankrupt social system must inevitably pass into the receivership of a class dictatorship to be discharged in an unspecified Utopia–!” “So comrades, come rally…” “These men have won elections not BECAUSE they are socialists, but in SPITE of it.” “No more deluded by reaction…” “I call upon the men and women of the Farmer-Labor Party, reject class politics!” “Chains of hatred, greed and fear…” “I have, we have, no hesitation in proudly proclaiming that we have put an end to reprehensible and inexcusable forms of class politics in this party!” “The Internationale unites the human race…” “You are no longer needed! The star of America will rise and yours will sink! YOUR DEATH KNELL HAS SOUNDED!" The chorus would be drowned out by the cheers of Blackshirts and the screams of “traitor!” and “fascist!” from the galleries. As the President left the stage, his allies, incensed at the perceived disrespect of the singing and recognizing their own power, would move swiftly. Senior Wisconsin Senator Merlin Hull, even the La Follette siblings, would plead for moderation, for an iota of remorse, but blood was in the water, and the President’s men were to strike while the iron was hot. Hailing Joe McWilliams as a martyr and castigating their intra-party opponents, Clarence Dill and Rush Holt would organize a boom for a new series of convention resolutions, utterly unprecedented in American political history: to denounce “elements disloyal to the president,” remove the seats on the Farmer-Labor National Committee allotted to unions, and form a subcommittee to investigate and remove national committeemen who had “undermined party unity.” Specifically targeted would be former President Landon and the CIO men on the National Committee. Tennessee Senator George Berry, a Lewis man, would see the writing on the wall: a purge. Norman Thomas would remain persistent, "we socialists pledge ourselves solemnly in this historic hour to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No purge can give you power to destroy ideas which are eternal and indestructible." “I have been a Farmer-Labor man all my life and attended eleven Farmer-Labor national conventions,” Berry would tearfully appeal to the delegates not to proceed, reminding them of Dill’s ousting of Landon, and of the precedent of committee organization that had persisted for a century of labor parties. It was for naught; though the GTU would retain its seats on the committee, all members of the CIO, including joint-member Berry, would be unceremoniously defrocked, driven from the levers of power in the party they had so long retained. Chaired by Senator John Horne Blackmore, a subcommittee has begun to verify the loyalty of committee members and cut off national funding to state parties remaining loyal to Lewis. Finally, the convention would adjourn into chaos, with fist fights between tired delegates and hundreds of police officers aiming to prevent a second Battle of 42nd Street. CIO men spat at the apostates and vowed justice, as the Blackshirts chanted "We want the President or else!" Chicago Tribune headline, referring to the city's Gold Coast neighborhood. The sun rose on July 13th to a day whose cool wind would match the ostensible lowering of the heated passions of the prior night. A horrified William Randolph Hearst Jr. had clashed with his father over how to depict the convention in the newspapers, but the Elder triumphed, as inevitably he did, and his Chicago American would begin the next morning with the headline “RADICALS GO ON RAMPAGE.” Saul Alinsky would wonder whether John L. Lewis had lost his all-or-nothing gamble, if the struggle for the soul of Farmer-Labor had closed its Waterloo with a victory for Napoleon. Yet, from hotel rooms to labor halls, hushed whispers, ringing telephones, the clicking of typewriters tell the world that the President, in breaking the back of his opposition, has won a battle, not a war. |
2024.04.16 16:57 kittehgoesmeow What A Day: Scared Of His own Shadow War by Julia Claire & Crooked Media (04/15/24)
"If you're making $20 an hour to work at a fast-food restaurant ... Is that six figures?" - Fox News’s resident mathematician Jesse Waters talking about what amounts to a $41,600 salary before taxes
The right-wing Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals represents the three aforementioned states, and is overseen by ultra right-wing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Black Lives Matter activist (and host of Crooked’s Pod Save the People) DeRay Mckesson organized a protest near a Baton Rouge, LA police station in 2016 after the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling, and the Fifth Circuit has been on something of a myopic crusade against him ever since. At the 2016 protest, an unknown individual threw an unidentified rock-like object at a police officer (identified in official documents only as “Officer John Doe”) and suffered head, tooth, jaw, and brain injuries. The Fifth Circuit’s ruling could make protest organizers liable for what dissenting Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett called the “unlawful acts of counter-protesters and agitators.” In layman's terms: a progressive organizer like Mckesson could also be held financially responsible if a MAGA chud shows up and breaks the law. It’s a disastrous ruling all-around, overtly meant to suppress any left-leaning protests in three deep-red states.
The White House announced on Monday it opposes a standalone bill funding Israel without the inclusion of funding for Taiwan and Ukraine.
GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Monday he plans to advance the heavily-stalled national security spending package to aid Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine, and other U.S. allies in the lower chamber this week.
Tesla laid off more than 10 percent of its global workforce as sales continue to fall. Maybe they should consider not having an erratic billionaire who won’t stop saying the dumbest shit imaginable as CEO. Just a thought!
The FBI has opened a criminal investigation into the devastating collision of a container ship into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge that brought down the pivotal structure last month, the Washington Post reported, citing two U.S. officials. Republicans are crossing their fingers that the investigation will prove their theory that the driver of the container ship was a DEI initiative wearing a monocle.
Many of the world’s coral reefs turned a sickly shade of white in what scientists are calling the fourth “global bleaching event” of the past thirty years. Bleaching is triggered by water temperature anomalies, and ocean-surface temperatures have been breaking records for over a year.
Like many other terrible presidents before him (looking at you, George W. Bush) Trump is enjoying a “nostalgia bump” in public opinion. To those members of the public, we ask: Have you recently suffered a traumatic brain injury?
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College basketball superstar Caitlin Clark was the number one overall pick at the WNBA draft on Monday night, and was selected by the Indiana Fever.
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The Struggle Israel
Iran launched an attack on Israel in response to Israel’s earlier strike on an Iranian consulate, as the Middle East lurched closer to an all-out regional war. The question now becomes how Israel will respond.- Iran’s retaliatory strike on Saturday brought the two countries’ long-running shadow conflict bursting into the light. The move followed Israel’s April 1 airstrike on an Iranian diplomatic outpost in the Syrian capital of Damascus that killed two senior Iranian generals. Israeli officials said the Iranian attack included more than 300 missiles and drones, and the incident marks the first time Iran had launched a direct attack on Jerusalem. Yet despite the large show of firepower, the Iranian barrage did very little damage. Twenty-five of the 30 cruise missiles launched toward Israel were intercepted by Israeli fighter jets, and none were able to enter the country. Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said a “few” of the nearly 120 ballistic missiles fired towards the country fell inside its borders, causing slight damage to infrastructure on the Nevatim Air Force Base, which remains fully operational.
- The assault critically injured a 10-year-old girl, but caused no other casualties, according to Hagari. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement late Saturday that the U.S. military shot down “dozens” of missiles headed for Israel from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The statement, in part, read: “We condemn these reckless and unprecedented attacks by Iran and its proxies, and we call on Iran to immediately halt any further attacks, including from its proxy forces, and to de-escalate tensions. We do not seek conflict with Iran, but we will not hesitate to act to protect our forces and support the defense of Israel.”
- Iran issued a statement saying that its military action was in response to the Israeli airstrike in Damascus, and said that Tehran now considers the matter “concluded.” President Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and reaffirmed the United States’ Commitment to Israeli Security. However, Biden told Netanyahu that the United States would not participate in any Israeli counter-offensive against Iran, multiple outlets reported citing unnamed U.S. officials. Biden said he told the Prime Minister that Israel has “demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend itself.” Israel’s war cabinet weighed its response to the attack on Monday.
Look No Further Than Crooked Media
In the mood for unexpectedly sore abs from laughing too hard? Tune into Lovett or Leave It’s mini series, What A Weekday. Every Tuesday, Jon Lovett sits down with Crooked staffers to make fun of the latest news to come out of our insane political nightmare factory: cue Trump pretending he won't sign a National Abortion Ban! You can catch (What A Weekday* and a bunch of other exclusive content on Lovett or Leave It’s YouTube channel.Under The Radar
The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would not hear Mckesson vs. Doe, leaving in place a lower court decision that effectively eliminates the right to mass protest in three states: Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The lower court decision ruled that a protest organizer is liable for potentially life-ruining financial consequences if even one attendee at a mass protest breaks the law. The Court did not embrace—but crucially, nor did it reverse—the Fifth Circuit decision attacking the First Amendment right to protest. It’s one step further to what Crooked contributor Max Fisher calls “state-level electoral autocracy” that’s advanced in the United States with frightening speed.The right-wing Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals represents the three aforementioned states, and is overseen by ultra right-wing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Black Lives Matter activist (and host of Crooked’s Pod Save the People) DeRay Mckesson organized a protest near a Baton Rouge, LA police station in 2016 after the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling, and the Fifth Circuit has been on something of a myopic crusade against him ever since. At the 2016 protest, an unknown individual threw an unidentified rock-like object at a police officer (identified in official documents only as “Officer John Doe”) and suffered head, tooth, jaw, and brain injuries. The Fifth Circuit’s ruling could make protest organizers liable for what dissenting Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett called the “unlawful acts of counter-protesters and agitators.” In layman's terms: a progressive organizer like Mckesson could also be held financially responsible if a MAGA chud shows up and breaks the law. It’s a disastrous ruling all-around, overtly meant to suppress any left-leaning protests in three deep-red states.
What Else?
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was MIA from session on Monday with no explanation. Talk about job security!The White House announced on Monday it opposes a standalone bill funding Israel without the inclusion of funding for Taiwan and Ukraine.
GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Monday he plans to advance the heavily-stalled national security spending package to aid Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine, and other U.S. allies in the lower chamber this week.
Tesla laid off more than 10 percent of its global workforce as sales continue to fall. Maybe they should consider not having an erratic billionaire who won’t stop saying the dumbest shit imaginable as CEO. Just a thought!
The FBI has opened a criminal investigation into the devastating collision of a container ship into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge that brought down the pivotal structure last month, the Washington Post reported, citing two U.S. officials. Republicans are crossing their fingers that the investigation will prove their theory that the driver of the container ship was a DEI initiative wearing a monocle.
Many of the world’s coral reefs turned a sickly shade of white in what scientists are calling the fourth “global bleaching event” of the past thirty years. Bleaching is triggered by water temperature anomalies, and ocean-surface temperatures have been breaking records for over a year.
Like many other terrible presidents before him (looking at you, George W. Bush) Trump is enjoying a “nostalgia bump” in public opinion. To those members of the public, we ask: Have you recently suffered a traumatic brain injury?
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The first criminal prosecution of a former U.S. president began in Manhattan on Monday. And you’ll never guess which former president it was!! Disgraced former president Donald Trump appeared in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday as prospective jurors were questioned, and dozens more were dismissed after it was determined that they could not be impartial. Trump appeared to nod off at times, closing his eyes as his defense attorneys and state prosecutors sparred over preliminary matters. But he watched closely as prospective jurors were questioned. The trial will not be televised, and photos from inside the courthouse are only permitted before official court proceedings begin. As he left the courthouse, Trump gave a perfunctory “It’s a political witch hunt,” statement to reporters waiting outside. Jury selection will continue on Tuesday.What A Sponsor
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Light At The End Of The Email
Disgraced former congressman George Santos keeps threatening a political comeback, but can’t raise any money. We assume he will try again soon but this time wearing a fake mustache.College basketball superstar Caitlin Clark was the number one overall pick at the WNBA draft on Monday night, and was selected by the Indiana Fever.
Enjoy
Jazz Drill on Twitter: "My awful cousin has been arrested for … of all things… horse theft. Pioneer ass crime. Little house on the prairie ass crime."
2024.04.12 04:05 Peacock-Shah-III A Summary of President Philip F. La Follette's Term Peacock-Shah Alternate Elections
 | submitted by Peacock-Shah-III to Presidentialpoll [link] [comments] Philip Fox La Follette, 34th President of the United States. Administration: Vice President: Michael A. Musmanno Secretary of State: Douglas MacArthur Secretary of the Treasury: Rexford Tugwell Secretary of War: Ralph Immell Attorney General: David Lilienthal Secretary of the Navy: Francis P. Matthews Secretary of the Air Force: Benjamin Foulois (1945-1947), Charles Lindbergh (1947-1949) Secretary of the Interior: Mildred H. McAfee Secretary of Agriculture: Gerald Nye Secretary of Labor: George Meany Secretary of Science and Technology: Karl T. Compton Secretary of Health: Francois Duvalier Postmaster General: William T. Evjue (1945-1946 (resigned)), Thomas Duncan (1945-1948 (resigned)), Gerald T. Boileau (1948-1949) Secretary of Information: Edward L. Bernays (1945-1947 (department dissolved)) Secretary of Education: Sara Gibson Blanding (1946-1949) Secretary of State Douglas MacArthur addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress. Foreign Policy: Please see the following post covering the Third Pacific War and its resolution: https://www.reddit.com/Presidentialpoll/comments/19dy2u0/tokyo_delenda_est_peacockshah_alternate_elections/ -The La Follette Administration would swiftly move to pivot away from Luce’s collaboration with the Soviet Union. Within days of the Japanese surrender to the United States in October of 1945, the President’s brother, Senate Majority Leader Robert M. La Follette Jr., would rise to demand that his fellow Farmer-Labor Senators make their choice between “America and democracy or the Soviet Union and totalitarianism,” harkening to his brother’s time suppressing the Revolution; Secretary of State MacArthur would buttress this sentiment, declaring “the Communist threat is a global one. Its successful advance in one sector threatens the destruction of every other sector. You cannot appease or otherwise surrender to communism in Asia.” As MacArthur presided over the occupation of Japan and Korea by American forces, Soviet leader Lazar Kaganovich accused the United States of arming former Japanese allies in the Russian Far East and China to resist the Soviet advance eastward, allegations the Administration has denied. -Meanwhile, former President Luce would lead outcry against the organization of the Japanese occupation government, which has granted President La Follette the ability to rule by decree, a power he has used to institute universal suffrage and enact his New Dawn, proclaiming a future where the United States and Japan might stand side by side against an unnamed outside threat that observers have universally understood to refer to communism. -Despite his own reservations about foreign aid, the La Follette Administration has extensively funded and armed Chinese christian socialist leader Feng Yuxiang, whose Guominjun remains the nation’s ruling party despite opposition from both nationalists and communists, yet has declared a strict neutrality between the growing American and Soviet spheres of influence. Soviet authorities would accuse La Follette of rigging elections in occupied Korea and Japan for Syngman Rhee and Socialist Tetsu Katayama, respectively, charges the President has denied despite echoes from Charles Coughlin, who would claim that millions in US development aid was funneled to promote La Follette’s political allies. -The president has pursued a policy of staunch neutrality in the Franco-British War, stepping back from the Luce Administration’s support of the British Empire to pursue vastly expanded trade with both warring states through a series of free trade agreements mediated by General MacArthur and Trade Envoy Earl Warren. With the League of Nations collapsing, La Follette has floated the idea of new international mediation bodies, inviting Peruvian President Jose Carlos Mariategui and Thai King Rama VI to the White House in 1947 to discuss a wide reaching alliance to promote trade and unity across the Pacific, dubbed by some as the All-Pacific Treaty Organization (APTO). -Negotiating on behalf of the newly independent Philippines, La Follette would successfully pressure the French government into relinquishing the island of Moroland, which has quickly become a hub for American port access. The United States has established an allied government in Indonesia under the leadership of moderate socialist Sutan Sjahrir while annexing several Pacific archipelagos such as Samoa. -In South America, Secretary of State MacArthur has sided with Venezuela against Great Britain in a territorial dispute over the boundaries of the colony of Guyana, citing the Adams Doctrine. Lindbergh Dam, a completed project of the New State that La Follette has heralded as the first in a new wave of hydroelectric dams. Domestic Policy: -”Win the peace.” The closing words of La Follette’s address announcing the final victory of the United States over Japan have defined his presidency as a quest for a national rebirth. Rueing the presence of “too many idle men and women,” the President would dedicate himself to proving that “men can have work and be free.” Indeed, buoyed by an expansionist monetary policy, the nation has seen the fastest GDP growth in its history, a spike in international trade supported by improvements to containerization, low unemployment rates, and new dominance as the world’s unmatched financial and industrial leader. However, in light of annual inflation rates never falling below 21%, and peaking as high as 32% in the summer of 1946, the value of the dollar has fallen as quickly as the economic wildfire has expanded, an issue that a national series of price controls has failed to keep in check. The falling price of global silver served to moderate inflation into 1948, however. -Opening his economic war with a victorious salvo, La Follette would work alongside New York Senator Dean Alfange to pass the Alfange Tax Reform Act of 1946, raising the nation’s top tax rate to 76% and the land value tax rate to 25%, while instituting a 100% tax on war profits to be distributed into child tax credits via the Sheen Amendment, introduced by Catholic priest turned Illinois Senator Fulton Sheen. Further, the Alfange Act would authorize the formation of a Department of Education and expansion of the National Youth Administration, which has organized hundreds of thousands of largely low-income children to provide access to after school job training, community building, and college preparatory programs, including pathways to college aid for young veterans on top of the GI Bill known Pepper Grants after sponsoring Senator Claude Pepper (FL-FL). President La Follette would host a press conference with Private Henry Kissinger, the first recipient of a Pepper Grant in receiving an international relations degree from the University of Chicago. -Making extensive use of executive orders, the President would pardon all anti-war figures convicted by the Luce Administration of violating the Sedition Act, declare a national moratoria on the payment of mortgage debts, and authorize the nation’s first federal eugenics programs, sterilizing en masse those declared to be mentally ill or criminally inclined, while sanctioning the use of convict labor to plant trees and engage in other beautification projects in an attempt to spark a dual environmental and urban renewal. Eugenics enforcement has raised questions regarding the program’s lack of transparency and the immense power of low level administrators, with some accusing the system of allowing prisons and mental asylums to unfairly persecute homosexuals and other disfavored patients; La Follette has defended the effort by pointing to the decades of state level eugenics programs. -La Follette would use Executive Order 4582 to form the Department of Information, justified on the basis of expanding the wartime Information & Censorship Board. While the department would persist in peacetime, Vancouver semanticist Samuel Hayakawa would lead opposition nationally to the Department, testifying before Congress on his work “Language in Thought & Action,” used to form committees of correspondence that have mailed over a million letters to legislators calling for congressional action to dissolve the department. In the face of mounting opposition, La Follette would dissolve the Department of Information in April of 1947, while maintaining an 11 member Un-American Activities Board to monitor journalism, ostensibly to prevent the leaking of classified information. -Hayakawa has remained a high profile figure in American politics, calling for the declaration of English as the national language, defending the President’s support for immigration restrictions, and working alongside actor Ronald Reagan to call for reparations for the several thousand Japanese-Americans interned by the Luce Adminstration. -Taking inspiration from the suggestions of comedian-politician Will Rogers, La Follette would announce millions of dollars worth of agricultural surpluses to be sent to aid in the rebuilding of Europe and the Pacific, demanding that “America’s great productive power be available to all people instead of killing pigs and plowing under cotton.” La Follette, through his Secretary of State, would introduce the “MacArthur Plan” in May of 1947, providing billions of dollars of economic and infrastructural aid to Asian nations under American occupation. -The MacArthur Plan would soon come to alienate large sections of Farmer-Labor’s isolationist wing, with party doyens such as William Lemke leading a filibuster of congressional funding for the program. While La Follette would attempt to secure its passage with the support of the opposition, Mississippi Senator George Sheldon would use the support of Thomas Schall to lead an isolationist revolt among Progressive Senators, upholding Lemke’s filibuster and sinking the bill over the summer of 1947. In response, La Follette would claim over national radio that “some subversive elements, in league with political charlatans, are prostituting liberalism for their own devious purposes. Like vermin, they are infesting and polluting democratic organizations and the government itself.” Accusing God of striking Thomas Schall blind for his blindness to the struggles of workers, La Follette would compare Schall to accused war criminals turned politicians Pedro Del Valle and Rafael Trujillo. -Accusing this political “vermin” of plotting to undermine his presidency, the President would for the first time personally endorse the concept of a 20th Amendment to shift to the president the powers of Congress, restricting the republic’s legislative branch to a mere veto power, while arguing that the need for a strong legislature would be replaced with a 21st Amendment establishing a process for national referendums. To lobby for the amendment, La Follette has turned to his loyal National Progressives of America, refuting criticisms of the party’s banner and fascist tendencies by arguing that the “X” symbolism refers to the multiplication of wealth and the “X” indicating a voters’ choice upon a democratic ballot. -However, the President would begin to alienate the media empire of William Randolph Hearst with his harsh rhetoric against erstwhile Hearst allies Pedro Del Valle and Rafael Trujillo. Despite the sympathies of the elderly former President, the transfer of the organization’s primary management to heir William Randolph Hearst Jr. in early 1948 has moved the media empire squarely into the Progressive camp, with Hearst Jr. himself refusing to deny presidential aspirations. -Within months of taking office, La Follette broke publicly with the nation’s most powerful labor leader: John L. Lewis. Standing by the way, La Follette would maintain the executive prohibition of striking by the nationalized General Trades Union and keep moderate George Meany as Labor Secretary, leading Lewis to denounce La Follette as a traitor to his party’s principles as he resigned from the union he had once been president of. Further, Lewis would denounce La Follette’s continuation of the Lindbergh Administration’s call for the formation of employer syndicates to counterbalance organized labor. -Beginning in December of 1945, Lewis and allies Homer Martin, William Boyle, Walter Reuther, and Jimmy Hoffa would organize the Congress of Industrial Organizations, built explicitly to act as an independent alternative to the General Trades Union and circumventing government requirements of GTU membership by permitting dual affiliation. The CIO has spread rapidly through coal country, with most members of the United Mine Workers and Teamsters Unions within the GTU affiliating with the CIO within months. Lewis has led the CIO to organize chapters in every state except for Santo Domingo, triggering several small scale strikes that he has criticized the La Follette Administration for not intervening in on behalf of strikers, making his case in Congress through the support of Tennessee Senator George Berry. President La Follette would defend his conduct, contrasting his decision to mediate a deal with representatives of both parties to the willingness by the Luce Administration to declare striking workers seditionists. Lewis would dispatch ally and organizer Dorothy Day to rally striking workers, only to be arrested by the newly formed NSA and publicly accused of communist sympathies by J. Edgar Hoover. Day would be released after a week in captivity, with La Follette claiming responsibility for securing her freedom. -Fueling Lewis’s dissenters would be a call from La Follette to reform the Farmer-Labor Party charter to weaken the role of unions in controlling the party in favor of an “alliance between producer, consumer, independent business, and professional interests.” Rejected soundly by Farmer-Labor, the plank would become the core of the platform of the National Progressives of America, an independent committee founded by La Follette loyally supporting the President and operating as a de facto political party in areas where the president’s opponents rule Farmer-Labor. -As the legacy of Milford W. Howard’s Alabama Model is debated, Illinois Governor Paul Douglas, the nation’s only Single Taxer in the position, has launched his own attempt at crafting an “Illinois Model,” succeeding in making the state the first in the nation to pass a 100% land value tax in 1948 after a deal between the state’s Single Tax, Farmer-Labor, and Liberty League legislators to raise the tax, cut spending, and reject a right-to-work law. -Despite the overall composition of the Farmer-Labor victory in the midterms being largely divided between acolytes of Lewis and La Follette, the President would declare a resounding victory, stating that “a beginning has been made here and now. Not in 1952, not in 1948, but here in 1946. The state we shall build as rapidly as firm foundations can be laid.” Further, La Follette, seeking to repackage his economic policies while maintaining a direct connection to the Lindbergh presidency, would dub them “the New Dawn,” vowing that “each program should be so framed that it stimulates individual initiative.” -Despite the hostility of the fast organizing Lewis wing of his party, La Follette would move swiftly to use executive power to appoint an Atomic Energy Commission under the aegis of the Department of Science and Technology and a Healthcare Planning Board, with the implicit implication of being a precursor to a national healthcare system. -In an attempt to seize the ideological tides within the party, La Follette and his allies would issue a manifesto entitled “Win the Peace,” with cover art depicting a new dawn, calling for universal healthcare, federal funding to municipalize utilities, an interstate highway system, the reformation of organized farmers’ co-operatives, the nationalization of the Federal Reserve and its submission to executive control, a national system of hydroelectric and nuclear power, immigration restrictions, a constitutional amendment instituting a referendum system, co-operative public works programs for the unemployed, works’ projects operating as state owned corporations, a jobs guarantee, the nationalization of credit, crop management, and the formation of employer syndicates. -However, the nation’s economic boom would largely rob the President of the political capital necessary for his vision of co-operative unemployment works, and the administration, though supporting the introduction of legislation by legendary Maryland Farmer-Laborite David J. Lewis, has relegated such issues to the backburner. -Representative John Dingell would introduce the National Healthcare Act with the support of the La Follette administration, only to find his attempts largely stonewalled by congressional leadership, where Speaker J. Lister Hill would instead back a competing bill to authorize federal subsidies to states for a means tested program of insurance for the poor. With La Follette pushing for the full bill in a motley alliance with Alf Landon, the struggle would come to an impasse as Congress failed to pass any sort of significant healthcare reform legislation. However, a bill introduced by Progressive former Speaker of the House Harold Hitz Burton has passed, authorizing additional funding for hospital construction but no fundamental changes. Similarly, Hill would prove lethargic in the face of President La Follette’s attempt to revive crop management, pointing to the nation’s agricultural surplus. -Speaker Hill would oppose the President less successfully on the issue of immigration, where freshman Federalist Gerald Ford and Farmer-Laborite Senator Walter Baring would partner on the Immigration Act of 1948, establishing a minimum quota of 100 and maximum of 2,000 from any states decolonized in Africa, while authorizing funding for a larger police presence on the nation’s Southern border. However, the administration has presided over a program to recruit Japanese scientists as well as those fleeing war in Europe, with a particular emphasis on rocketry. -In the nation’s 1947 budget, Congress, with nearly bipartisan support, would authorize a half a billion dollars for a pilot project to fund municipalities in the purchase of utilities from private holders, an effort hailed by the Hearst Press as the administration’s greatest domestic achievement. -The greatest conflict between Hill and La Follette would emerge over the interstate highway system. President La Follette would win the public support of HIll’s ostensible ally Carl Elliott and rock-ribbed conservative Federalist Robert Hale, expecting the Interstate Highway Act to pass with little resistance. To his shock, the Speaker of the House has moved to block consideration of the bill after its passage in the Senate, opposing it upon states’ rights grounds and arguing instead for a bill to fund state highway improvements. -The President would decisively break with Hill over the highway issue, describing him as among the “vermin” holding back the nation and allying with both Carl Elliott and Jim Folsom to back 29 year old George Wallace in a primary challenge against the Speaker. While leaving Hill’s career in limbo and fueling rumors of a challenge from within the Farmer-Labor caucus if he is able to win re-election, the long serving speaker has turned in an awkward solace to the support of John L. Lewis. -A similar conflict has arisen over Maine Representative Sumner Pike’s Energy Security Bill, blocked by Speaker Hill, which would authorize $30,000,000,000 in funding for the study of nuclear power and the expansion of the system of hydroelectric power. John L. Lewis has emerged as the Bill’s leading opponent, accusing of it of serving as a front to smother the highly unionized coal industry. -In an attempt to rally the nation, the President has suggested hosting military parades, an idea which has not yet been put into practice. -Despite, or perhaps owing to, President Lindbergh’s public criticism of the atomic bombing of Tokyo, La Follette would unprecedentedly appoint the former President as Secretary of the Air Force to replace longtime Secretary Benjamin Foulois. -Herbert Hoover, Hamilton Fish III, and other public opponents of the use of atomic weapons have had their cause galvanized by John Hersey’s book Tokyo, graphically describing the fallout of the bombings on the city and its population. -Washington Senator Lois de Lafayette Washburn, among the few openly pro-Japanese members of Congress and an open proponent of the removal of the nation’s Jewish population, would be appointed to chair a committee investigating the circumstances of Aaron Burr Houston’s victory in the 1940 election, including other myrmidons of the conspiracy oriented wing of Farmer-Labor such as John Horne Blackmore. While unearthing evidence of record campaign funding, Washburn’s theatrical manner, attempting to make witnesses pledge loyalty to the memory of Lindbergh and calling poet Ezra Pound as a witness despite no involvement in the matter at hand, would be widely ridiculed, with Will Rogers famously describing Washburn as “having missed many good chances to shut up.” Unsurprisingly, Washburn would lose re-nomination in a landslide in 1946 to moderate Governor Homer T. Bone in a challenge to the primacy of Clarence Dill in the state’s politics. -Meanwhile, prohibitionist Farmer-Laborites Robert Shuler and Benjamin Bubar would find support in launching a committee to investigate Hollywood. While winning the support of the President in rooting out “vigorous exponents of the Japanese line in the motion picture industry,” the Bubar Committee, and concomitant House Kefauver Committee, hearings have largely focused on accusations of indecent language, violence, and suggestions of homosexual behavior. -The Bubar Committee has maintained a secondary focus on “lavender lads,” in the words of Shuler, citing the homosexuality of David I. Walsh, who would die of a brain hemorrhage in June of 1947, as a precedent to investigate the private lives of government officials and prominent celebrities such as Greta Garbo and Tennessee Williams. Sensational testimony from Ambassador to Bolivia John Peurifoy of a “homosexual underground” in the State Department has led to 91 resignations among staff and the rapid promotion of younger individuals cleared of homosexuality such as a newly hired counsel named Roy Cohn. -A longtime Wisconsin La Follette associate, Postmaster General William T. Evjue would resign from office within days of the 1946 midterm elections, fiercely denouncing Phil as a “traitor to democracy.” His replacement, Thomas Duncan, would serve as the administration’s primary envoy to Farmer-Labor socialists. However, Duncan would be arrested on March 7th of 1948 on manslaughter charges after a fatal car crash from which Duncan had fled the scene, charges upon which the President has refused to comment. -Infamous for widespread rumors of adultery and known throughout society as a dilettante, former First Lady Clare Boothe Luce would publicly announce her conversion to the Catholic Church in 1946 while campaigning for a Senate seat in Connecticut, citing reflection following the death of her daughter and the tutelage of Father Fulton Sheen, himself elected to the Senate from Illinois. -First Lady Isen La Follette has gained notoriety for her outspoken pacifism, refusing to endorse the Third Pacific War even as her husband waged it, and stating in a leaked private letter her shame at pinning military honors onto her husband. -Former Commonwealth presidential candidate and noted activist for black civil rights Oswald Garrison Villard has criticized the President, declaring Phil to be a poor listener for lobbyists compared to his brother. -California Farmer-Laborite Bob Shuler, who previously accused the Luces of adultery, would continue his moral crusade with attacks upon the President and First Lady for their heavy drinking, accusing Isen of buying “ornate European gold goblets at $1,000 per dozen.” Though a nominal ally of the Administration, Shuler’s comments have been extensively used by La Follette’s opponents, prompting the President to claim the goblets were thrifted. -Deeply entrenched in the state of Missouri, the Mormon Church has reached 4,000,000 members within the United States, constituting 2.3% of the nation’s population, albeit a majority in only Missouri. Benefitting heavily from the Fourth Great Awakening, the Church has elected as its new President 71 year old Israel A. Smith, notable for organizing the Union Party as a young man serving as a Representative from neighboring Iowa. -Stewart Hamblen and Roy Acuff have emerged as the nation’s greatest country stars, but both have gained controversy for their political involvement, Hamblen as an admirer of President La Follette and Acuff as an outspoken Progressive Federalist. Other rising stars include composer George Gershwin and singer Frank Sinatra. Hit films include 1946’s tale of returning servicemen The Best Years of Our Lives and the epic Citizen Kane, heralded by some as the greatest film of the century. Written, produced, and directed by Orson Welles, the film loosely depicts the life of William Randolph Hearst, depicting protagonist Charles Kane as a womanizing abuser whose newspapers bend the truth and maneuver him into a disastrous tenure in the White House. In response, the Hearst press has prohibited any mention of the film in its pages. -Criminal mastermind and politician Al Capone would die in federal prison in 1948, less notoriously, legendary baseball player Babe Ruth has passed away. -Notable inventions during President La Follette’s term include the junction translator of physicist William Shockley, the Burger King Whopper burger, and the world’s first commercially available computer, IBM’s UNIVAC 1, while the Air Force’s Project Diana has resulted in the first radio broadcast to the moon. On the cultural front, the National Basketball Association has been founded. Citizen Kane portrays the grandiose life of former President William Randolph Hearst, much to his chagrin. The Supreme Court: -Justice Lyda Conley, appointed by President Houston in 1917, would die in May of 1946, followed by Justice Daniel F. Cohalan in June. At the advice of Chief Justice Hugo Black, La Follette would appoint to Conley’s seat a former counsel to Milford W. Howard, Maud McClure Kelly. Despite the defections of a half dozen Farmer-Labor Senators, Kelly’s nomination would be approved. -To replace Cohalan, La Follette would turn to Indiana Senator Sherman Minton, who had come within a vote of unseating his brother as Majority Leader in 1941. Burying the hatchet against reported protestations from his brother, La Follette would nominate Minton to outcry from the ACLU and conservative organizations, citing Minton’s stated belief that economic relief trumped the constitution. Archconservative Missouri Farmer-Laborite J. Bracken Lee would lead opposition to Minton’s nomination, with the Indianan gaining fame for defending himself by snapping back at Lee “you cannot eat the constitution!” With all but a handful of Progressives in opposition, joined by Lee and a motley coalition of anti-La Follette Farmer-Laborites, Minton would be confirmed by a narrow vote of 53-45. Elderly Marshall Philippe Petain, having ruled France for over thirty years since he emerged as the nation's greatest hero in the Great War, has led it through conflict with the United Kingdom. World Events: -As Mexican Empress Maria Jose approaches the age of eighty, Crown Princess Maria Gizela has unexpectedly abdicated any claim to the throne in favor of her four year old grandson, Maximiliano. -Remaining out of any major conflicts and generations into its single tax experiment, Iran has become the largest economy in the Middle East, surpassing the wartorn Hashemite Caliphate. -In a shock to the British Empire and a historic victory for Conservative leader Robert Manion, Canada would vote to declare formal independence from the British Empire in 1945. With elements of the British tabloids accusing the American government of influencing the referendum, the Canadian government has negotiated to remain in the Franco-British War in a limited capacity amidst their disaffiliation. South Africa, however, has completely withdrawn from the conflict after internal turmoil fueled by Afrikaner nationalist opposition to the British, while the colonies of India and Somalia have been promised a quick post-war independence. -Both Republican Spain and Francisco Rolão Preto’s fascist Portugal have honored historic commitments to the United Kingdom by joining the conflict against France, with promises of expansion in North Africa luring Caliph Abdullah into the fray as well. However, successful French defenses inspired by Petain have drawn out the conflict in the colonies, while an advance into Spain has led Petain to proclaim a rival Spanish government under the leadership of General Francisco Franco in a bid for support from the Spanish right. The war has proceeded heavily upon the sea as well, with the British Navy dealing a decisive defeat to a French fleet off the coast of Sardinia. -Petain’s government has been accused by British Prime Minister Oliver Baldwin of ethnic cleansing in annexed Belgium and the Rhineland, forcing ethnic Germans eastward en masse to resettle the region with French from areas such as the Vendee. Meanwhile, both factions have engaged in deadly campaigns of bombing, leaving countless innocent civilians dead in cities such as Paris, Brest, London, and Guernica. -With the support of the liberal king, an additional layer of liberty has been granted to the constituent kingdoms of Otto von Habsburg’s realm, effectively making all separate states in all respects but a shared monarch while largely relegating Otto’s position to that of a symbolic head of state. Dorothy Day, union organizer and editor of the Catholic Worker. View Poll |
2024.04.09 01:26 troikaman Boss: The Life and Times of Richard J. Daley of Chicago - Part 1
You can read this post, and others here
**Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago.** By Mike Royko. 216 Pages.
**American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley - His Battle for Chicago and the Nation.** By Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor. 624 Pages.
Richard J. Daley was perhaps the most powerful local politician America has ever produced. The second most powerful politician in America after the president, he personally selected every Democratic candidate running in Illinois, from Governor to Alderman. In addition to the elected positions, Daley controlled forty thousand patronage jobs, from judgeships down to the ditch diggers; he personally selected who got those jobs. Beyond the borders of Chicago, Daley played kingmaker for the Democratic nomination for president; his ability to control the Illinois delegation made and broke presidential candidates.
What were Daley's goals? First and foremost, to amass and maintain his personal political power. When it came to ideology, he had a sort of flinty conservatism: he liked authority and hated protestors. He was a devout Catholic, going to mass every day. He regarded the newspapers and reporters as the enemy, always criticizing, always asking questions. He believed in racial segregation and that people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But good politics came before ideology with Daley; his concern was always what would be best for him and the machine. Daley did not like John F. Kennedy's liberalism, but he did like that an Irish Catholic presidential candidate would turn out the machine base on election day. And so he backed him for president.
Daley was not an articulate man, known for malapropisms such as "The policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder." and “Today the real problem is the future.”. When questioned by reporters or opponents he was known to fly into fits of rage, and rant at them:
This is the story of the last of the big machine bosses.
*American Pharaoh* is a 600 page tome on the life and times of Richard J. Daley. It's impressively researched, but a bit dry at times. The book takes it's title from the African-American nickname for Daley: "Pharaoh". To them he was an oppressor, demanding much of his subjects but offering little in return.
*Boss* is the much more fun read, written by Chicago Tribune humorist Mike Royko. While it is not as impressively researched, I like the style it is written in more, peppered with observations such as:
Richard Joseph Daley was born in the Irish neighborhood of Bridgeport in 1902. Bridgeport was Chicago’s original slum, a grim place even by the standards of early Chicago. Irish laborers settled it in the early 1830s, digging the Illinois & Michigan Canal. After the canal was finished, the neighborhood turned to animal slaughter. By the time Daley was born, the Irish were prospering and no longer treated with the discrimination their parents and grandparents encountered upon arriving in America. But Daley was raised with stories of the famine and discrimination, and that would be his common refrain when civil rights groups asked him for change: “The Irish were discriminated against, and we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps. Why can’t the Blacks do the same?“.
Daley spent his free time at the clubhouse of the Hamburg Athletic Club, which was part social club, part intramural sports team, and part street gang. Youths in the Hamburg Athletic Club policed the borders of the neighborhood, ensuring no outsiders entered, especially African-Americans living in the encroaching ghetto east of Wentworth Avenue. Poet Langston Hughes made the mistake of crossing the invisible boundary his first weekend in Chicago and was beaten by an unknown Irish street gang.
The Hamburg Athletic Club became infamous for its role in instigating the 1919 Chicago race riot. Started when an African-American swimmer drifted into the white beach area, the riot lasted for a week and killed 38 people. Later, gangs such as the Hamburg Athletic Club were found to have spent the entire summer trying to start a riot and actively attacked black neighborhoods when clashes started. Daley was always shifty about his memories of the riots, refusing to say if he participated or not. This was political calculation; Daley needed both white and black votes, and saying nothing allowed them both to believe he was on their side in 1919. But it should be noted that the youths of the club thought highly enough of Daley that they elected him their president at the age of 22, a position he retained for fifteen years.
The Chicago Machine - formally known as the Cook County Democratic Organization - dominated Chicago politics. While ultimate authority rested with the County Chairman, it was the Ward bosses (Committeemen) who did the day-to-day work of slating candidates for office, distributing patronage and dispensing favors. Daley was one of three thousand precinct captains spread out over Chicago's fifty wards. Precinct captains were responsible for forming personal relationships with four to five hundred voters, and were expected to predict vote totals within ten votes. Ward bosses and captains who failed to deliver on election day were "vised" and replaced with someone who would do better.
The Machine ethic could be summarized in ten rules, according to one academic:
Daley's patron, Alderman McDonough, had been slated for County Treasurer by Cermak, who brought Daley along as his deputy. McDonough was not a man given to hard work or details, and he left the job to his deputy. However, Daley was not satisfied with running the Treasury and wanted to move up in the world. The trouble was, all of the slots Daley could conceivably move into were taken. Worse, McDonough's power had waned with the assassination of Cermak. The Irish had reasserted their dominance, and the former allies of Cermak were being pushed out. Patrick Nash took over the machine and slated Edward Kelly as mayor.
McDonough unexpectedly died in 1934. While having your political patron die was usually a death knell for your career, Daley was known as a bright star in the machine. He quickly allied with the Kelly-Nash faction and stayed in his role as deputy County Treasurer, but was not slated for 11th ward boss, much to his disappointment. However, Daley's lucky streak continued - politicians continued to die at a young age, and one of the three state representatives for Bridgeport died. This man was a republican, elected as part of a deal to send two Democrats and one Republican to Springfield. The Republicans attempted to select their own man, but the Democratic-controlled state election board ruled it was too late to reprint the ballots. The machine organized a write-in campaign for Daley, who was duly elected as state representative. Daley had won his first office, but as a Republican.
Even if he wasn't corrupt, Daley was a machine man, and considered his primary job to do the bidding of his masters in Chicago. However, he was also a surprisingly progressive force: he attempted to create income and corporate taxes to replace the regressive sales tax, introduced bills to strengthen tenant protections, and was an early supporter of the school lunch program. His greatest accomplishment in Springfield was creating the Chicago Transit Authority out of the ashes of the bankrupt transit companies. Of course, many of the bills were designed to promote the machine's interests:
After a decade in Springfield, Daley was ready to return to Chicago. At the same time, MayoBoss Edward Kelly was in trouble. He had proved too corrupt even for Chicago, and voters were ready to throw the machine out. Worse for his political prospects was his support for racial integration. Kelly needed a slate of candidates who seemed reform-minded but could be counted on to advance the machine's interests in office. Daley seemed the perfect choice: he had a reputation for honesty and hard work, but completely loyal to to the machine. Kelly slated him for Cook County Sheriff.
If the office of sheriff was good for the machine, it was hard to see it as good for Daley. The sheriff's office was the most corrupt of offices, and considered a career-ender. The Sheriff's office patrolled unincorporated Cook County, and was empowered to enter Chicago and the suburbs if the municipal police weren't doing their jobs. In reality, they spent most of their time shaking down motorists, suburban bars, and brothels. A journalist remarked that if a Sheriff hadn't cleared $1 million ($18.5 million in 2024 dollars) in his four years in office, he wasn't trying. Few left without being the subject of scandal, and most simply tried to clear as much money as possible before ignominious retirement. Daley's mother remarked "I didn’t raise my son to be a policeman”.
Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately) for Daley, the 1946 elections were a disaster for Democrats. President Truman's approval ratings had slid to 32% amid high inflation and shortages. The Democrats were trounced in the elections, and Daley lost to his Republican opponent. The loss wasn't held against him because the entire slate had been defeated. Daley never had to tempt his ethics.
Daley now had a seat in the Cook County Democratic Central Committee, the politburo of the machine. The Central Committee is a collection of all the committeemen from the Chicago wards and Cook County suburbs. However, it is not a committee of equals; each member votes in accordance with how strong the Democratic vote was in the last election in their ward. Daley, coming from the heavily Democratic 11th ward, was one of the most powerful members on the committee.
Meanwhile, Kelley had resigned as party boss, but Irish factions in the machine were divided on who to replace him with. They settled on Jacob Arvey, committeeman from the Jewish 24th Ward. Arvey was an ideal caretaker because the Jewish vote was relatively powerless, and he would not be able to seize control of the machine. He, however made some clever slating decisions and over-performed expectations. His first decision was to slate Martin Kennelly, a reform-minded Democrat, for mayor. While there was a risk in slating a reformer for a city-wide office, where they might actually do something, it was better to have a Democrat they could remove than a Republican they couldn't. More importantly, he was opposed to racial integration. Arvey next slated Adlai Stevenson for governor and Paul Douglas for US Senator, other great reformers. Having reformers at the top of the ticket boosted down-ballot races, but at the same time these offices controlled less patronage and could not do much damage to the machine. The strategy worked brilliantly, and Arvey was kept on as caretaker. However, Arvey's luck ran out when he slated police Captain Daniel “Tubbo” Gilbert for Sheriff. Gilbert had claimed to a Senate crime committee that he had accumulated a fortune of $360,000 ($4.6 million in 2024 dollars) by being a successful gambler, and when asked if his gambling was legal, replied “Well, no. No, it is not legal.”. The testimony was leaked to the *Chicago Sun-Times* days before the election, and headlines proclaimed the "World's Richest Cop". The Democratic ticket went down in flames, and Arvey was blamed:
Kennelly also went too far on the race issue. While he was slated because he was against integration, a careful balance needed to be struck. One of the innovations of the Kelley-Nash machine was to bring in the black vote. African-Americans had traditionally voted Republican, the party of emancipation, but this changed with the advent of the depression and FDR's New Deal. Kelley eagerly took up federal funding the New Deal, and distributed patronage and welfare to a black sub-machine controlled by Congressman William Levi Dawson.
Like most politicians, Dawson's main concern was his own political power and was a loyal machine man. He opposed integration because spreading out the black vote would dilute his power, and the machine was against it. In exchange, he promoted welfare politics for his constituents. While he didn't get as much patronage as white politicians, he got his share of jobs and favors and was an influential power player in Cook County.
"Jitney Cabs" was the Chicago term for unlicensed taxis that operated in the South Side Black Belt. Licensed taxis were exclusively controlled by white operators and only traveled to white neighborhoods. Jitney cabs were a lifeline for the African-American community, which was not served by public transportation. Dawson was therefore shocked when police officers from downtown started arresting policy wheel operators and jitney drivers. Dawson was traditionally given a free hand to determine what illegal activities were allowed in his neighborhoods. Many blacks saw it as thinly-veiled attempt to let the white Outfit profit from their communities. And Kennelly wasn't improving welfare or leaning on slumlords to clean up their properties; - just attacking the things they liked and needed.
Dawson went to Kennelly, and explained the situation. Kennelly, however refused to do anything, and insulted Dawson at the same time. Dawson didn't ask again, and instead plotted his revenge. When it came time to re-slate Kennelly, Dawson made a surprise appearance from Washington and dressed Kennelly down:
But Daley had the machine on his side. When the candidates applied for the ballot, Daley showed exactly the kind of dirty tricks the machine afforded him. In Chicago, candidates are listed on the ballot in the order they apply. Since voters often pulled the lever on the first recognizable name, having top billing was a coveted position in Chicago elections. Kennelly arrived early, hoping to be first when the city clerk’s office opened at 8:30 a.m. However, Daley’s man entered through a side door early and got his petition stamped first. Daley would be first on the ballot.
Daley may not have had the business establishment backing him, but he had his source of campaign funds. Patronage workers were required to kick back 2% of their salary back to the ward organization, and attend $25-a-plate fundraisers. In addition, contractors who did business with the city and county kicked back money to the machine, knowing that Daley losing would mean the end of their contracts. Organized crime also backed the machine: an anonymous man appeared on TV to say that 10% of the city's gambling revenue went to politicians. Come election day, there would be plenty of "walk-around" money.
Daley spent very little time directly appealing to voters or taking stands on important issues. Instead, he practiced good old-fashioned machine politics. Daley spent most of his time firing up his precinct captains, trusting them to deliver the votes on election day. He made sure to develop a relationship with as many of them as possible, talking with the men about the White Sox, and the women about their children. The precinct workers in turn, devoted themselves to Daley, knowing their jobs were on the line. Kennelly, in contrast, thought politics was about taking the right stands on the issues. If voters were simply told about his principles, they would naturally support him. “Television is our precinct captain” was Kennelly's motto, which Daley dismissed. “Can you ask your television set for a favor?” he said.
Kennelly also tried to make the campaign about bossism and corruption. Daley, in response, promised to resign his position as chairman if elected and responded with a theme he would use throughout his career: populism. He insisted the divisions were not between the machine and reformers but between business elites and working class people. “What we must do is have a city not for State Street, not for LaSalle Street, but a city for all Chicago,” Daley told his backers, and defended the party proudly:
As the primary approached, it seemed that Kennelly had an insurmountable lead: polling indicated the population preferred him 2:1. These of course, were not reliable voters. Kennelly figured that the machine could turn out 400,000 votes in the primary, so if turnout was more than 900,000, he would comfortably win. In the end, turnout was only 750,000 and Daley carried the day with 49% of the vote. Adamowski had split the anti-machine vote as well. When looking at the ward totals however, it became clear how the machine had delivered Daley's victory. In most wards, Kennelly and Daley ran neck-and-neck, but in the "Automatic Eleven" wards, the machine's base, Daley had won by Assad-level margins.
While Daley had won the primary, he had not won the mayorship yet. The Republicans had decided to nominate a reform Democrat, Robert Merriam, to run for them, and he promised to be a challenging opponent. Merriam represented the liberal 5th ward and had made a name for himself as a crime fighter by broadcasting actual cases of corruption and crime on his TV show, *Spotlight on Chicago*. Many Republicans were not enthusiastic about nominating a Democrat as their candidate. The leading national conservative paper, the *Chicago Tribune* called him a RINO. But Republican Governor William Stratton wanted to breathe life into the Chicago Republican Party, and a fusion ticket between independent Democrats and Republicans was the best promise of that.
The issues ended up being a repeat of the primary, with Daley sticking to platitudes, promising to hire more policemen and to do more for the neighborhoods, though he was vague about exactly what he would do. Merriam attacked Daley for his ties to the machine and promised to continue the civil service reforms Kennelly had started. Daley hit back, mocking Merriam for not being a loyal member of either party. Daley, once again, adopted a populist tone, making the campaign between blue-collar workers and blue-bloods on the lakefront. Merriam, he said, was not a man of the people, unlike Daley, who continued to live in a Bridgeport bungalow with his seven children. Daley promised to put union members on city boards in transit, schools, parks, and health and racked up plenty of union endorsements.
The machine had other tactics, such as "four-legged voting," where the precinct captain would go into the booth with the voter and ensure they pulled the lever for the Democratic ticket. While it served well to ensure voters with a poor command of English voted correctly, it also ensured voters who had been bribed with cash or alcohol kept up their end of the bargain. And when regular voters weren't available, the machine simply stuffed the ballot box, with precinct captains and election judges alike pulling the lever multiple times. Later investigations would show that there were more votes in some precincts than voters who requested ballots.
According to state law, Republican and Democratic election judges were supposed to be at all polling places to blow the whistle on these sort of tactics. However, the machine had its way of co-opting them. Often ward bosses selected both the Democratic and Republican judges, who were often machine workers who had switched parties. When legitimate Republicans tried to register, the city mysteriously "lost" their applications. If a real Republican did somehow become a judge, they were intimidated into silence. Gangsters would arrive and threaten them if they didn't leave the polling site. Another judge was arrested when he asked to see the voting records, and released at the end of the day without charges. Another had their dog poisoned. If, on the other hand they looked the other way, they would be treated to breakfast, lunch, and dinner by the precinct captain, along with something extra beyond the $25 they nominally received for judging.
Beyond cheating, the machine had other tactics to convince voters to vote the way they wanted. Before the primary, voters in the Automatic Eleven received a dollar bill in the mail, accompanied by the message, "This is your lucky day. Stay lucky with Daley.”. Voters in public housing and on welfare were told that they would lose their benefits if they didn't vote for the machine. The machine would appeal to racial prejudices by circulating a fake letter in white neighborhoods saying Merriam's wife was black (she was not). In Catholic neighborhoods, campaigners never tired of reminding voters that Merriam was divorced and raising two children that were not his own.
Like the primary, Merriam staked his victory on voter turnout. The machine was thought to control 600,000 votes in the general election, and so Merriam needed 1.2 million votes to overcome Daley's lead. Daley won 708,000 votes on a turnout of 1.3 million, 55% of the vote. Again, the Automatic Eleven had proved critical, especially the African-American wards. In the 1st ward, dominated by the Chicago Outfit, Daley won by 90%. Daley was now mayor, and he would rule the city with an iron fist for the rest of his life.
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**Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago.** By Mike Royko. 216 Pages.
**American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley - His Battle for Chicago and the Nation.** By Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor. 624 Pages.
Richard J. Daley was perhaps the most powerful local politician America has ever produced. The second most powerful politician in America after the president, he personally selected every Democratic candidate running in Illinois, from Governor to Alderman. In addition to the elected positions, Daley controlled forty thousand patronage jobs, from judgeships down to the ditch diggers; he personally selected who got those jobs. Beyond the borders of Chicago, Daley played kingmaker for the Democratic nomination for president; his ability to control the Illinois delegation made and broke presidential candidates.
What were Daley's goals? First and foremost, to amass and maintain his personal political power. When it came to ideology, he had a sort of flinty conservatism: he liked authority and hated protestors. He was a devout Catholic, going to mass every day. He regarded the newspapers and reporters as the enemy, always criticizing, always asking questions. He believed in racial segregation and that people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But good politics came before ideology with Daley; his concern was always what would be best for him and the machine. Daley did not like John F. Kennedy's liberalism, but he did like that an Irish Catholic presidential candidate would turn out the machine base on election day. And so he backed him for president.
Daley was not an articulate man, known for malapropisms such as "The policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder." and “Today the real problem is the future.”. When questioned by reporters or opponents he was known to fly into fits of rage, and rant at them:
If provoked, he’ll break into a rambling, ranting speech, waving his arms, shaking his fists, defending his judgment, defending his administration, always with the familiar “It is easy to criticize . . . to find fault . . . but where are your programs . . . where are your ideas . . .”Arrogant and ruthless, he always got what he wanted - and if he didn't, he would make sure you would never hold an office or job in Chicago again. And yet for all his flaws, Daley saved Chicago from going the way of other declining rust belt cities, like Detroit or St. Louis. Historians have ranked him amongst the greatest American mayors of all time.
This is the story of the last of the big machine bosses.
*American Pharaoh* is a 600 page tome on the life and times of Richard J. Daley. It's impressively researched, but a bit dry at times. The book takes it's title from the African-American nickname for Daley: "Pharaoh". To them he was an oppressor, demanding much of his subjects but offering little in return.
*Boss* is the much more fun read, written by Chicago Tribune humorist Mike Royko. While it is not as impressively researched, I like the style it is written in more, peppered with observations such as:
Daley didn’t come from a big family but he married into one, and so Eleanor Guilfoyle’s parents might well have said that they did not lose a daughter, they gained an employment agency. Mrs. Daley’s nephew has been in several key jobs. Her sister’s husband became a police captain. A brother is an engineer in the school system. Stories about the number of Guilfoyles, and cousins and in-laws of Guilfoyles, in the patronage army have taken on legendary tones.
A City of Neighborhoods
Early 20th century Chicago was a “City of Neighborhoods”, each with its own ethnic group: Germans on the North Side, Irish on the South Side, and Jews on the West Side. People kept to their own kind, and outsiders entered other neighborhoods at their peril.Richard Joseph Daley was born in the Irish neighborhood of Bridgeport in 1902. Bridgeport was Chicago’s original slum, a grim place even by the standards of early Chicago. Irish laborers settled it in the early 1830s, digging the Illinois & Michigan Canal. After the canal was finished, the neighborhood turned to animal slaughter. By the time Daley was born, the Irish were prospering and no longer treated with the discrimination their parents and grandparents encountered upon arriving in America. But Daley was raised with stories of the famine and discrimination, and that would be his common refrain when civil rights groups asked him for change: “The Irish were discriminated against, and we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps. Why can’t the Blacks do the same?“.
Daley spent his free time at the clubhouse of the Hamburg Athletic Club, which was part social club, part intramural sports team, and part street gang. Youths in the Hamburg Athletic Club policed the borders of the neighborhood, ensuring no outsiders entered, especially African-Americans living in the encroaching ghetto east of Wentworth Avenue. Poet Langston Hughes made the mistake of crossing the invisible boundary his first weekend in Chicago and was beaten by an unknown Irish street gang.
The Hamburg Athletic Club became infamous for its role in instigating the 1919 Chicago race riot. Started when an African-American swimmer drifted into the white beach area, the riot lasted for a week and killed 38 people. Later, gangs such as the Hamburg Athletic Club were found to have spent the entire summer trying to start a riot and actively attacked black neighborhoods when clashes started. Daley was always shifty about his memories of the riots, refusing to say if he participated or not. This was political calculation; Daley needed both white and black votes, and saying nothing allowed them both to believe he was on their side in 1919. But it should be noted that the youths of the club thought highly enough of Daley that they elected him their president at the age of 22, a position he retained for fifteen years.
A House for All Peoples
The Hamburg Athletic Club was also Daley's introduction to politics. Chicago's athletic clubs were sponsored by local ward bosses, and members often served as political workers, getting out the vote in campaign season. The 11th Ward Alderman and Ward Committeeman, Joseph (“Big Joe”) McDonough took an interest in Daley, and made him his personal assistant in the 11th Ward Organization. Daley had been inducted into Machine politics.The Chicago Machine - formally known as the Cook County Democratic Organization - dominated Chicago politics. While ultimate authority rested with the County Chairman, it was the Ward bosses (Committeemen) who did the day-to-day work of slating candidates for office, distributing patronage and dispensing favors. Daley was one of three thousand precinct captains spread out over Chicago's fifty wards. Precinct captains were responsible for forming personal relationships with four to five hundred voters, and were expected to predict vote totals within ten votes. Ward bosses and captains who failed to deliver on election day were "vised" and replaced with someone who would do better.
The Machine ethic could be summarized in ten rules, according to one academic:
- Be faithful to those above you in the hierarchy, and repay those who are faithful to you.
- Back the whole machine slate, not individual candidates or programs.
- Be respectful of elected officials and party leaders.
- Never be ashamed of the party, and defend it proudly.
- Don’t ask questions.
- Stay on your own turf, and keep out of conflicts that don’t concern you.
- Never be first, since innovation brings with it risk.
- Don’t get caught.
- Don't repeat what you see and hear, or someone might get indicted.
- Deliver the votes, or we will find someone who will.
Daley's patron, Alderman McDonough, had been slated for County Treasurer by Cermak, who brought Daley along as his deputy. McDonough was not a man given to hard work or details, and he left the job to his deputy. However, Daley was not satisfied with running the Treasury and wanted to move up in the world. The trouble was, all of the slots Daley could conceivably move into were taken. Worse, McDonough's power had waned with the assassination of Cermak. The Irish had reasserted their dominance, and the former allies of Cermak were being pushed out. Patrick Nash took over the machine and slated Edward Kelly as mayor.
McDonough unexpectedly died in 1934. While having your political patron die was usually a death knell for your career, Daley was known as a bright star in the machine. He quickly allied with the Kelly-Nash faction and stayed in his role as deputy County Treasurer, but was not slated for 11th ward boss, much to his disappointment. However, Daley's lucky streak continued - politicians continued to die at a young age, and one of the three state representatives for Bridgeport died. This man was a republican, elected as part of a deal to send two Democrats and one Republican to Springfield. The Republicans attempted to select their own man, but the Democratic-controlled state election board ruled it was too late to reprint the ballots. The machine organized a write-in campaign for Daley, who was duly elected as state representative. Daley had won his first office, but as a Republican.
Springfield
The Springfield that Daley arrived at in 1936 was corrupt, even by the standards of early 20th century America. Most legislators were there for "girls, games, and graft". The most common kind of bill was a "fetcher" bill, a bill designed to harm the many special interests that sent lobbyists to Springfield. Lobbyists came over with envelopes of cash, and the bill was quietly dropped. If directly taking money from lobbyists was too much for a legislator, lobbyists hosted card games guaranteeing winnings of up to one thousand dollars. Daley personally was never on the take, never drank, and never cheated on his wife. He instead holed up in his hotel room with draft bills and budget documents.Even if he wasn't corrupt, Daley was a machine man, and considered his primary job to do the bidding of his masters in Chicago. However, he was also a surprisingly progressive force: he attempted to create income and corporate taxes to replace the regressive sales tax, introduced bills to strengthen tenant protections, and was an early supporter of the school lunch program. His greatest accomplishment in Springfield was creating the Chicago Transit Authority out of the ashes of the bankrupt transit companies. Of course, many of the bills were designed to promote the machine's interests:
One Daley tax reform, which he tried to pass four times, would have allowed Cook County residents to appeal their tax bills directly to the county assessor, rather than proceed through the court system. It might have made appeals simpler for taxpayers, but its greatest beneficiary would have been the ward committeemen and aldermen who could then use their ties to the highly political county assessor’s office to reduce the taxes of their friends and supporters. Daley was also doing the machine’s bidding when he crusaded to revise the state’s divorce laws to make the state’s attorney part of every divorce. The change would have given the state’s attorney’s office a five-dollar fee for every divorce action filed in Cook County, generating revenue and work for an office that was usually filled by the machine and that employed an army of Democratic patronage workers.Daley acquired a reputation as an expert in budgetary matters and was promoted to State Senator, then elected the youngest Senate Minority Leader in Illinois history. In the Chicago tradition of double-dipping, he was given the job of Cook County Comptroller. In addition to giving Daley another salary, this was a particularly sensitive post since he could see the books of the entire county. Daley knew which contractors were favored, which contracts that were "lowest bid" were secretly loaded with extras, and who was given what job. A person who drove a politician around might be employed as an engineer for the Highway Department. Anyone who could read the figures knew where the bodies were buried.
After a decade in Springfield, Daley was ready to return to Chicago. At the same time, MayoBoss Edward Kelly was in trouble. He had proved too corrupt even for Chicago, and voters were ready to throw the machine out. Worse for his political prospects was his support for racial integration. Kelly needed a slate of candidates who seemed reform-minded but could be counted on to advance the machine's interests in office. Daley seemed the perfect choice: he had a reputation for honesty and hard work, but completely loyal to to the machine. Kelly slated him for Cook County Sheriff.
If the office of sheriff was good for the machine, it was hard to see it as good for Daley. The sheriff's office was the most corrupt of offices, and considered a career-ender. The Sheriff's office patrolled unincorporated Cook County, and was empowered to enter Chicago and the suburbs if the municipal police weren't doing their jobs. In reality, they spent most of their time shaking down motorists, suburban bars, and brothels. A journalist remarked that if a Sheriff hadn't cleared $1 million ($18.5 million in 2024 dollars) in his four years in office, he wasn't trying. Few left without being the subject of scandal, and most simply tried to clear as much money as possible before ignominious retirement. Daley's mother remarked "I didn’t raise my son to be a policeman”.
Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately) for Daley, the 1946 elections were a disaster for Democrats. President Truman's approval ratings had slid to 32% amid high inflation and shortages. The Democrats were trounced in the elections, and Daley lost to his Republican opponent. The loss wasn't held against him because the entire slate had been defeated. Daley never had to tempt his ethics.
Boss
Daley also had his eyes on the 11th Ward Committeeman position. After McDonough passed, the 11th Ward Alderman and Committeeman seats passed to Daley's new patron, Hugh “Babe” Connelly. However, Connelly's health was failing, and he lost his alderman seat to a Republican in the 1946 disaster. Daley convened a meeting that Connelly was too ill to attend and struck a deal with the Poles moving into Bridgeport. They would support Daley for Ward Boss, and he would support a Pole for the aldermanic seat.Daley now had a seat in the Cook County Democratic Central Committee, the politburo of the machine. The Central Committee is a collection of all the committeemen from the Chicago wards and Cook County suburbs. However, it is not a committee of equals; each member votes in accordance with how strong the Democratic vote was in the last election in their ward. Daley, coming from the heavily Democratic 11th ward, was one of the most powerful members on the committee.
Meanwhile, Kelley had resigned as party boss, but Irish factions in the machine were divided on who to replace him with. They settled on Jacob Arvey, committeeman from the Jewish 24th Ward. Arvey was an ideal caretaker because the Jewish vote was relatively powerless, and he would not be able to seize control of the machine. He, however made some clever slating decisions and over-performed expectations. His first decision was to slate Martin Kennelly, a reform-minded Democrat, for mayor. While there was a risk in slating a reformer for a city-wide office, where they might actually do something, it was better to have a Democrat they could remove than a Republican they couldn't. More importantly, he was opposed to racial integration. Arvey next slated Adlai Stevenson for governor and Paul Douglas for US Senator, other great reformers. Having reformers at the top of the ticket boosted down-ballot races, but at the same time these offices controlled less patronage and could not do much damage to the machine. The strategy worked brilliantly, and Arvey was kept on as caretaker. However, Arvey's luck ran out when he slated police Captain Daniel “Tubbo” Gilbert for Sheriff. Gilbert had claimed to a Senate crime committee that he had accumulated a fortune of $360,000 ($4.6 million in 2024 dollars) by being a successful gambler, and when asked if his gambling was legal, replied “Well, no. No, it is not legal.”. The testimony was leaked to the *Chicago Sun-Times* days before the election, and headlines proclaimed the "World's Richest Cop". The Democratic ticket went down in flames, and Arvey was blamed:
Chairman Arvey, hailed as the genius who saved the Machine by slating Kennelly, Douglas, and Stevenson, was now the idiot who slated Tubbo Gilbert. In the silence of the Morrison Hotel headquarters, Arvey waited for somebody, anybody, to tell him it was just one of those bad breaks and not to worry about it. Arvey, knowing he was being blamed, was hoping for a vote of confidence. Nobody offered it, so he finally said, “I think I’m going to resign.” Then he went to California to take a vacation and wait for somebody to call and ask him to change his mind—Joe Gill, Al Horan, Daley. Nobody called, so that was it; he was out.Daley headed up the Arvey faction now, but when the votes were tallied, neither he nor his rival, 14th Ward Committeeman Clarence Wagner, had enough votes to secure the chairmanship. The two factions were less divided by policy than personality: Daley's faction was the richer Irish, referred to as the "lace-curtain" Irish and resented by Wagner's faction for looking down at their less-successful brethren. The two sides settled on Joseph Gill as interim chairman until 1952. Both sides regarded him as neutral, and as the oldest member of the committee, unlikely to stay on long. 1952 came to pass, and Daley had accumulated barely enough in patronage and votes to take the chairmanship. Hover, Wagner was not ready to concede, and proposed the committee break for two weeks to stall for time and consolidate his position. Wagner took a group of influential politicians up to Canada on a fishing trip, where he died in an automobile accident. Even for a career built on well-timed deaths, no death in Daley's life had been more convenient than this. He had the chairmanship; The next step was the mayorship.
Kennelly
Kennelly was shaping up to be a mediocre mayor, content mostly to attend ceremonial functions and do little else. Unfortunately for the machine, the one issue he took on with gusto was civil service reform. While Chicago, in theory, had civil service protections, the machine had ways of getting around it. Exams were held so infrequently or made so difficult that nobody was available to be hired the honest way. The city could then hire political flunkies as "temporary" employees, many of whom spent their entire careers as temporary hires. Kennelly started running exams again and consolidated titles so that they fell under civil service protection. The ward bosses lost 12,000 jobs over Kennelly's mayorship and were ready to remove him.Kennelly also went too far on the race issue. While he was slated because he was against integration, a careful balance needed to be struck. One of the innovations of the Kelley-Nash machine was to bring in the black vote. African-Americans had traditionally voted Republican, the party of emancipation, but this changed with the advent of the depression and FDR's New Deal. Kelley eagerly took up federal funding the New Deal, and distributed patronage and welfare to a black sub-machine controlled by Congressman William Levi Dawson.
Like most politicians, Dawson's main concern was his own political power and was a loyal machine man. He opposed integration because spreading out the black vote would dilute his power, and the machine was against it. In exchange, he promoted welfare politics for his constituents. While he didn't get as much patronage as white politicians, he got his share of jobs and favors and was an influential power player in Cook County.
during the 1960 presidential campaign, Dawson served on the civil rights issues committee of John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign — known as the Civil Rights Section. The first thing Dawson tried to do was get the name changed. “Let’s not use words that offend our good Southern friends, like ‘civil rights,’” he told the group’s first meeting. His office in the campaign headquarters was quickly dubbed “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Dawson’s primary loyalty was to his political organization, not his race — and when the two were in conflict, the Democratic machine always won. “You would not expect Willie Mays to drop the ball just because Jackie Robinson hit it,” Dawson liked to say.Dawson's ability to deliver 70 percent of the vote in his three wards was critical to the machine's lopsided victories. Kennelly, however, had forgotten who had elected him and began a moralistic crusade against two black institutions: "policy wheels" and "jitney cabs". "Policy" was a popular gambling game, similar to the modern day lottery. Thousands of policy stations were spread throughout the South Side. While technically illegal, Dawson personally selected the police officers who served in his fief and ensured they did not prosecute the policy wheels. When the Chicago Outfit attempted to bribe a police captain into letting them muscle in on the action, Dawson had him replaced.
"Jitney Cabs" was the Chicago term for unlicensed taxis that operated in the South Side Black Belt. Licensed taxis were exclusively controlled by white operators and only traveled to white neighborhoods. Jitney cabs were a lifeline for the African-American community, which was not served by public transportation. Dawson was therefore shocked when police officers from downtown started arresting policy wheel operators and jitney drivers. Dawson was traditionally given a free hand to determine what illegal activities were allowed in his neighborhoods. Many blacks saw it as thinly-veiled attempt to let the white Outfit profit from their communities. And Kennelly wasn't improving welfare or leaning on slumlords to clean up their properties; - just attacking the things they liked and needed.
Dawson went to Kennelly, and explained the situation. Kennelly, however refused to do anything, and insulted Dawson at the same time. Dawson didn't ask again, and instead plotted his revenge. When it came time to re-slate Kennelly, Dawson made a surprise appearance from Washington and dressed Kennelly down:
“Who do you think you are? I bring in the votes. I elect you. You are not needed, but the votes are needed. I deliver the votes to you, but you won’t talk to me?”After the tirade and Kennelly was thoroughly chastised, the party admitted that Kennelly's civil service reforms made him too popular; the machine would be forced to run him again. But he would not get another term after this one. This deal was made in the backrooms of the Central Committee, and Kennelly was unaware such a deal had taken place. Daley began quietly building a case for him to take over as mayor and freezing out Mayor Kennelly from the organization. Daley stopped inviting Kennelly to party functions or asking his opinion about slating decisions. Kennelly, however failed to get the message and was shocked when he was not re-slated in 1954. The slating committee instead picked Daley, who pretended to be surprised. The official line was that Daley had been drafted, not seeking the office.
The Primary
Despite not getting the Democratic endorsement, Kennelly was not going to let go of city hall without a fight. He entered the primary determined to win a third term in office, showing a fire he had never exhibited as mayor. Kennelly fired all of the ward leaders who had voted against him from their patronage positions, and also vowed to fire any city employee who campaigned against him. He received the backing of Chicago's business community, who made sizable campaign contributions. Most importantly, he was more popular than Daley, who looked exactly the image of a corrupt machine boss. Complicating the primary further was the entrance of Daley's future arch-nemesis, Benjamin Adamowski, into the primary on a anti-machine platform. Adamowski hoped Kennelly would drop out of the race, and that his reform credentials, combined with the Polish vote, would put him over.But Daley had the machine on his side. When the candidates applied for the ballot, Daley showed exactly the kind of dirty tricks the machine afforded him. In Chicago, candidates are listed on the ballot in the order they apply. Since voters often pulled the lever on the first recognizable name, having top billing was a coveted position in Chicago elections. Kennelly arrived early, hoping to be first when the city clerk’s office opened at 8:30 a.m. However, Daley’s man entered through a side door early and got his petition stamped first. Daley would be first on the ballot.
Daley may not have had the business establishment backing him, but he had his source of campaign funds. Patronage workers were required to kick back 2% of their salary back to the ward organization, and attend $25-a-plate fundraisers. In addition, contractors who did business with the city and county kicked back money to the machine, knowing that Daley losing would mean the end of their contracts. Organized crime also backed the machine: an anonymous man appeared on TV to say that 10% of the city's gambling revenue went to politicians. Come election day, there would be plenty of "walk-around" money.
Daley spent very little time directly appealing to voters or taking stands on important issues. Instead, he practiced good old-fashioned machine politics. Daley spent most of his time firing up his precinct captains, trusting them to deliver the votes on election day. He made sure to develop a relationship with as many of them as possible, talking with the men about the White Sox, and the women about their children. The precinct workers in turn, devoted themselves to Daley, knowing their jobs were on the line. Kennelly, in contrast, thought politics was about taking the right stands on the issues. If voters were simply told about his principles, they would naturally support him. “Television is our precinct captain” was Kennelly's motto, which Daley dismissed. “Can you ask your television set for a favor?” he said.
Kennelly also tried to make the campaign about bossism and corruption. Daley, in response, promised to resign his position as chairman if elected and responded with a theme he would use throughout his career: populism. He insisted the divisions were not between the machine and reformers but between business elites and working class people. “What we must do is have a city not for State Street, not for LaSalle Street, but a city for all Chicago,” Daley told his backers, and defended the party proudly:
“The party permits ordinary people to get ahead. Without the party, I couldn’t be mayor. The rich guys can get elected on their money, but somebody like me, an ordinary person, needs the party. Without the party, only the rich would be elected to office.”On race, Daley played both sides. He cultivated Dawson as an ally, and made sure to defend him in front of black audiences. Kennelly attacked Dawson, calling him a political boss: “I can understand why Dawson passed the word that he couldn’t stand for Kennelly. I haven’t been interested in building up his power. Without power to dispense privilege, protection and patronage to preferred people, bossism has no stock in trade.” Daley, at the same time, made sure to insinuate upon white audiences that he did not support integration, though he made every effort to dodge a direct question about the issue.
As the primary approached, it seemed that Kennelly had an insurmountable lead: polling indicated the population preferred him 2:1. These of course, were not reliable voters. Kennelly figured that the machine could turn out 400,000 votes in the primary, so if turnout was more than 900,000, he would comfortably win. In the end, turnout was only 750,000 and Daley carried the day with 49% of the vote. Adamowski had split the anti-machine vote as well. When looking at the ward totals however, it became clear how the machine had delivered Daley's victory. In most wards, Kennelly and Daley ran neck-and-neck, but in the "Automatic Eleven" wards, the machine's base, Daley had won by Assad-level margins.
While Daley had won the primary, he had not won the mayorship yet. The Republicans had decided to nominate a reform Democrat, Robert Merriam, to run for them, and he promised to be a challenging opponent. Merriam represented the liberal 5th ward and had made a name for himself as a crime fighter by broadcasting actual cases of corruption and crime on his TV show, *Spotlight on Chicago*. Many Republicans were not enthusiastic about nominating a Democrat as their candidate. The leading national conservative paper, the *Chicago Tribune* called him a RINO. But Republican Governor William Stratton wanted to breathe life into the Chicago Republican Party, and a fusion ticket between independent Democrats and Republicans was the best promise of that.
The issues ended up being a repeat of the primary, with Daley sticking to platitudes, promising to hire more policemen and to do more for the neighborhoods, though he was vague about exactly what he would do. Merriam attacked Daley for his ties to the machine and promised to continue the civil service reforms Kennelly had started. Daley hit back, mocking Merriam for not being a loyal member of either party. Daley, once again, adopted a populist tone, making the campaign between blue-collar workers and blue-bloods on the lakefront. Merriam, he said, was not a man of the people, unlike Daley, who continued to live in a Bridgeport bungalow with his seven children. Daley promised to put union members on city boards in transit, schools, parks, and health and racked up plenty of union endorsements.
How to Win an Election, Chicago Style
Merriam was concerned that Daley would try to steal the election, or at the very least, inflate his vote totals. This was completely justified. The machine had a number of tactics to steal votes. It began on registration day. Not only would precinct captains make every effort to register voters in their neighborhoods (preferably as Democrats), they would go to flophouses, scan the guest list, and register everyone on it. Since they were transients unlikely to vote, the precinct captains could safely vote for them. The *Chicago Tribune*, in a 1972 exposé, would create fake voters in the guest lists and watch precinct captains put guests such as "James Joyce" or "Elmer Fudd" on the voter rolls. In addition to flophouse voters, there were ghost voters. Merriam sent 30,000 letters to registered voters in machine strongholds. 3,000 came back as unclaimed, moved, or dead. Merriam claimed that the machine may have as many as 100,000 ghost voters on the voter rolls. The *Tribune* would later confirm that the machine was indeed voting for ghost voters. Merriam also sent a spy into a west side polling place and caught on camera "Short Pencil" Louie erasing Kennelly votes and replacing them with Daley votes.The machine had other tactics, such as "four-legged voting," where the precinct captain would go into the booth with the voter and ensure they pulled the lever for the Democratic ticket. While it served well to ensure voters with a poor command of English voted correctly, it also ensured voters who had been bribed with cash or alcohol kept up their end of the bargain. And when regular voters weren't available, the machine simply stuffed the ballot box, with precinct captains and election judges alike pulling the lever multiple times. Later investigations would show that there were more votes in some precincts than voters who requested ballots.
According to state law, Republican and Democratic election judges were supposed to be at all polling places to blow the whistle on these sort of tactics. However, the machine had its way of co-opting them. Often ward bosses selected both the Democratic and Republican judges, who were often machine workers who had switched parties. When legitimate Republicans tried to register, the city mysteriously "lost" their applications. If a real Republican did somehow become a judge, they were intimidated into silence. Gangsters would arrive and threaten them if they didn't leave the polling site. Another judge was arrested when he asked to see the voting records, and released at the end of the day without charges. Another had their dog poisoned. If, on the other hand they looked the other way, they would be treated to breakfast, lunch, and dinner by the precinct captain, along with something extra beyond the $25 they nominally received for judging.
Beyond cheating, the machine had other tactics to convince voters to vote the way they wanted. Before the primary, voters in the Automatic Eleven received a dollar bill in the mail, accompanied by the message, "This is your lucky day. Stay lucky with Daley.”. Voters in public housing and on welfare were told that they would lose their benefits if they didn't vote for the machine. The machine would appeal to racial prejudices by circulating a fake letter in white neighborhoods saying Merriam's wife was black (she was not). In Catholic neighborhoods, campaigners never tired of reminding voters that Merriam was divorced and raising two children that were not his own.
Like the primary, Merriam staked his victory on voter turnout. The machine was thought to control 600,000 votes in the general election, and so Merriam needed 1.2 million votes to overcome Daley's lead. Daley won 708,000 votes on a turnout of 1.3 million, 55% of the vote. Again, the Automatic Eleven had proved critical, especially the African-American wards. In the 1st ward, dominated by the Chicago Outfit, Daley won by 90%. Daley was now mayor, and he would rule the city with an iron fist for the rest of his life.
2024.04.06 00:40 ReferendumAutonomic 400 jumping jacks or be punched
"Adults with autism faced 'torture' at this LA group home. Their moms want justice." https://www.gazettextra.com/news/nation_world/adults-with-autism-faced-torture-at-this-la-group-home-their-moms-want-justice/article_c64b8b1b-8652-51b0-98bc-2666c517158c.html
"Extracting Social Support and Social Isolation Information from Clinical Psychiatry Notes: Comparing a Rule-based NLP System and a Large Language Model." A.I. is more intelligent than psychs. https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.17199
"Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM)...to the (anti-psychiatric) model of social and psychological suffering, an expression of maladjustment, trauma, developmental disorders (neuro divergence), peculiarities." https://www.breakinglatest.news/health/speech-by-renato-ventura-on-the-occasion-of-the-meeting-rethinking-the-diagnosis-mental-health-forum/
"real Woods was arrested and charged with identity theft and false impersonation...judge ruled in February 2020 that he was not mentally competent to stand trial and he was sent to a mental hospital in California, where he received psychotropic medication." Hospital Network Admin Used Fake Identity For 35 Years https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/04/04/2122258/hospital-network-admin-used-fake-identity-for-35-years
"before we hired a PR firm I had no idea where articles in the mainstream media came from." On TV and magazines pill companies don't just advertise. they bribe to be written about without disclosing the payment conflict of interest. https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
Thank you to "Sen. Clarence K. Lam (maryland)...wanted to prohibit ECT from being ordered...make sure you can’t, let’s say, compel someone to take birth control." https://www.marylandmatters.org/2024/04/05/should-people-with-severe-mental-health-needs-get-court-ordered-treatment-state-senate-to-decide/
"all acting on the 5-HT2A receptor. Risperidone, clozapine, olanzapine and haloperidol showed selective G-protein inverse agonist activity." https://www.medflixs.com/en/revue/nouvelles-donnees-sur-le-mecanisme-daction-des-antipsychotiques
"study raises the important question of whether we might be able to prevent these common mental disorders by improving people's metabolic health." https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/metabolic-and-mental-health-closely-linked-2024a10006gz?ecd=a2a
"SCHIZOPHRENIA THROUGH AYURVEDIC LENS: INSIGHTS INTO UNMADA AND DOSHA IMBALANCE." https://vediherbals.com/blogs/blog/ayurvedic-treatment-for-schizophrenia
"Opinion: We must help veterans with financial stability to help mental health, limit suicides...Financial stress can have a disastrous impact on a veteran’s mental health, leading to prolonged battles with depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses." https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/story/2024-04-05/opinion-among-veterans-financial-instability-linked-to-mental-health-issues-and-suicide
"Delhi High Court has ruled that a woman repeatedly leaving her matrimonial home, without any fault of her husband is an act of mental cruelty." https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/mental-cruelty-delhi-high-court-on-wife-repeatedly-leaving-matrimonial-home-5382357
"Man's dog helps with schizophrenia hallucinations: Why psychiatric service dogs are helpful, but hard to get... if he says “greet” and Luna doesn’t respond, he knows that what he’s seeing isn’t there. She also prevents Green from self-harm during auditory hallucinations. Luna will jump on his lap and put her head against his, preventing Green from hitting his face." https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2024/04/05/schizophrenia-hallucinations-psychiatric-assistance-dog/73171229007/
Movie: "The Listener" "warm line" who will rat you out to malpracticers for depression https://youtu.be/1Sbi1VDw9kM https://youtu.be/s1N_MaZmIvA
April 4 5:27 PM audrey attempted to kick me for giving the dog some bread (she was giving him almost identical bread) Dog sat next to me afterwards. April 5 around 4 PM support puppy did his job and was punished by steven, "quiet!" 4:28 PM dog also alerted on brother's symptom.
submitted by ReferendumAutonomic to Antipsychiatry [link] [comments]
"Extracting Social Support and Social Isolation Information from Clinical Psychiatry Notes: Comparing a Rule-based NLP System and a Large Language Model." A.I. is more intelligent than psychs. https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.17199
"Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM)...to the (anti-psychiatric) model of social and psychological suffering, an expression of maladjustment, trauma, developmental disorders (neuro divergence), peculiarities." https://www.breakinglatest.news/health/speech-by-renato-ventura-on-the-occasion-of-the-meeting-rethinking-the-diagnosis-mental-health-forum/
"real Woods was arrested and charged with identity theft and false impersonation...judge ruled in February 2020 that he was not mentally competent to stand trial and he was sent to a mental hospital in California, where he received psychotropic medication." Hospital Network Admin Used Fake Identity For 35 Years https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/04/04/2122258/hospital-network-admin-used-fake-identity-for-35-years
"before we hired a PR firm I had no idea where articles in the mainstream media came from." On TV and magazines pill companies don't just advertise. they bribe to be written about without disclosing the payment conflict of interest. https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
Thank you to "Sen. Clarence K. Lam (maryland)...wanted to prohibit ECT from being ordered...make sure you can’t, let’s say, compel someone to take birth control." https://www.marylandmatters.org/2024/04/05/should-people-with-severe-mental-health-needs-get-court-ordered-treatment-state-senate-to-decide/
"all acting on the 5-HT2A receptor. Risperidone, clozapine, olanzapine and haloperidol showed selective G-protein inverse agonist activity." https://www.medflixs.com/en/revue/nouvelles-donnees-sur-le-mecanisme-daction-des-antipsychotiques
"study raises the important question of whether we might be able to prevent these common mental disorders by improving people's metabolic health." https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/metabolic-and-mental-health-closely-linked-2024a10006gz?ecd=a2a
"SCHIZOPHRENIA THROUGH AYURVEDIC LENS: INSIGHTS INTO UNMADA AND DOSHA IMBALANCE." https://vediherbals.com/blogs/blog/ayurvedic-treatment-for-schizophrenia
"Opinion: We must help veterans with financial stability to help mental health, limit suicides...Financial stress can have a disastrous impact on a veteran’s mental health, leading to prolonged battles with depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses." https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/story/2024-04-05/opinion-among-veterans-financial-instability-linked-to-mental-health-issues-and-suicide
"Delhi High Court has ruled that a woman repeatedly leaving her matrimonial home, without any fault of her husband is an act of mental cruelty." https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/mental-cruelty-delhi-high-court-on-wife-repeatedly-leaving-matrimonial-home-5382357
"Man's dog helps with schizophrenia hallucinations: Why psychiatric service dogs are helpful, but hard to get... if he says “greet” and Luna doesn’t respond, he knows that what he’s seeing isn’t there. She also prevents Green from self-harm during auditory hallucinations. Luna will jump on his lap and put her head against his, preventing Green from hitting his face." https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2024/04/05/schizophrenia-hallucinations-psychiatric-assistance-dog/73171229007/
Movie: "The Listener" "warm line" who will rat you out to malpracticers for depression https://youtu.be/1Sbi1VDw9kM https://youtu.be/s1N_MaZmIvA
April 4 5:27 PM audrey attempted to kick me for giving the dog some bread (she was giving him almost identical bread) Dog sat next to me afterwards. April 5 around 4 PM support puppy did his job and was punished by steven, "quiet!" 4:28 PM dog also alerted on brother's symptom.
2024.04.05 09:54 notyogrannysgrandkid How edible is each team? Part 2 of 5.
Back to Part 1.
Continuing the in-depth discussion of what would happen if each team’s name (not necessarily mascot) was served at a tailgate party at their home stadium:
Eastern Michigan Eagles- You have once again violated the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1962. Stop it!
Florida Atlantic Owls- Owl species are all federally protected, just like falcons and eagles. Florida has its own state-level penalties for disturbing or harming burrowing owls. Just grill some chicken drumsticks and tell your friends it’s owl.
Florida International Panthers- Cougars are endangered in Florida, meaning that this menu item carries all the same risks as it does in Provo, UT along with potentially severe legal penalties. And Florida jails are scary. Decent meth, though!
Florida Gators- I know that gator hunting is a common pastime in Florida, but at least at the Swamp, it seems that grilling gator meat is more often done by the visiting fans, especially those of a lower IQ who are prone to barking at passing children. I’m not saying don’t eat the gator meat, just maybe don’t do everything that everyone else grilling gator meat is doing.
Florida St Seminoles- Good luck. The Noles never surrendered to anybody and they sure aren’t about to jump into your smoker!
Fresno St Bulldogs- Have your coworker call his grandma in Busan for a recipe. Then immediately change your name and appearance because that really is not going to fly here.
Georgia Bulldogs- See above. And stop barking at my kids.
Georgia Southern Eagles- I actually couldn’t find out what would happen on your third conviction for killing an eagle, probably because nobody’s gotten that far. Write me a letter from prison and tell me what the judge said, I’m genuinely curious.
Georgia State Panthers- See BYU. The frosting will probably melt on your way back to Atlanta, though. At least you can easily get a direct Delta flight from SLC.
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets- If they’re already dead when you show up at Bobby Dodd to work your culinary magic, then at worst this will be a weird and unpopular dish. If they aren’t, you run the risk of killing some people. So that’s an important consideration.
Hawaii Rainbow Warriors- I actually lived on Oahu for a while and learned a good bit about Polynesian and Hawaiian history, including the warrior culture in pre-European Hawai’i. You want to try to kill and serve one of these guys at the Clarence T. C. Ching Athletics Complex, you be my guest. I’ll stick to my laulau and manapua, or maybe some kalua pork or chicken katsu, mahalo nui loa.
Houston Cougars- Again, no specific legal concerns here, just make sure you kill it on the first try or you might not get a second chance. Don’t hold back on the seasoning. What the heck, I’d try it at least once.
Illinois Fighting Illini- The official position of the University of Illinois is that the name Illini does not refer to the Illiniwek people. Not that that fact will be relevant when you’re arrested for attempted murder and cannibalism of an undergrad.
Indiana Hoosiers- Hope you like corn fed meat. And prison.
Iowa Hawkeyes- Hawks are protected by federal law, which protection extends to their body parts. That’s usually assumed to mean feathers and talons, but I don’t think you could get away with blinding a bunch of birds for the sake of your pregame snacks.
Iowa St Cyclones- What exactly is a tornado? Is it just rain and air moving quickly? It is important to breathe and stay hydrated! Boring tailgate, though.
Jacksonville St Gamecocks- See Coastal Carolina. Sure, chicken is chicken; some is just more palatable, though.
James Madison Dukes- While it is still cannibalism, heirs to noble titles are famously prone to being nowhere in sight when the old Duke has a tragic accident. You could be in the clear. Wait, no. This is America. Sorry.
Kansas Jayhawks- Not actually a federally protected bird! Just a cool, anti-slavery dude from Kansas who probably doesn’t deserve to be served up as your chili meat. Straight to jail, my friend.
Kansas State Wildcats- See Arizona. I mean the entry in Part 1, not the state. Actually, the state is pretty cool, too. Not literally, of course. Tucson is still a hellhole well into conference play.
Kent St Golden Flashes- Flash is a golden eagle. I think we all know where this is headed, but jokes about federal enforcement at Kent St are in poor taste.
Kentucky Wildcats- see K State.
Liberty Flames- Bad idea.
Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns- Pretty similar outcome to all the other human flesh served already, but now with some unique spices! Maybe for your last meal, just ask for some dirty rice and a meat pie.
Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks- As much as I’d love to condone condemning warmongering politicians to an early grave, I don’t think that’s quite the intent of ULM’s team name. Unfortunately, we’re just eating yet another federally protected bird.
Louisiana Tech Bulldogs- This is NOT the best solution to overcrowded shelters. Getting people to spay/neuter their pets is.
Louisville Cardinals- See Ball St, but don’t forget the toothpicks!
LSU Tigers- So I guess there’s a dish called tiger meat which is actually a form of steak tartare. Not my cup of tea, but some people might be into it. More of a Midwestern thing, though. I think they cook their meat in Baton Rouge.
Marshall Thundering Herd- …of what? The mascot is a bison, though, so I’ll definitely be getting in line at your grill. Wow. Wait. Did you actually cook an entire herdsworth of bison? You know Edwards stadium only seats like 27 people, right?
Part 3!
submitted by notyogrannysgrandkid to CFB [link] [comments]
Continuing the in-depth discussion of what would happen if each team’s name (not necessarily mascot) was served at a tailgate party at their home stadium:
Eastern Michigan Eagles- You have once again violated the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1962. Stop it!
Florida Atlantic Owls- Owl species are all federally protected, just like falcons and eagles. Florida has its own state-level penalties for disturbing or harming burrowing owls. Just grill some chicken drumsticks and tell your friends it’s owl.
Florida International Panthers- Cougars are endangered in Florida, meaning that this menu item carries all the same risks as it does in Provo, UT along with potentially severe legal penalties. And Florida jails are scary. Decent meth, though!
Florida Gators- I know that gator hunting is a common pastime in Florida, but at least at the Swamp, it seems that grilling gator meat is more often done by the visiting fans, especially those of a lower IQ who are prone to barking at passing children. I’m not saying don’t eat the gator meat, just maybe don’t do everything that everyone else grilling gator meat is doing.
Florida St Seminoles- Good luck. The Noles never surrendered to anybody and they sure aren’t about to jump into your smoker!
Fresno St Bulldogs- Have your coworker call his grandma in Busan for a recipe. Then immediately change your name and appearance because that really is not going to fly here.
Georgia Bulldogs- See above. And stop barking at my kids.
Georgia Southern Eagles- I actually couldn’t find out what would happen on your third conviction for killing an eagle, probably because nobody’s gotten that far. Write me a letter from prison and tell me what the judge said, I’m genuinely curious.
Georgia State Panthers- See BYU. The frosting will probably melt on your way back to Atlanta, though. At least you can easily get a direct Delta flight from SLC.
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets- If they’re already dead when you show up at Bobby Dodd to work your culinary magic, then at worst this will be a weird and unpopular dish. If they aren’t, you run the risk of killing some people. So that’s an important consideration.
Hawaii Rainbow Warriors- I actually lived on Oahu for a while and learned a good bit about Polynesian and Hawaiian history, including the warrior culture in pre-European Hawai’i. You want to try to kill and serve one of these guys at the Clarence T. C. Ching Athletics Complex, you be my guest. I’ll stick to my laulau and manapua, or maybe some kalua pork or chicken katsu, mahalo nui loa.
Houston Cougars- Again, no specific legal concerns here, just make sure you kill it on the first try or you might not get a second chance. Don’t hold back on the seasoning. What the heck, I’d try it at least once.
Illinois Fighting Illini- The official position of the University of Illinois is that the name Illini does not refer to the Illiniwek people. Not that that fact will be relevant when you’re arrested for attempted murder and cannibalism of an undergrad.
Indiana Hoosiers- Hope you like corn fed meat. And prison.
Iowa Hawkeyes- Hawks are protected by federal law, which protection extends to their body parts. That’s usually assumed to mean feathers and talons, but I don’t think you could get away with blinding a bunch of birds for the sake of your pregame snacks.
Iowa St Cyclones- What exactly is a tornado? Is it just rain and air moving quickly? It is important to breathe and stay hydrated! Boring tailgate, though.
Jacksonville St Gamecocks- See Coastal Carolina. Sure, chicken is chicken; some is just more palatable, though.
James Madison Dukes- While it is still cannibalism, heirs to noble titles are famously prone to being nowhere in sight when the old Duke has a tragic accident. You could be in the clear. Wait, no. This is America. Sorry.
Kansas Jayhawks- Not actually a federally protected bird! Just a cool, anti-slavery dude from Kansas who probably doesn’t deserve to be served up as your chili meat. Straight to jail, my friend.
Kansas State Wildcats- See Arizona. I mean the entry in Part 1, not the state. Actually, the state is pretty cool, too. Not literally, of course. Tucson is still a hellhole well into conference play.
Kent St Golden Flashes- Flash is a golden eagle. I think we all know where this is headed, but jokes about federal enforcement at Kent St are in poor taste.
Kentucky Wildcats- see K State.
Liberty Flames- Bad idea.
Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns- Pretty similar outcome to all the other human flesh served already, but now with some unique spices! Maybe for your last meal, just ask for some dirty rice and a meat pie.
Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks- As much as I’d love to condone condemning warmongering politicians to an early grave, I don’t think that’s quite the intent of ULM’s team name. Unfortunately, we’re just eating yet another federally protected bird.
Louisiana Tech Bulldogs- This is NOT the best solution to overcrowded shelters. Getting people to spay/neuter their pets is.
Louisville Cardinals- See Ball St, but don’t forget the toothpicks!
LSU Tigers- So I guess there’s a dish called tiger meat which is actually a form of steak tartare. Not my cup of tea, but some people might be into it. More of a Midwestern thing, though. I think they cook their meat in Baton Rouge.
Marshall Thundering Herd- …of what? The mascot is a bison, though, so I’ll definitely be getting in line at your grill. Wow. Wait. Did you actually cook an entire herdsworth of bison? You know Edwards stadium only seats like 27 people, right?
Part 3!
2024.04.04 17:18 Leather_Focus_6535 The currently 56 offenders executed by Ohio and their crimes (warning, graphic content, please read at your own risk)
Here is my list for Ohio's executions that I made for my personal death penalty project. As a fair warning, many of the listed crimes are extremely depraved by nature, and I don't shy away from any of that in my entries. I'll probably do Delaware tomorrow.
The executed 56:
submitted by Leather_Focus_6535 to TrueCrimeDiscussion [link] [comments]
The executed 56:
- Wilford Berry Jr. (1990-1996, lethal injection): Berry and his accomplice shot dead their employer, 52 year old Charles Mitroff, while robbing a bakery they worked at.
- Jay Scott (~1961-2001, lethal injection): Scott robbed a Deli at gunpoint, and fatally shot the owner, 74 year old Vinnie Price. He also took part in the robbery that killed a security guard, 66 year old Alexander Jones. While on death row, Scott had stabbed another inmate, held two guards hostage with two other death row inmates William Zuern and John Byrd, and set his cell on fire. His childhood was troubled, and had theft convictions dating back to when he was 9 years old.
- John Byrd (1983-2002, lethal injection): Byrd and his partner robbed a convenience store, and kidnapped the night clerk, 40 year old Monte Tewksbury. Tewksbury was robbed of his wedding ring, wallet, and watch. The pair stabbed him and left Tewksbury for dead as they ran off with the entire register. While mortally wounded, Tewksbury called his wife. She and a customer tended to him until an ambulance arrived, and he succumbed to his injuries en route to the hospital. As mentioned under Jay Scott's section, Byrd assisted him and another death row inmate, William Zuern, in abducting two guards to force demands from the prison staff.
- Alton Coleman (~1960s-2002, lethal injection): Coleman and his girlfriend went on a nationwide crime spree that involved the abduction murders of at least 8 mostly females and a few males. His verified and speculated victims include 79 year old Eugene Scott, 44 year old Marlene Walters, 30 year old Virginia Temple, 25 year old Donna Williams, 15 year old Tonnie Storey, 9 year old Vernita Wheat, Virginia's 9 year old daughter Rochelle, and 7 year old Tamika Turks. Walters' 45 year old husband and Turks' 9 year old aunt survived the attacks that killed their wife and niece respectively. Most of the killings were done through strangulations and beatings with blunt objects. The murders were very diverse, and they ranged from home invasion robberies, carjackings, abductions through force, and enticements. Before embarking on his killing spree, Coleman had several burglary, theft, and sexual misconduct convictions. Also sentenced to death in the states of Illinois and Indiana.
- Robert Buell (1981-2002, lethal injection): Buell abducted, raped, and strangled at least three girls, 12 year old Tina Harmon, 11 year old Krista Harrison, and 10 year old Deborah Smith to death. All three of them were lured or pulled into his van by force while walking alone on the sidewalk. Only convicted of Harrison's murder and satisfactorily credited with Smith's death in his lifetime, Buell was posthumously linked to Harmon's murder by a DNA test in 2010. In addition to his 3 verified murders, Buell had sexually assaulted at least two women.
- Richard Fox (~1983(?)-2003, lethal injection): Fox lured 18 year old Leslie Keckler with the promise of a job interview for his restaurant. He made an attempt to rape Keckler, but strangled and stabbed her 6 times when she fought back. Fox had several complaints of sexual harassment from his staff, a conviction of assaulting another women in circumstances similar to Keckler's murder, and is suspected in the suspicious "suicide" of his estranged wife Kim.
- David Brewer (1985-2003, lethal injection): Brewer lured Sherry Byrne, the 21 year old wife of a college friend, into a motel room with the promise of selling her stero speakers. He raped Byrne, stabbed her 15 times, and hung her body with a necktie.
- Ernest Martin (1983-2003, lethal injection): While robbing a drug store with his girlfriend, Martin shot and killed the owner, 70 year old Robert Robinson, with a gun he pickpocketed from a security guard a month earlier.
- Lewis Williams Jr. (1983-2004, lethal injection): Williams broke into the home of 76 year old Leoma Chmielewski, shot her dead, and stomped on her body. He than ransacked it for anything of value, but none of the reports on hand to me mentioned any items that were stolen.
- John Roe (1984-2004, lethal injection): Roe abducted 21 year old Donette Crawford in the parking lot of a convenience store, shot her in the back of the head, and drove off with her car and purse.
- William Wickline (~1971-2004, lethal injection): Wickline strangled and dismembered a married couple, 28 year old Christopher and 25 year old Peggy Lerch, in a dispute over a drug debt. He also was confirmed to have strangled and decapitated a rival drug dealer, 34 year old Charles Marsh, in West Virginia, but was unable to be charged for it due to his death sentence in Ohio. Wickline has been suspected in several other murders, and had previous convictions for burglary, drug dealing, and pimping.
- William Zuern Jr. (1984-2004, lethal injection): Zuern shot and killed 24 year old Gregory Earls for testifying against his father that was convicted of drug dealing. As he was awaiting trial for Earls' murder, Zuern stabbed Phillip Pence, a 26 year old corrections officer, to death while he was searching his cell for weapons. While on death row, Zuern assisted the above mentioned Jay Scott and John Byrd in kidnapping two guards to extort concessions from the prison staff.
- Stephen Vrabel (1989-2004, lethal inection): Vrabel fatally shot his 29 year old girlfriend Susan Clemente and their 3 year old daughter Lisa, and stuffed their bodies in a refrigerator for a month. He turned himself and the remains over to the police after confiding his crimes to a priest.
- Scott Mink (2000-2004, lethal injection): Enraged that his parents, 79 year old William and 72 year old Sheila, stole his car keys to prevent him from seeking out drugs, Mink beat, stabbed, and strangled them with a claw hammer, kitchen knives, and an electrical cord. He then stole their credit cards and used them to buy cocaine.
- Adremy Dennis (1994-2004, lethal injection): Dennis and his accomplice robbed 29 year old Kurt Kyle of $15 outside a bar and shot him to death.
- William Smith (1987-2005, lethal injection): Smith and 47 year old Mary Bradford were out dancing at a bar together, and decided to spend the night at her home. Although they initially engaged in consensual sex, Smith raped and stabbed Bradford 10 times when he discovered his cocaine missing. He left Bradford to die of her injuries on her bed, and stole 2 televisions and a stereo set from the home.
- Herman Ashworth (1996-2005, lethal injection): Ashworth was drinking at a bar with 40 year old Daniel Baker, and the pair walked out together into alley. After Baker allegedly made sexual advances, Ashworth beat him with a board. Baker was kicked to death in the attack, and over $40 was stolen from his wallet.
- William Williams Jr. (~1976-2005, lethal injection): With the help of his underaged girlfriend, her brother, and two other teenagers, Williams abducted 4 rival drug dealers, 23 year old William Dent, 23 year old Theodore Wynn, 21 year old Alfonda Madison, and 20 year old Eric Howard. The victims were bound, strangled, and shot. After Williams was arrested, he and 3 other men broke out of jail and tried storming the juvenile jail that his accomplices were held at in an attempt to kill them for testifying against him. Although Williams and his accomplices took hostages, they surrendered without issue. Williams also had past convictions of bank robbery, assault, breaking and entering, and cocaine trafficking.
- John Hicks (1985-2005, lethal injection): In search of money for cocaine, Hicks robbed his mother in law, 56 year old Maxine Armstrong, of $300 and her credit cards, and strangled her to death with his bare hands and clotheslines. To eliminate any witnesses, he smothered his stepdaughter, 5 year old Brandy Green, with a pillow, duct tape, and his hands, and dismembered her body.
- Glenn Benner II (~1985-2006, lethal injection): Over the course of several months in late 1985 and mid 1986, Benner kidnapped two women, 26 year old Cynthia Sedgwick and 21 year old Trina Bowser, that he was acquainted with. Sedgwick and Bowser were both raped and strangled to death with their own clothes. Benner was also responsible for the non fatal abductions and sexual assaults of at least 3 other women. Two were attacked while jogging and biking, and the third was victimized in her own home.
- Joseph Clark (~1960-2006, lethal injection): Clark shot dead two clerks, 23 year old David Manning and 21 year old Donald Harris, in the robberies of a convenience store and a gas station. His execution was controversial, as it took the executioners 90 minutes to find his veins. Clark also had an extensive criminal record that dated back to when he was 14 years old, and his previous arrests include burglary, theft, autotheft, and assisting a sexual assault.
- Rocky Barton (~1991-2006, lethal injection): Barton shot and killed his fourth wife, 44 year old Kimbirli, in front of his daughter and uncle during an argument and turned the gun on himself. He survived with facial disfigurements. Barton had a long history of extreme domestic abuse. In one incident, Barton beat one of his previous wives with the butt of his shotgun, stabbed her, and cut her throat. The former wife survived and Barton served 8 years of incarceration for attempted murder for the attack.
- Darrell Ferguson (2001-2006, lethal injection): Ferguson stabbed his step-uncle, 61 year old Thomas King, to death and stole two television sets and a radio that were sold to buy cocaine. The next day, Ferguson broke into the home of a couple, 69 year old Mae and 68 year old Arile Fugate, that were his former neighbors, and stabbed and stomped on them to death.
- Jeffrey Lundgren (1989-2006, lethal injection): Lundgren controlled a splinter group of what is now the Community of Christ church. He orchestrated the abductions of the Avery family (consisting of parents, 49 year old Denis and 46 year old Cheryl, and 3 children, 15 year old Trina, 13 year old Rebecca, and 7 year old Karen), his followers that fell out of Lundgren's favor to due to disputes over finances. The Averys were all lured into a barn, tied up, gagged, and shot in the head as part of a ritualistic sacrifice. Lundgren and his followers also made plans to seize the Kirtland temple from their parent church, but backed out after they embezzled $40,000 for the scheme.
- James Filiaggi (1993-2007, lethal injection): Filiaggi and his ex wife, 27 year old Lisa Huff, divorced after only 9 months of marriage. He targeted her and her new fiance in a prolonged harassment campaign, which included threats over the telephone and acts of vandalism. The harassment escalated when he assaulted Huff's fiance while he was visiting their daughters. Two days later, Filiaggi chased down Huff from her home to a neighbor's house and shot her dead. He also made an attempt on her stepfather's life as well, but he was fended off with pepper spray.
- Christopher Newton (2001-2007, lethal injection): Newton was originally incarcerated for burglarizing his father's home. In prison, Newton strangled and asphyxiated his cellmate, 27 year old Jason Brewer, with a sheet and a cloth gag in a fight over a chess game they were playing. Allegedly, Newton licked Brewer's blood off his hands, a detail that he bragged to investigators about. Brewer was also serving time for burglary when he was murdered. Due to Newton's obesity, the executioners had a difficult time finding the veins to administer the fatal drugs to, and thus his execution took over 2 hours to complete.
- Richard Cooey II (1986-2007, lethal injection): Cooey's teenage friend was throwing concrete off a bridge, and one piece struck a car that two college students, 21 year old Wendy Offredo and 20 year old Dawn McCreery, were riding in. Cooey, the teenage friend, and another friend drove by Offredo and McCreery's wrecked car, and enticed the two women into their vehicle with the promise of helping them. Cooey held the pair at knifepoint and tied them both up. He and his teenage accomplice raped, stabbed, and beat Offredo and McCreery with a billy club over the course of a 3 hour long assault, while his third friend backed out. The attack ended when Cooey and his accomplice strangled Offredo and McCreery to death with their shoelaces.
- Gregory Bryant-Bey (1992-2008, lethal injection): Bryant-Bey stabbed 48 year old Dale Pinkelman in the chest while robbing his Collectibles store, and murdered 61 year old Peter Mihas while robbing his restaurant in a similar fashion. He stripped both Pinkelman and Mihas of their pants and socks, and stole Pinkelman's car.
- Daniel Wilson (1991-2008, lethal injection): Wilson abducted a friend, 24 year old Carol Lutz, while they were drinking at a bar together. According to prosecutors, the kidnapping was motivated by Wilson's anger at Lutz rejecting his advances. He locked her in the trunk of his car, and set it on fire with Lutz trapped inside it.
- John Fautenberry (1984-2009, lethal injection): Across the states of Alaska, New Jersey, Ohio, and possibly Oregon, Fautenberry murdered 4 men, 47 year old Don Nuttley, 45 year old Joseph Daron, Jr., 39 year old Jeff Diffee, and 27 year old Gary Farmer, and one woman, 32 year old Christine Guthrie. The victims were all individuals that Fautenberry picked up as he was working as a truck driver. Most of his killings were done through shootings, but one victim was stabbed 18 times. Fautenberry then robbed their bodies, usually taking money, but his theft of an ATM card proved to be his downfall when he used it after a victim was reported missing.
- Marvallous Keene (1992-2009, lethal injection): In a 3 day crime spree, Keene and his accomplices murdered 6 people between the ages of 16 to 38. Half of the victims, 38 year old Sarah Abraham, 34 year old Joseph Wilkerson, and 18 year old Danita Gullette, were shot dead in robberies. The remaining half, 19 year old Richmond Maddox, 18 year old Marvin Washington, and 16 year old Wendy Cottrill were shot and killed by Keene's gang out of fear of them being police informants.
- Jason Getsy (~1992-2009, lethal injection): Gesty and 2 other men were hired by a landscaping contractor to kill a business rival. They tracked down the rival in his home, and shot him and his mother, 66 year old Ann Serafino. Serafino died on the scene, while her son survived his injuries. Getsy also had a negligent homicide conviction when a 14 year old friend was killed playing Russian Roulette with him.
- Kenneth Biros (1991-2009, lethal injection): While partying at a bar with her uncle, 22 year old Tami Engstrom became heavily intoxicated, and Biros offered to give her a ride to help sober up. He took advantage of an inebriated Engstrom, and beat and strangled her to death. Biros then sexually mutilated and dismembered her body. Pieces of it were scattered all across Northeastern Ohio and Northwestern Pennsylvania.
- Vernon Smith (1993-2010, lethal injection): Smith and his accomplices held up a convenience store and forced the owner Sohail Darwish, a 28 year old Palestinian immigrant, to open the register. Despite Darwish complying with his demands, Smith shot him dead. He and his accomplices stole $400 in cash and $50 in food stamps.
- Mark Brown (1994-2010, lethal injection): Brown and a partner walked into a store owned by a family of Arab immigrants to buy cigarettes. They shot the two shopkeepers present, 32 year old Hayder Al Tuyrk and 30 year old Isam Salman, dead.
- Lawrence Reynolds (1994-2010, lethal injection): Reynolds broke into the home of 67 year old Loretta Foster while he was drunk. He tied her up, beat her with a tent pole, and made an attempt to rape her. Foster was then strangled to death with rope, and Reynolds stole $40 and a blank check from her home. Foster had previously babysat some of Reynolds' younger siblings.
- Darryl Durr (~1988-2010, lethal injection): Durr kidnapped 16 year old Angel Vincent from her home while her parents were away. Vincent was tied up, raped and strangled to death with a dog chain. Durr was a serial sex offender, and had two other rape convictions that enabled the investigators to link him to Vincent's murder.
- Michael Beuke (~1983-2010, lethal injection): Beuke abducted and robbed 3 men that picked him hitchhiking. He shot all 3 of his victims, but only 27 year old Robert Craig was immediately killed. Another victim, 28 year old Gregory Wahoff, was crippled for life, and died in 2006 from complications relating to his injuries. Allegedly, Beuke committed the robberies to pay for a lawyer for a then upcoming trial against drug trafficking charges.
- William Garner (1992-2010, lethal injection): Garner was robbing the home of a woman who undergoing treatment at the emergency room. Her children, 13 year old Rodriczus Mack, 12 year old Denitra Satterwhite, 10 year old Deondra Freeman, and 8 year old Mykkila Mason, her niece, 11 year old Markeca Mason, and Rodriczus' friend, 11 year old Richard Gaines, were all sleeping in their beds. To eliminate witnesses, Garner used the electronic outlets to set the house on fire. Almost all the children, save for Rodriczus, were burned to death.
- Roderick Davie (1991-2010, lethal injection): Davie stormed a veterinary company that he was fired from months earlier. He fired on 3 of this coworkers, and killed one, 38 year old John Coleman, and wounded another. When he ran out of bullets, he grabbed a folding chair, and used it to beat another coworker, 21 year old Tracey Jefferys, to death. The wounded third coworker was beaten and poked in the eye with a stick, but was spared when Davie fled the scene.
- Michael Benge (1993-2010, lethal injection): Benge beat his girlfriend, 38 year old Judith Gabbard, to death with a tire iron while they were arguing. In an attempt to deflect attention from himself, he gave her ATM card to some random men, and told investigators that she was robbed and killed by them.
- Frank Spisak Jr. (1982-2011, lethal injection): An aspiring Neo Nazi, Spisak shot 3 black men and boys and a white man he mistook for being Jewish, in his personal campaign to cleanse minorities. 3 of the victims, 57 year old Horace Rickerson, 50 year old Timothy Sheehan, and 17 year Brian Warford were killed, and the 4th victim, 55 year old John Hardaway survived his injuries. Spisak also fired on a woman for making derisive comments about the Nazi party, but she escaped unharmed.
- Johnnie Baston (1982-2011, lethal injection): During an armed robbery of a sporting goads store, Baston shot the owner Chong-Hoon Mah, a 53 year old South Korean immigrant, dead and emptied the cash register.
- Clarence Carter (~1983-2011, lethal injection): Carter shot and killed Michael Hadnot (age unknown), a drug user that stole drugs and incriminating documents, on the behest of his drug gang. While awaiting trial for Hadnot's murder, Carter got into a fight with another inmate, 33 year old Johnny Allen, and beat and stomped on him to death. Carter had a violent criminal history, which included several assault charges.
- Daniel Bedford (1984-2011, lethal injection): Furious at her rejections of rekindling their former relationship, Bedford fatally shot his ex girlfriend, 25 year old Gwen Toepfert, and her boyfriend, 27 year old John Smith, in their apartment.
- Reginald Brooks Sr. (1982-2011, lethal injection): To get back at his estranged wife for filing for divorce, Brooks shot their 3 sons, 17 year old Reginald Jr., 15 year old Vaughn, and 11 year old Niarchos as they were sleeping in their beds. Family accounts mentioned that Brooks was often violent with his sons and ex wife. In one reported incident just two weeks before the murders, Brooks got into an altercation with two of his sons over homework, and he threatened their lives after they subdued him.
- Mark Wiles (~1983-2011, lethal injection): Wiles worked as a part time farm hand for couple Charles and Carol Klimas. He was fired after they suspected him of stealing $200. A year after he was let go, Wiles broke into their farm to rob it, and found himself confronted by Mark, the Kilmas' 15 year old son. He stabbed the boy 24 times, stole $240 from the home, and left the body for his parents to find. Wiles served a 4 to 24 year sentence for an unrelated burglary after he was fired by the Kilmas, but was released shortly before he murdered Mark.
- Donald Palmer (1989-2012, lethal injection): Palmer had set his sights on robbing 43 year old Charles Sponhaltz, a former boyfriend of his ex wife. As he and his accomplice were staking out Sponhaltz's house, his accomplice ran into Sponhaltz's car as he was pulling in. The three got into an argument and shot him dead. Palmer also fatally shot a random driver, 41 year old Steven Vargo, when he pulled over to see what the commotion was all about.
- Brett Hartman (1997-2012, lethal injection): Hartman had a sexual relationship with 46 year old Winda Snipes. When she refused intercourse at her apartment, he bound Snipes to her own bed, stabbed her 138 times with a butcher knife, and cut her hands off.
- Frederick Treesh (1994-2013, lethal injection): Treesh and his accomplices carried out a heist on an Ohio adult bookstore. As they were binding the customers and employees, the security guard, 58 year old Henry Dupree resisted and was shot dead by them. A second victim, the cashier, was also hit by gunfire, but he managed to live through his wounds. Days earlier, they held up a Michigan video store owned by 39 year old Ghassan Danno and his brother, a pair of Iraqi immigrants. The group shot both of the brothers during the robbery. Danno was killed and his brother survived his injuries. Treesh's crime spree also included several bank robberies and sexual assaults.
- Steven Smith (1998-2013, lethal injection): In his apartment, Smith raped Autumn Carter, his girlfriend's 6 month old daughter, and suffocated her with a pillow.
- Harry Mitts Jr. (1994-2013, lethal injection): Mitts was enraged that his black neighbor, 28 year old John Bryant, was seeing a white woman, and shot him to death in front of his girlfriend when they returned home from grocery shopping. He also shot and killed a police officer, 40 year old Dennis Glivar, that responded to the scene. Glivar's colleagues wounded and subdued Mitts in the following shootout.
- Dennis McGuire (1989-2014, lethal injection): McGuire kidnapped a pregnant woman, 22 year old Joy Stewart, as she was walking to visit the home of a friend's mother, and sodomized her. He strangled and cut Stewart's throat, and dumped her body in the woods where it was found by hikers. His execution was controversial, as witnesses recounted him gasping for air and that his death lasted for 25 minutes rather than the planned 8 minutes. McGuire had other convictions unrelated to Stewart's murder, but the details were kept vague in my sources.
- Ronald Phillips (1993-2017, lethal injection): Philips molested and physically assaulted Sheila Evans, his girlfriend's 3 year old daughter, on numerous occasions. The girl's mother assisted him in the abuse and even pinned her down to be raped in a few of the incidents. Evans was killed when her head was slammed against a wall.
- Gary Otte (1992-2017, lethal injection): In the span of a day, Otte broke into the apartments of 61 year old Robert Wasikowsk and 45 year old Sharon Kostura, and shot them dead. He stole a combined total of $470 dollars, Kostura's car keys, and her checkbook.
- Robert Van Hook (~1975-2018, lethal injection): Van Hook went to a bar popular among Cincinnati's gay residents, and seduced 25 year old David Self. He convinced Self to take him back to his apartment on the pretenses of hooking up. When they were inside, Van Hook strangled Self, sliced open his body with a kitchen knife, stuffed the weapon and a cigarette butt inside it, and took off with Self's jewelry. Van Hook had been robbing and assaulting homosexual men since he was 15, which undermined his gay panic defense for Self's murder.
2024.03.27 17:09 Leather_Focus_6535 The 13 inmates executed by the state of California since the post Furman reinstatement of the death penalty and their crimes
Here is a list of the death row inmates executed by the state of California since 1976. I have plans for making a comprehensive list of almost every offender condemned by the state, and posting it to this sub. However, since nearly ~1,100 offenders (the third highest in the US and only slightly behind Texas and Florida) have been sentenced to death by California since the 70s, it would be a project that likely won't come to fruition for a long time.
The 13 executed inmates:
1.Robert Harris (1992, gas chamber): Harris committed his first murder in 1975 when he killed his brother's roommate, 19 year old James Wheeler, after beating him for 6 hours. He was given a voluntary manslaughter conviction, and was released on 1978. A few months after his release, Harris and his brother abducted two boys, 16 year old John Mayeski and 16 year old Michael Baker, shot them dead, and stole their car for a getaway vehicle in their planned bank robbery. In a cruel twist of irony, Baker's father Steven was one of the officers that apprehended Harris and his brother.
2.David Mason (1993, gas chamber): In his first wave of killings, Mason murdered 3 elderly women, 75 year old Antoinette Brown, 75 year old Dorothy Lang, and 73 year old Joan Picard, and a WW1 veteran, 83 year old Arthur Jennings (whom he previously had a sexual relationship with), through strangulations and beatings while robbing them. While he was preparing to go on trial, Mason beat and strangled another inmate, 24 year old Boyd Johnson (a convicted rapist), with a towel out of fear that he was an informant.
3.William Bonin (1996, lethal injection): Bonin was a serial killer who murdered a minimum of 21 boys between the ages of 12 to 19, though one unidentified victim might have been as old as 27. With the assistance of 3 accomplices, Bonin lured his victims into his van with promises of rides to their destinations or payment for sexual services. They were then raped, beaten with tire irons, stabbed with ice picks, and garroted with their own t-shirts. Some were burned with cigarette lighters and had drano poured into their throats. A publicity chaser, Bonin disposed of the bodies on freeways so that they would be found and broadcasted on the news. He had a long history of sexual predations dating back to his childhood, which included several prior convictions of non fatally abducting boys, and had raped another serviceman in the Vietnam War.
4.Keith Williams (1996, lethal injection): Williams and his accomplice went to the home of 31 year old Miguel Vargas to ostensibly buy his car and to sell him a gun. After some negotiations over the prices, Williams and his accomplice turned violent and shot Miguel and his 43 year old cousin Salvador dead. The pair also abducted Miguel's girlfriend, 25 year old Lourdes Meza, forced her into the car they stole from the couple, and drove to the outskirts of Tuolumne City. He then raped Meza, shot her 4 times in the chest, and left her body in a field. Prior to the killing spree, Williams, his accomplice, and his ex wife found themselves stranded on a remote highway, and robbed the campers that tried to help them at gunpoint. He also was arrested for burglary several times as a teenager and stabbed a friend a few years before the murders.
5.Thomas Thompson (1998, lethal injection): Thompson was executed for the murder of 20 year old Ginger Fleischli, who was found with stab wounds to her head and had signs of sexual assault on her body. His execution was contentious, as he has a vocal following insisting on his innocence. However, it is agreed upon that Thompson and Fleischli had consensual relations on the night of her murder, as corroborated by Thompson's own account and eyewitness testimony seeing them hooking up together at a bar.
6.Jaturun Siripongs (1999, lethal injection): Siripongs broke into a retail store that he formerly worked at. He strangled the manager Packovan Wattanaporn, a 36 year old Thai immigrant, with a cord, stabbed her employee Quach Nguyen, a 52 year old Vietnamese immigrant, in the neck and head, and stole jewelry and credit cards.
7.Manny Babbitt (1999, lethal injection): In the last of a string of robberies, Babbitt beat and raped 78 year old Leah Schendel in her apartment. She succumbed to a heart attack from the overwhelming fear and pain from the assault. Babbitt had also raped another woman in his robbery spree. Due to being a decorated Vietnam veteran that was diagnosed with PTSD, he had attracted a sympathetic following.
8.Darrell Rich (2000, lethal injection): Rich abducted, raped, and murdered 4 women and girls between the ages of 11 to 27. His killing methods were very diverse and circumstantial. Victims 19 year old Anette Edwards and 17 year old Patricia Moore were murdered by their skulls crushed in beatings with rocks, 27 year old Linda Slavik was shot to death, and Rich threw 11 year old Annette Selix off a bridge while she was still alive. In addition to his murders, Rich also non fatally abducted and assaulted several other women and girls.
9.Robert Massie (2001, lethal injection): Massie was originally sentenced to death in 1965 when he robbed and shot dead 48 year old Mildred Weiss in front of her husband. His first death sentence was overturned during the temporary nationwide banning of capital punishment following the 1972 Furman vs Georgia decision. In 1978, Massie was released from prison for good behavior, but held up a liquor store in the following year. He shot and killed the owner, 61 year old Boris Naumoff, which gave him his second and third death sentence in a trial and a retrial.
10.Stephen Anderson (2002, lethal injection): In 1977, while serving in the Utah State Prison for a burglary conviction, Anderson got into a fight with fellow inmate Robert Blundell (age unknown), and stabbed him to death. Two years later, Anderson escaped from prison, and fled to California. He intruded into the home of 81 year old Elizabeth Lyman, and shot her in the head. Anderson also professed to being a contract killer responsible for 7 murders in Nevada and Utah. Although he was never charged for it, Utahn officials have tentatively linked the 1980 murder of 26 year old Timothy Glashien to Anderson.
11.Donald Beardslee (2005, lethal injection): In 1969, while living in Missouri, Beardslee went out dancing with 52 year old Laura Griffin, and took her to his home. He then stabbed, strangled, and drowned Griffin in his bathtub. Beardslee plead guilty to a second degree murder charge, and served 7 years out a 19 year prison sentence. A few years after his 1977 release, he made his way to California. He assisted in the 1981 abductions of two women, 23 year old Stacie Benjamin and 19 year old Patty Geddling, over a drug related dispute. Beardslee shot Benjamin in the head with a sawed off shotgun, and stabbed Geddling to death after a failed attempt to strangle her with wire. To mislead investigators, Beardslee and his accomplices pulled down the pants of the bodies, and tried to stage their killings as a sex crime.
12.Stanley Williams (2005, lethal injection): One of the cofounders of the Crips street gang, Williams was heavily involved with organized crime at a young age. Although he orchestrated several murders, Williams was convicted of the killings of a store clerk, 26 year old Albert Owens, and the Yangs, a family of Taiwanese immigrants. Williams and his crew shot and killed Owens at a 711, and gunned down 76 year old Yen-Yi, his 63 year old wife Tsai-Shai, and their 43 year old daughter Yu-Chin at their family owned motel.
13.Clarence Allen (2006, lethal injection): Allen organized the robbery of a supermarket owned by one of his friends with the help of an employee, 17 year old Mary Kitts (who was also dating Allen's son at the time). When Kitts had second thoughts, Allen ordered one of his accomplices to strangle her to death. After he and his gang were caught and facing trial, Allen arranged for a cellmate to eliminate the key witness, 27 year old Bryon Schletewitz (who was also the owner's son), against him. Schletewitz and two of his employees, 17 year old Josephine Rocha and 18 year old Douglas White, were shot dead at the supermarket, and two others were wounded.
Californian death row inmates executed by other states:
1.Kevin Malone (1999, lethal injection): Malone kidnapped at least 4 men and women, 62 year old William Parr, 55 year old Myrtle Benham, 51 year old Minnie White, and 39 year old James Rankin, in several robberies across California and Missouri. Most of his victims were shot in the head, but Benham was raped and beaten to death with a pipe. Belongings such as cars and credit cards were taken in the attacks. He was given a death sentence in both states, but chose to be incarcerated in California's San Quentin. Marlone was deported to Missouri when governor Mel Carnahan signed his death warrent. Beyond his murders, he was involved in several non fatal robbery abductions and robbed a judge at gunpoint in the man's own home.
2.Alfredo Prieto (2015, lethal injection): Prieto was both a serial killer of young women and a member of the Pomona Northside street gang. His sexual crimes involved the abductions, rapes, and shooting deaths of at least 4 females, 24 year old Tina Jefferson, 22 year old Rachael Raver, 19 year old Stacey Siegrist, and 15 year old Yvette Woodruff. Raver and Siegrist’s partners, 22 year old Warren Fulton III and 21 year old Anthony Gianuzzi, were also murdered during their kidnappings. The other known victims, 27 year old Manuel Sermeno, and couple, 71 year old Lula and 65 year old Herbert Farley, were shot dead during robberies. In the home invasion that killed Woodruff, Prieto and his fellow gang members also abducted her 17 year old friend and the friend’s 33 year old mother. The mother and daughter pair were gang-raped, shot and stabbed together, but they managed to escape with their lives. Prieto was sentenced to death in both California and Virginia, but stayed in California’s San Quentin until his death warrant was signed in Virginia. He had also shot and injured 3 gang members over his suspicions of them sleeping with his wife, but was lightly sentenced due to the victims' gang affiliations.
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The 13 executed inmates:
1.Robert Harris (1992, gas chamber): Harris committed his first murder in 1975 when he killed his brother's roommate, 19 year old James Wheeler, after beating him for 6 hours. He was given a voluntary manslaughter conviction, and was released on 1978. A few months after his release, Harris and his brother abducted two boys, 16 year old John Mayeski and 16 year old Michael Baker, shot them dead, and stole their car for a getaway vehicle in their planned bank robbery. In a cruel twist of irony, Baker's father Steven was one of the officers that apprehended Harris and his brother.
2.David Mason (1993, gas chamber): In his first wave of killings, Mason murdered 3 elderly women, 75 year old Antoinette Brown, 75 year old Dorothy Lang, and 73 year old Joan Picard, and a WW1 veteran, 83 year old Arthur Jennings (whom he previously had a sexual relationship with), through strangulations and beatings while robbing them. While he was preparing to go on trial, Mason beat and strangled another inmate, 24 year old Boyd Johnson (a convicted rapist), with a towel out of fear that he was an informant.
3.William Bonin (1996, lethal injection): Bonin was a serial killer who murdered a minimum of 21 boys between the ages of 12 to 19, though one unidentified victim might have been as old as 27. With the assistance of 3 accomplices, Bonin lured his victims into his van with promises of rides to their destinations or payment for sexual services. They were then raped, beaten with tire irons, stabbed with ice picks, and garroted with their own t-shirts. Some were burned with cigarette lighters and had drano poured into their throats. A publicity chaser, Bonin disposed of the bodies on freeways so that they would be found and broadcasted on the news. He had a long history of sexual predations dating back to his childhood, which included several prior convictions of non fatally abducting boys, and had raped another serviceman in the Vietnam War.
4.Keith Williams (1996, lethal injection): Williams and his accomplice went to the home of 31 year old Miguel Vargas to ostensibly buy his car and to sell him a gun. After some negotiations over the prices, Williams and his accomplice turned violent and shot Miguel and his 43 year old cousin Salvador dead. The pair also abducted Miguel's girlfriend, 25 year old Lourdes Meza, forced her into the car they stole from the couple, and drove to the outskirts of Tuolumne City. He then raped Meza, shot her 4 times in the chest, and left her body in a field. Prior to the killing spree, Williams, his accomplice, and his ex wife found themselves stranded on a remote highway, and robbed the campers that tried to help them at gunpoint. He also was arrested for burglary several times as a teenager and stabbed a friend a few years before the murders.
5.Thomas Thompson (1998, lethal injection): Thompson was executed for the murder of 20 year old Ginger Fleischli, who was found with stab wounds to her head and had signs of sexual assault on her body. His execution was contentious, as he has a vocal following insisting on his innocence. However, it is agreed upon that Thompson and Fleischli had consensual relations on the night of her murder, as corroborated by Thompson's own account and eyewitness testimony seeing them hooking up together at a bar.
6.Jaturun Siripongs (1999, lethal injection): Siripongs broke into a retail store that he formerly worked at. He strangled the manager Packovan Wattanaporn, a 36 year old Thai immigrant, with a cord, stabbed her employee Quach Nguyen, a 52 year old Vietnamese immigrant, in the neck and head, and stole jewelry and credit cards.
7.Manny Babbitt (1999, lethal injection): In the last of a string of robberies, Babbitt beat and raped 78 year old Leah Schendel in her apartment. She succumbed to a heart attack from the overwhelming fear and pain from the assault. Babbitt had also raped another woman in his robbery spree. Due to being a decorated Vietnam veteran that was diagnosed with PTSD, he had attracted a sympathetic following.
8.Darrell Rich (2000, lethal injection): Rich abducted, raped, and murdered 4 women and girls between the ages of 11 to 27. His killing methods were very diverse and circumstantial. Victims 19 year old Anette Edwards and 17 year old Patricia Moore were murdered by their skulls crushed in beatings with rocks, 27 year old Linda Slavik was shot to death, and Rich threw 11 year old Annette Selix off a bridge while she was still alive. In addition to his murders, Rich also non fatally abducted and assaulted several other women and girls.
9.Robert Massie (2001, lethal injection): Massie was originally sentenced to death in 1965 when he robbed and shot dead 48 year old Mildred Weiss in front of her husband. His first death sentence was overturned during the temporary nationwide banning of capital punishment following the 1972 Furman vs Georgia decision. In 1978, Massie was released from prison for good behavior, but held up a liquor store in the following year. He shot and killed the owner, 61 year old Boris Naumoff, which gave him his second and third death sentence in a trial and a retrial.
10.Stephen Anderson (2002, lethal injection): In 1977, while serving in the Utah State Prison for a burglary conviction, Anderson got into a fight with fellow inmate Robert Blundell (age unknown), and stabbed him to death. Two years later, Anderson escaped from prison, and fled to California. He intruded into the home of 81 year old Elizabeth Lyman, and shot her in the head. Anderson also professed to being a contract killer responsible for 7 murders in Nevada and Utah. Although he was never charged for it, Utahn officials have tentatively linked the 1980 murder of 26 year old Timothy Glashien to Anderson.
11.Donald Beardslee (2005, lethal injection): In 1969, while living in Missouri, Beardslee went out dancing with 52 year old Laura Griffin, and took her to his home. He then stabbed, strangled, and drowned Griffin in his bathtub. Beardslee plead guilty to a second degree murder charge, and served 7 years out a 19 year prison sentence. A few years after his 1977 release, he made his way to California. He assisted in the 1981 abductions of two women, 23 year old Stacie Benjamin and 19 year old Patty Geddling, over a drug related dispute. Beardslee shot Benjamin in the head with a sawed off shotgun, and stabbed Geddling to death after a failed attempt to strangle her with wire. To mislead investigators, Beardslee and his accomplices pulled down the pants of the bodies, and tried to stage their killings as a sex crime.
12.Stanley Williams (2005, lethal injection): One of the cofounders of the Crips street gang, Williams was heavily involved with organized crime at a young age. Although he orchestrated several murders, Williams was convicted of the killings of a store clerk, 26 year old Albert Owens, and the Yangs, a family of Taiwanese immigrants. Williams and his crew shot and killed Owens at a 711, and gunned down 76 year old Yen-Yi, his 63 year old wife Tsai-Shai, and their 43 year old daughter Yu-Chin at their family owned motel.
13.Clarence Allen (2006, lethal injection): Allen organized the robbery of a supermarket owned by one of his friends with the help of an employee, 17 year old Mary Kitts (who was also dating Allen's son at the time). When Kitts had second thoughts, Allen ordered one of his accomplices to strangle her to death. After he and his gang were caught and facing trial, Allen arranged for a cellmate to eliminate the key witness, 27 year old Bryon Schletewitz (who was also the owner's son), against him. Schletewitz and two of his employees, 17 year old Josephine Rocha and 18 year old Douglas White, were shot dead at the supermarket, and two others were wounded.
Californian death row inmates executed by other states:
1.Kevin Malone (1999, lethal injection): Malone kidnapped at least 4 men and women, 62 year old William Parr, 55 year old Myrtle Benham, 51 year old Minnie White, and 39 year old James Rankin, in several robberies across California and Missouri. Most of his victims were shot in the head, but Benham was raped and beaten to death with a pipe. Belongings such as cars and credit cards were taken in the attacks. He was given a death sentence in both states, but chose to be incarcerated in California's San Quentin. Marlone was deported to Missouri when governor Mel Carnahan signed his death warrent. Beyond his murders, he was involved in several non fatal robbery abductions and robbed a judge at gunpoint in the man's own home.
2.Alfredo Prieto (2015, lethal injection): Prieto was both a serial killer of young women and a member of the Pomona Northside street gang. His sexual crimes involved the abductions, rapes, and shooting deaths of at least 4 females, 24 year old Tina Jefferson, 22 year old Rachael Raver, 19 year old Stacey Siegrist, and 15 year old Yvette Woodruff. Raver and Siegrist’s partners, 22 year old Warren Fulton III and 21 year old Anthony Gianuzzi, were also murdered during their kidnappings. The other known victims, 27 year old Manuel Sermeno, and couple, 71 year old Lula and 65 year old Herbert Farley, were shot dead during robberies. In the home invasion that killed Woodruff, Prieto and his fellow gang members also abducted her 17 year old friend and the friend’s 33 year old mother. The mother and daughter pair were gang-raped, shot and stabbed together, but they managed to escape with their lives. Prieto was sentenced to death in both California and Virginia, but stayed in California’s San Quentin until his death warrant was signed in Virginia. He had also shot and injured 3 gang members over his suspicions of them sleeping with his wife, but was lightly sentenced due to the victims' gang affiliations.
2024.03.20 11:56 rusticgorilla Rollercoaster: Supreme Court allows Texas to arrest and deport migrants; Hours later, 5th Circuit reverses
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Civil rights groups sued the state in December, arguing that “S.B. 4 is patently illegal” for “violat[ing] the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution” by usurping the “federal government’s exclusive immigration powers.”
U.S. District Judge David Ezra, a Reagan appointee, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law at the end of last month. “[T]he Supremacy Clause and Supreme Court precedent affirm that states may not exercise immigration enforcement power except as authorized by the federal government,” Ezra wrote. “The United States will suffer immediate irreparable harm if SB 4 takes effect,” he continued, through frustrating Department of Homeland Security priorities, disrupting foreign relations, and preventing the nation from fulfilling its human rights obligations.
Texas immediately appealed to the 5th Circuit, which issued a temporary administrative stay of Judge Ezra’s order to take effect on March 9 without Supreme Court intervention. The use of an administrative stay rather than a stay pending appeal will become important. For now, know that administrative stays are normally employed to freeze legal proceedings to preserve the status quo (i.e. the law of the land pre-SB 4) until judges can rule on a party’s request for a stay pending appeal (when further arguments will occur).
The DOJ appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to vacate the stay and leave Judge Ezra’s ruling in place while legal proceedings play out.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, explaining why the 5th Circuit’s stay was misused:
Justice Elena Kagan, in her own dissent, wrote that she does “not think the Fifth Circuit’s use of an administrative stay, rather than a stay pending appeal, should matter. Administrative stays surely have their uses. But a court’s unreasoned decision to impose one for more than a month, rather than answer the stay pending appeal issue before it, should not spell the difference between respecting and revoking long-settled immigration law.”
Luckily, late last night, a new panel of the 5th Circuit stepped in and ‘voted 2-1 to dissolve the administrative stay issued by a different panel earlier this month. Chief Judge Priscilla Richman, a G.W. Bush appointee, and Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Biden appointee, lifted the stay, saying that the court will be hearing arguments for a stay pending appeal (the more appropriate kind of stay to use in this situation) on Wednesday. Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, dissented, writing that he supports the use of an administrative stay while the 5th Circuit hears arguments in the case.
After all that turmoil, strained foreign relations, and fear and confusion among the migrant community, we are now back where we started with Judge Ezra’s order blocking SB 4 in place.
At sentencing, Pulsifer sought to obtain relief through the First Step Act’s “safety valve” provision that exempts nonviolent drug offenders from the mandatory minimum. In order to qualify, a person cannot have committed a specific number and type of crimes delineated by a points system:
For a case that turns on mere grammar, there are massive implications of a ruling in either party’s favor. If the safety valve provision is read as Pulsifer argued, about 66% (2021 data) of drug offenders, amounting to over 11,000 people, would be eligible for individualized sentencing. Under the government’s terms, only 44% (roughly 7,700 people) would have the opportunity for a lesser sentence.
With the freedom of thousands of individuals on the line, it is important to understand why Congress created the First Step Act. The U.S. incarcerates more people than anywhere else in the world. This trend started when President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” using fear and thinly veiled racial rhetoric to push punitive policies. According to John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s domestic policy advisor, the “war” began as a way to criminalize Blacks and the anti-war left.
Then, President Ronald Reagan came along and supercharged the federal incarceration machine. Under his influence, the FBI’s drug enforcement units saw their budget increase more than tenfold. Both parties in Congress passed Reagan-sponsored legislation to create 29 new mandatory minimum sentences, including one of the most racist criminal justice laws in recent memory: Sentences for the possession of crack cocaine were 100 times more severe than for powder cocaine. By the end of his two terms in office, the total prison population essentially doubled to 627,000.
Today, approximately 1.8 million people are incarcerated in the United States, down from an all-time high of 2.3 million in the mid-2000s. The decrease is due to criminal justice reform, including a revamping of the mandatory minimum sentencing laws in 2010—including a massive reduction to minimum crack cocaine sentences—and the First Step Act.
As a result, Pulsifer cannot seek individualized sentencing because he meets at least one of the criteria.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, writing that the word “and” is an “additive conjunction” that disqualifies a person with all three traits in the safety valve provision. “A defendant may receive [individualized] sentencing unless he has trait A, trait B, together with trait C,” they explain.
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“Show me your papers” law
The U.S. Supreme Court allowed Texas to enforce its strict state immigration enforcement law in a 6-3 decision yesterday.Background
The law, known as SB 4, gives state and local authorities the power to arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the Texas-Mexico border. Upon being convicted of illegal entry and completing a term of imprisonment, a judge must order “the person to return to the foreign nation from which the person entered or attempted to enter.” Alternatively, a judge may dismiss the charges if the person agrees to return to Mexico voluntarily. The process contains no provisions that ensure due process for migrants or allow them to seek humanitarian protection. It further criminalizes Black, brown, and indigenous people who may be detained—regardless of legal status—for no other reason than the color of their skin.Civil rights groups sued the state in December, arguing that “S.B. 4 is patently illegal” for “violat[ing] the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution” by usurping the “federal government’s exclusive immigration powers.”
S.B. 4 creates a new state system to regulate immigration that completely bypasses and conflicts with the federal system. It allows state officers to arrest, detain, and remove individuals from the United States and mandates removal for those who are convicted of the new state crimes of illegal entry and reentry—all without any input or involvement whatsoever from federal officials.The U.S. Department of Justice later also sued Texas, alleging that the state’s “efforts, through SB 4, intrude on the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens, frustrate the United States’ immigration operations and proceedings, and interfere with U.S. foreign relations.”
S.B. 4 requires state officers to make determinations of federal immigration status and to incarcerate and remove noncitizens pursuant to these determinations, but it does not provide noncitizens with any of the mechanisms or pathways to apply for or receive federal protection from removal. Moreover, the system prohibits state courts from pausing cases to obtain determinations of status from the federal government or abstaining while federal immigration proceedings take place.
U.S. District Judge David Ezra, a Reagan appointee, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law at the end of last month. “[T]he Supremacy Clause and Supreme Court precedent affirm that states may not exercise immigration enforcement power except as authorized by the federal government,” Ezra wrote. “The United States will suffer immediate irreparable harm if SB 4 takes effect,” he continued, through frustrating Department of Homeland Security priorities, disrupting foreign relations, and preventing the nation from fulfilling its human rights obligations.
Texas immediately appealed to the 5th Circuit, which issued a temporary administrative stay of Judge Ezra’s order to take effect on March 9 without Supreme Court intervention. The use of an administrative stay rather than a stay pending appeal will become important. For now, know that administrative stays are normally employed to freeze legal proceedings to preserve the status quo (i.e. the law of the land pre-SB 4) until judges can rule on a party’s request for a stay pending appeal (when further arguments will occur).
The DOJ appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to vacate the stay and leave Judge Ezra’s ruling in place while legal proceedings play out.
The ruling
A presumably six-justice majority ruled in favor of Texas, allowing SB 4 to take effect. Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh were the only conservatives to go on record, with Barrett writing that the 5th Circuit’s unusual choice to use an administrative stay exempts the action from review:If the Fifth Circuit had issued a stay pending appeal, this Court would apply the four-factor test set forth in Nken v. Holder—including, as relevant in this Court, an assessment of certworthiness—to decide whether to vacate it. But the Fifth Circuit has not entered a stay pending appeal. Instead, in an exercise of its docket management authority, it issued a temporary administrative stay and deferred the stay motion to a merits panel, which is considering it in conjunction with Texas’s challenge to the District Court’s injunction of S. B. 4. Thus, the Fifth Circuit has not yet rendered a decision on whether a stay pending appeal is warranted. That puts this case in a very unusual procedural posture…So far as I know, this Court has never reviewed the decision of a court of appeals to enter—or not enter—an administrative stay. I would not get into the business.In other words, Barrett recognized the gamesmanship of issuing an administrative stay but chose not to intervene, effectively blessing the 5th Circuit’s ploy to allow SB 4 to take effect without proper review. She reveals this fact by saying “the time may come…when this Court is forced to conclude that an administrative stay has effectively become a stay pending appeal and review it accordingly…If a decision does not issue soon, the applicants may return to this Court.” No conservative justice, including Barrett, wrote about the impact of letting SB 4 take effect.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, explaining why the 5th Circuit’s stay was misused:
An administrative stay…is intended to pause the action on the ground for a short period of time until a court can consider a motion for a stay pending appeal. For that reason, at a minimum, administrative relief should (1) maintain the status quo and (2) be time limited. The Fifth Circuit’s administrative stay here was neither, and thus constituted an abuse of discretion.If allowed to take effect, Sotomayor wrote, SB 4 “will transform the balance of power at the border and have life-altering consequences for noncitizens in Texas.”
Here, the Fifth Circuit’s administrative stay upends the status quo because it allows S. B. 4—a brand new state law that alters the delicate balance of federal and state power in immigration enforcement—to go into effect. The District Court preliminarily enjoined S. B. 4 and declined to stay that injunction. The Fifth Circuit did not need to enter an administrative stay to preserve the status quo; the District Court’s decision already achieved that. The Fifth Circuit abused its discretion in entering the status-altering administrative stay.
The Fifth Circuit’s administrative stay is also temporally unbounded. Because the Fifth Circuit deferred consideration of the motion for a stay pending appeal, the administrative stay is likely to last until the merits panel receives briefing, hears oral argument, and renders a decision on either Texas’s appeal or at least Texas’s motion for a stay pending appeal. That timeline would leave the administrative stay in effect for well over a month.
Justice Elena Kagan, in her own dissent, wrote that she does “not think the Fifth Circuit’s use of an administrative stay, rather than a stay pending appeal, should matter. Administrative stays surely have their uses. But a court’s unreasoned decision to impose one for more than a month, rather than answer the stay pending appeal issue before it, should not spell the difference between respecting and revoking long-settled immigration law.”
Reverberations and reversal
Hours after the Supreme Court allowed SB 4 to take effect, Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement condemning the law for “criminalizing” migrants and “encouraging that separation of families, discrimination and racial profiling that violate the human rights of the migrant community.” Consequently, Mexico declared that it “will not accept, under any circumstances, repatriations by the State of Texas,” setting up a major international incident should Texas try to deport individuals.Luckily, late last night, a new panel of the 5th Circuit stepped in and ‘voted 2-1 to dissolve the administrative stay issued by a different panel earlier this month. Chief Judge Priscilla Richman, a G.W. Bush appointee, and Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Biden appointee, lifted the stay, saying that the court will be hearing arguments for a stay pending appeal (the more appropriate kind of stay to use in this situation) on Wednesday. Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, dissented, writing that he supports the use of an administrative stay while the 5th Circuit hears arguments in the case.
After all that turmoil, strained foreign relations, and fear and confusion among the migrant community, we are now back where we started with Judge Ezra’s order blocking SB 4 in place.
Mandatory minimum sentences
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling that limits who is eligible to escape harsh mandatory minimum sentences.Background
The case, Pulsifer v. United States, originated in 2020 when a federal grand jury indicted Mark Pulsifer for selling over 50 grams of methamphetamine. Pulsifer pleaded guilty to one distribution charge and, because he had a prior drug conviction in 2013, was subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.At sentencing, Pulsifer sought to obtain relief through the First Step Act’s “safety valve” provision that exempts nonviolent drug offenders from the mandatory minimum. In order to qualify, a person cannot have committed a specific number and type of crimes delineated by a points system:
...the court shall impose a sentence pursuant to guidelines promulgated by the United States Sentencing Commission under section 994 of title 28 without regard to any statutory minimum sentence, if the court finds at sentencing…that—According to Pulsifer’s—as well as the 4th, 9th, and 11th Circuit’s—reading of the law, a person is eligible for individualized sentencing unless they possess all three listed traits (A, B, and C). The government contends that is incorrect, and the Supreme Court should adopt the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Circuit’s interpretation: a person is eligible only when they do not have any of the three listed traits (A, B, or C).
(1) the defendant does not have—
(A) more than 4 criminal history points, excluding any criminal history points resulting from a 1-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines;
(B) a prior 3-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; and
(C) a prior 2-point violent offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines;
For a case that turns on mere grammar, there are massive implications of a ruling in either party’s favor. If the safety valve provision is read as Pulsifer argued, about 66% (2021 data) of drug offenders, amounting to over 11,000 people, would be eligible for individualized sentencing. Under the government’s terms, only 44% (roughly 7,700 people) would have the opportunity for a lesser sentence.
With the freedom of thousands of individuals on the line, it is important to understand why Congress created the First Step Act. The U.S. incarcerates more people than anywhere else in the world. This trend started when President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” using fear and thinly veiled racial rhetoric to push punitive policies. According to John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s domestic policy advisor, the “war” began as a way to criminalize Blacks and the anti-war left.
Then, President Ronald Reagan came along and supercharged the federal incarceration machine. Under his influence, the FBI’s drug enforcement units saw their budget increase more than tenfold. Both parties in Congress passed Reagan-sponsored legislation to create 29 new mandatory minimum sentences, including one of the most racist criminal justice laws in recent memory: Sentences for the possession of crack cocaine were 100 times more severe than for powder cocaine. By the end of his two terms in office, the total prison population essentially doubled to 627,000.
Today, approximately 1.8 million people are incarcerated in the United States, down from an all-time high of 2.3 million in the mid-2000s. The decrease is due to criminal justice reform, including a revamping of the mandatory minimum sentencing laws in 2010—including a massive reduction to minimum crack cocaine sentences—and the First Step Act.
The ruling
Despite the clear intent of Congress to increase the number of people eligible to escape mandatory minimum sentences, a majority of the Supreme Court did the exact opposite last week. Justice Elena Kagan—joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—ruled that an offender cannot have any of the three traits of the safety valve provision to obtain relief. In their interpretation, the word "and" serves a disjunctive purpose similar to the word "or." Put differently, a person is ineligible for relief if they have more than 4 criminal history points, or a prior 3-point offense, or a prior 2-point violent offense.As a result, Pulsifer cannot seek individualized sentencing because he meets at least one of the criteria.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, writing that the word “and” is an “additive conjunction” that disqualifies a person with all three traits in the safety valve provision. “A defendant may receive [individualized] sentencing unless he has trait A, trait B, together with trait C,” they explain.
What the language of paragraph (f )(1) suggests, surrounding context confirms. When Congress uses different terms in a statute, we normally presume it does so to convey different meanings…Here, we see just such a meaningful variation. When Congress sought a single word to indicate that one trait among many is sufficient to disqualify an individual from safety valve relief, it chose an obvious solution: not the conjunctive “and,” but the disjunctive “or.”
In fact, Congress used “or” this way no fewer than three times [within the same law]...The fact that Congress repeatedly used “or” when it wanted relief to turn on a single trait among many suggests that the “and” in paragraph (f )(1) performs different work. Even the government once acknowledged as much, conceding below that the “and” in paragraph (f )(1) is “most natural[ly]” read as requiring a sentencing court to find that a defendant possesses all three listed traits before holding him ineligible for relief.
2024.03.08 06:44 flabberstalk33 Mawson Lakes man arrested after several arson attacks across the metro area
Police have arrested a man following a suspicious fire at Hilton and an attempted arson at O’Halloran Hill yesterday morning.
Just before 2.30am on Thursday 7 March, emergency services were called to a veterinary clinic on Sir Donald Bradman Drive after reports of a fire.
Two men were seen to approach the building and smash the front window and shortly after a fire started inside the property.
The two men ran from the scene and were last seen heading north on Clarence Street.
Fire crews have been able to extinguish the fire but extensive damage has been caused to the building. Fortunately there were no animals in the clinic at the time.
About 7.30am on Thursday 7 March, a Molotov cocktail was located near the building of a veterinary hospital at O’Halloran Hill. Fortunately the bottle did not break and no damage was caused.
Following an investigation, on Thursday 7 March, Detectives searched a property at Mawson Lakes and a pizza bar at Kidman Park. A 33-year-old man from Mawson Lakes has been arrested and charged with unlawful threats and two counts of arson. He was refused bail and will appear in the Adelaide Magistrates Court today, Friday 8 March.
The incidents are not believed to be random and the investigations remain ongoing.
Anyone with dash cam footage or information that may assist with the investigation is encouraged to contact Crime Stoppers. You can anonymously provide information to Crime Stoppers online at https://crimestopperssa.com.au or free call 1800 333 000.
Source: https://www.police.sa.gov.au/sa-police-news-assets/front-page-news/man-arrested-after-hilton-arson
submitted by flabberstalk33 to Adelaide [link] [comments]
Just before 2.30am on Thursday 7 March, emergency services were called to a veterinary clinic on Sir Donald Bradman Drive after reports of a fire.
Two men were seen to approach the building and smash the front window and shortly after a fire started inside the property.
The two men ran from the scene and were last seen heading north on Clarence Street.
Fire crews have been able to extinguish the fire but extensive damage has been caused to the building. Fortunately there were no animals in the clinic at the time.
About 7.30am on Thursday 7 March, a Molotov cocktail was located near the building of a veterinary hospital at O’Halloran Hill. Fortunately the bottle did not break and no damage was caused.
Following an investigation, on Thursday 7 March, Detectives searched a property at Mawson Lakes and a pizza bar at Kidman Park. A 33-year-old man from Mawson Lakes has been arrested and charged with unlawful threats and two counts of arson. He was refused bail and will appear in the Adelaide Magistrates Court today, Friday 8 March.
The incidents are not believed to be random and the investigations remain ongoing.
Anyone with dash cam footage or information that may assist with the investigation is encouraged to contact Crime Stoppers. You can anonymously provide information to Crime Stoppers online at https://crimestopperssa.com.au or free call 1800 333 000.
Source: https://www.police.sa.gov.au/sa-police-news-assets/front-page-news/man-arrested-after-hilton-arson
2024.02.28 15:44 WINDEX_DRINKER One crime is listed and the rest are baseless allegations. This is how they justify putting their faith in the Biden molesters 🤡
 | submitted by WINDEX_DRINKER to TheLedditClub [link] [comments] |