According to McKay's MyLife profile, this Utard is a Tea Party Supporter. Need I say more?
Well, yes I do, actually. Allowing judicial discretion in juvenile and young adult sex crimes isn't a bad idea. You know what is a bad idea? A teabagger threatening two reform-minded politicians.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/5117287-155/rolly-wasatch-prosecutor-warns-utah-senators
Rolly: Wasatch prosecutor warns Utah senators he’s coming after them for sex-offender vote
By PAUL ROLLY | The Salt Lake Tribune connect
First Published Mar 30 2017 01:00PM • Updated 8 hours ago
The Utah Legislature approved a bill this past session giving judges more sentencing discretion in cases in which a defendant had consensual sex with a minor under age 14 if that defendant is under 21.
The measure passed the House 42-31 and the Senate 15-11. Gov. Gary Herbert signed it into law.
It changes slightly the mandatory-minimum requirement of 25 years to life and a lifetime listing on the sex-offender registry for having sex with a minor.
But it now has a deputy in the Wasatch County attorney's office gunning for two senators who voted for the bill and whose districts include parts of his county.
"It appears that you both voted to lower the punishment for child rapists and to allow them to go unregistered on Utah's streets," Deputy Wasatch County Attorney Mckay King wrote in an email to Sens. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, and David Hinkins, R-Orangeville.
"I will make sure that everyone in Wasatch County is aware that you did this. I will make sure that no one forgets that you did this," he warned. "This was bad law, and everyone that I have spoken to agrees. I will make sure they remember to vote accordingly."
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Stephen Handy, R-Layton, calls it a sensible change that allows a judge some discretion when an 18-year-old "does something stupid" with someone five years younger.
The perpetrator still goes to prison, but a judge can decide to sentence the defendant to 15, 10 or six years to life, depending on the circumstances. And the defendant still would be listed on the sex-offender registry, but not necessarily for life.
Handy noted the bill won endorsements from a victims group, the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice and the Utah attorney general's office. The Statewide Association of Prosecutors remained neutral.
But King has decided Bramble and Hinkins should have a political bounty on their heads. In essence, to paraphrase a line from old Westerns, he's telling the senators that "this county ain't big enough for the three of us."
A constituent who became aware of the email has complained to the Utah elections office because King's email came from a Wasatch County attorney's office account. State law bars the use of government resources for political purposes or to influence the outcome of an election.
King told me (in an email from his personal account), that he sent the email just to the two senators, not to the public. It went out after the election, he noted, so there was no attempt to sway an outcome. Even so, he said, he regrets sending it on a government email account.
Wasatch County Attorney Scott Sweat said the email was not authorized by his office and does not reflect the county attorney's position. Sweat did, however, formally oppose the bill.
"We want the best outcome we can for victims of crime and for the people of Utah," he said. "We want to work with legislators to get the best law we can."
https://www.riverbender.com/articles/details/kill-your-local-heroin-dealer-law-enforcement-responds-to-recent-social-media-push-19891.cfm#.WOwnx2nyupo
ReplyDeleteNow apparently Heroin and Meth dealers are facing vigilante justice too
ALTON - Over the weekend, a young woman from the Riverbend area died from what has been speculated to be a heroin overdose. She left behind a son and a family who expressed their love and loss on her Facebook page - which has acted as a sort of memorial wall for mourners following her untimely death.
Also on social media, people are sharing a very provocative sentiment: "Kill Your Local Heroin Dealer." That sentiment for brutal vigilante justice is highly discouraged by law enforcement and will result in possible murder charges if successful and attempted murder or assault charges if not. However, if someone wants to metaphorically "kill" that dealer by taking him or her off the streets in a legal manner, law enforcement is more than happy to assist.
"The best way is to give us the name of the dealer," Alton Police Chief Jason "Jake" Simmons said. "Once we have their names, we have confidential informants who will actually go get heroin from them. The police can't do this by ourselves, and a lot of people out there think all of this is on the shoulders of the police department, but parents need to get involved, find the suppliers, and know where the drugs are from. I don't think of it as 'snitching' if you could save a life. If you know of a heroin dealer out there, tell us what he drives and where he frequents. We need to know these things, and then we could go out there and save his life."
Telling law enforcement is also the advice of Madison County State's Attorney Tom Gibbons, who has been working with various agencies and entities to help attack the heroin epidemic in Madison County with what he described as a "three pronged attack."
"Any time anyone has information about drug transactions, or people who are becoming known to be in distribution of any sort of drugs, law enforcement benefits," Gibbons said. "That's one way people can get involved and take some action without crossing the line and getting themselves harmed or breaking the law themselves. Killing someone is not an answer to deal with this. When they know someone walking down that path to addiction, they should get engaged and get that person help - the earlier the better."
Like plants need water, dealers need customers. Gibbons said two of the main prongs of his attack against the heroin epidemic include depriving the dealers of customers - so their money withers like a plant in a drought, causing them to take themselves out of the scenario. He said Madison County has been treating the heroin epidemic more of a public health crisis than a criminal one under his administration as its chief law enforcement body.
"Stopping demand is the strongest way to affect this, but it's not the only way," Gibbons said. "If you see the three-pronged approach we use - treatment, education and enforcement, you notice enforcement is only one leg of the stool. If someone wants to arrest their way out of the heroin epidemic, you just can't do it. We must cut off demand while attacking suppliers."
ReplyDeleteSimmons said many heroin dealers start selling cocaine or marijuana, and add heroin to their selection as the demand increases. He said he is working with emergency room doctors at OSF St. Anthony's Health Center to discover who suppliers of heroin are locally. He said his department may be able to interview overdose patients who are taken to the hospital with heroin still on their person to discover that heroin's source. Simmons said he was pretty sure the answer would be from North St. Louis County.
"We have made quite a few arrests in Alton, but a lot of heroin dealers know not to come to Alton to do it," he said.
Simmons said the majority of heroin in Alton is brought from either North St. Louis County or East St. Louis via the Route 3 corridor. Gibbons said the interstate highway system around Madison County actually sees the same heroin shipments cross twice. Ultimately, the source of heroin in Madison County is Mexico, he said.
"Heroin here comes from Mexico, is transported through the southern states like New Mexico, Arizona and California, and goes right up through Madison County through our interstates, up to Chicago," Gibbons said. "From Chicago, it is sent to St. Louis. It isn't just heroin. Cocaine and meth are also coming up from Mexico. They use the same routes, same couriers and same cartels. Two times those drugs have crossed our interstate highways, which means we have two opportunities to stop them from getting to the streets."
Those opportunities are in the hands of the Illinois State Police (ISP) and federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), who Gibbons said are often underutilized and poorly-funded, adding they do not have the resources to properly police those vital corridors as much as is required.
Despite the lack of resources, Gibbons said several "significant busts" have been made in the area, which have hit the Mexican cartels directly in the pocketbooks. He said the county has taken as much as $1.3 million, which would have otherwise been "muled" back to Mexico.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the more local distributors, Gibbons's hands are a bit tied when it comes to prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law. He said he is hoping Senate Bill 639 - the "Evan Rushing Law" - will be passed through the Illinois General Assembly after its introduction by Sen. Bill Haine (D-Alton). The law is named after a young Glen Carbon man who died of an overdose. Gibbons said he was unable to charge the dealer with drug-induced homicide, simply because the dealer was located in St. Louis.
"The river is a barrier to us - a legal barrier - which is challenging to overcome," Gibbons said. "We were unable to prosecute that dealer for drug-induced homicide. The bill is intended to amend the law to make it possible for me to prosecute that dealer. It is good for families and victims to get justice."
Gibbons said most dealers in St. Louis are "street-level" dealers who sell many products, not just heroin, for the sole purpose of making money. He said dealers in the Metro East are users selling to other users to help support their habits.
https://www.riverbender.com/articles/details/kill-your-local-heroin-dealer-law-enforcement-responds-to-recent-social-media-push-19891.cfm#.WOwnx2nyupo
and this one
http://www.metronews.ca/news/halifax/2017/04/10/nova-scotia-sex-worker-sentenced-for-stabbing-john.html
ReplyDeleteNow this is at play in Canada too!
At 35, Michelle Marie Francis has suffered the indignities of multiple abuses — emotional, sexual, physical, substance and those involving self-harm.
A child of parents who were residential school survivors, she learned early the effects of alcohol abuse, the sting of physical abuse, the heartbreak of being passed from one foster home to another while always wondering if life would ever offer something better.
She eventually followed the path of her mother into the sex trade business along with its usual associated components such as drug abuse.
While crack cocaine took away her pain, it left her homeless and jobless and turning tricks on the street seemed the only option to get money for more drugs.
Her vicious life circle came crashing down in September 2015 when she stabbed a “john” in the back in his Sydney home.
“She took a knife and went upstairs to the bedroom,” said provincial court Judge Alain Bégin, in passing sentence on Francis, who he had previously found guilty of assault causing bodily harm.
The judge said Francis was alone downstairs in the home at the time and could have easily walked out the door but instead chose to stab Douglas Barrett in reacting to rumours he was a bad john.
Bégin said while the court cannot condone vigilante justice and that Barrett was indeed the victim in the case, he was also a predator.
“He tried to portray himself as a Good Samaritan but the reality is different,” said Bégin, noting Barrett provided sex workers in his home with clean needle kits.
He said the relationship between a sex worker and a john is one of power and that while Barrett took advantage of that relationship, he could not condone what Francis had done.
In his victim impact statement, Barrett said he suffered a punctured lung and spent a week in hospital. He said he is now unable to perform some of his usual tasks such as cutting his own wood, shovelling the driveway and some household duties.
Defence lawyer Christa Thompson told the court Friday her client had been living in a van at the time of the incident and using public washrooms for personal hygiene purposes.
“Her judgment was clouded by her addiction. She was at a very low point when she got into that vehicle,” said Thompson, adding her vulnerability and her weakness were being exploited at the time.
Since her arrest, Francis has spent 200 days on remand and was given credit for the time in receiving a one-day jail sentence served by her presence in court.
She was also ordered to complete a two-year probation period during which she is to stay away from the victim and is not allowed to possess or consume any alcohol or drugs not prescribed to her by a physician. She is to submit to urinalysis testing and is not allowed to possess any weapons.
Francis is also to supply a DNA sample to the national registry and is banned for 10 years from possessing any weapons.
Bégin noted Francis has begun taking steps to upgrade her life and circumstances and will soon enrol in a treatment program focused on aboriginal offenders.
“She is not moving forward blindly for she knows what lies ahead,” said the judge, adding he hoped she wins her battle with her demons because she could become an asset for other women in her community.
“This is my beginning. Thank you for saving my life,” said Francis, at the end of the sentencing hearing.
“It wasn’t me, it was you,” replied Bégin.