Lifers gain parole at faster rate

Cop killer had been freed by parole board
NATICK, Mass., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The Massachusetts Parole Board was under fire Thursday for releasing a convict serving three life sentences who then killed a Police Officer during a Robbery. "How was it that this guy was let out?'' Mayor Scott D. Galvin of Woburn, Mass., asked of Dominic Cinelli, the 57-year-old career criminal who allegedly robbed a Kohl's Department Store jewelry counter Sunday night and then fatally shot Woburn Police Officer John Maguire outside the store. Maguire, 60, a fat...

Enemies of gun rights can't hide their hostility to Constitution
St. Louis Gun Rights advocates no doubt remember last summer when just across the river, anti-gun Congressman (now ex-)Congressman Phil Hare said he "doesn't worry about" the Constitution, or whether Legislation he supports would run afoul of it.  Similarly, when rabidly anti-gun Speaker (now ex-)Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was asked about the Constitutionality of the massive Health Care "reform" law, her response was "Are you serious? Are you serious?" asked with a combination of inc...

DEFICITS, LAWSUITS, DIMINISHED PUBLIC SAFETY: YOUR STATE CANT AFFORD SB 1070
Federal inaction on Immigration Reform has triggered a national crisis and dramatically increased the likelihood of state-based Immigration laws similar to Arizona’s approach. According to a new report prepared by the National Immigration Forum (Download SB1070Report[1]) , at least seven states are likely to attempt an Arizona-style law to address the broken Immigration system as a direct result of the federal inaction. States may attempt these laws despite overwhelming evidence that laws li...

Sister must donate kidney to get out of US jail
Stumble This! Chicago — A Mississippi woman must donate her kidney to her sister as a condition for their early release from jail after serving 16 years for an armed Robbery that netted 11 dollars. Jaime and Gladys Scott became symbols of the heavy-handed sentences handed to African Americans and the influential Civil Rights group NAACP engaged in a long-standing campaign to secure their release. The two sisters - who insist they were wrongfully convicted - were handed two life sentences ...

NAACP: Haley Barbour Retreats on Race-Tinged Sentences
Seeking to repair damage from remarks that were ripped for insensitivity to the Jim Crow era in his Mississippi hometown, Gov. Haley Barbour acceded Wednesday to a long-running bid by the NAACP to free two sisters imprisoned on armed Robbery charges in 1994, the Civil Rights group said late Wednesday. Barbour, who said in a magazine article published earlier this month that he didn't remember the Civil Rights revolution as "being that bad" and downplayed the discriminatory role of his native Ya...

Sister must donate kidney to get out of US jail
A Mississippi woman must donate her kidney to her sister as a condition for their early release from jail after serving 16 years for an armed Robbery that netted 11 dollars. Jaime and Gladys Scott became symbols of the heavy-handed sentences handed to African Americans and the influential civil rights group NAACP engaged in a long-standing campaign to secure their release. The two sisters - who insist they were wrongfully convicted - were handed two life sentences for acting as accomplices and...

Maguire shooting: Who should we blame
Who is to blame, that is the question. Sunday night a Veteran Woburn Police Officer, 60 year old John “Jack” Maguire was brutally shot while responding to an armed Robbery at the Kohl’s Department Store. He was shot by 57 year old Dominic Cinelli, the son of a late Boston police officer and a career criminal. Cinelli had spent most of his life behind bars for armed robbery, assault, Attempted Murder and escaping from Prison. He was paroled in 2009 from three consecutive life se...

East Hartford mayor to take over DMV
East Hartford Mayor Melody A. Currey, Gov.-elect Dan Malloy's choice to head the State Department of Motor Vehicles, said Thursday she is taking over with the goal of making the much-maligned agency more streamlined and efficient. "My marching orders are very direct: Make sure the customer is taken care of and make sure we do it in an efficient and effective manner and as fiscally conservative as possible," Currey said after Malloy announced her appointment. Malloy said he would like Currey to...

Geragosian and Ward named new state auditors
For the first time in nearly two decades, State Government will start the year with a new team of fiscal and programmatic Watchdogs with Tuesday's naming of Democrat John C. Geragosian and Republican Robert M. Ward as the auditors of public accounts. Geragosian's appointment also opens another key position in the legislature: The New Britain lawmaker currently serves as co-chairman of the Budget-writing Appropriations Committee. Sources said the post will go to Veteran Rep. Toni Walker, D-New ...

Sister's promise to donate kidney leads to release of armed robbers
For 16 years, sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott have shared a life behind bars for their part in an $11 armed Robbery. To share freedom, they must also share a kidney. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour suspended the sisters' life sentences on Wednesday, but 36-year-old Gladys Scott's release is contingent on her giving a kidney to Jamie, her 38-year-old sister, who requires daily Dialysis. The sisters were conv ADVERTISEMENT icted in 1994 of leading two men into an ambush in Mississippi the year...

Haley Barbour to Free Imprisoned Sisters -- but One Must Donate Kidney to the Other
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said he would free two sisters serving life sentences for armed Robbery, citing the poor health of one of the women, who, under terms of the release, is required to receive a Kidney Transplant from her younger sibling. The case of Jamie Scott, 38, and Gladys Scott, 36, has become a cause celebre for Civil Rights groups, which assert that the women's race -- African American -- was cause for their unusually long sentences, according to the Washington Post. Their cri...

Violent crime fell 3 percent in Philadelphia in 2010
Violent crime in Philadelphia dropped 3 percent and property crime rose 4 percent in 2010, consistent with the trend in major cities but a departure from the double-digit declines of recent years. Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey cited a number of factors, including the city's Financial Crisis, that led to the slashing of overtime and the elimination of two Police Academy classes. "I think that it was a challenging year," said Ramsey, whose first two years as the city's top cop br...

Kidney parole condition raises ethical questions
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A debate is unfolding over an unusual offer from Mississippi’s Governor: He will free two sisters imprisoned for an $11 armed Robbery, but one woman’s release requires her to donate her kidney to the other. The condition is alarming some experts, who have raised legal and ethical questions. Among them: If it turns out the sisters aren’t a good tissue match, does that mean the healthy one goes back to jail? Gov. Haley Barbour’s decision to suspe...

Jailed sisters to be freed if one donates a kidney
For the past 16 years, Jamie and Gladys Scott have been locked away in Prison in America's Deep South, serving double life sentences for a Robbery in which no one was injured and their entire haul amounted to the grand total of just $11. Now they are to walk free. But there's a catch. The sisters have been granted Clemency by Haley Barbour, the Governor of Mississippi, on the condition that they begin life outside by going straight to Hospital. There they must undergo an emergency operation whi...

Biggest gun rights story of 2010 based in Bellevue, ignored by local press
   The biggest constitutional Civil Rights story of 2010, maybe of the decade, was based right here in Bellevue, yet as the on-line Seattle Post-Intelligencer is currently beginning its “Top Stories” reviews, should we expect to see a single word about the Second Amendment Foundation’s landmark Gun Rights victory before the U.S. Supreme Court? Don’t hold your breath.    Local news agencies have less than 72 hours to prove this colum...

NAACP praises Gov. Barbour for sisters' release
The NAACP is praising Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) for suspending the sentence of Gladys and Jamie Scott -- two sisters sentenced to two life terms for robbing a man at gun point. The sisters had no prior record when they were convicted of the crime in 1993. The NAACP has long championed their early release and claimed the fact they are black played a role in their sentence. On Wednesday, Barbour announced he had suspended their sentence. "The Mississippi Department of Corrections believ...

Cuomo to take governor's oath on NYE at 10 p.m.
ALBANY - Andrew Cuomo is so eager to take office that he'll be sworn-in two hours before actually becoming Governor. Cuomo is set to be given the oath of office privately by Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman at 10 p.m. Friday following a family New Year's Eve dinner at the executive mansion. Previous governors have taken the oath just after midnight Jan. 1, when the term officially begins. Cuomo is said to be going early so the young kids attending the dinner can watch. Other onloo...

Kidney a condition for clemency
This is unusual: Gov. Haley Barbour on Wednesday issued two orders indefinitely suspending the sentences of Jamie and Gladys Scott. The sisters, who have been in Prison the past 16 years, would not have been eligible for Parole until 2014. Sen. Willie Simmons, D-Cleveland, called it a "courageous move" by the Governor as he considers a run for president.... At trial, the sisters had...

Sisters serving life released; one ordered to give other a kidney...
Civil rights advocates and family are cheering the suspension of life sentences for Gladys and Jamie Scott in a deal that includes one woman donating a kidney to keep her sister alive. Backers have long claimed that the women, who are African-American, were innocent and their life Prison sentences for an armed Robbery -- reportedly for $11 -- were tinged with Racism. The case had drawn the attention of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour who twice appealed to the Mississippi Parole Board because Ja...

Kidney transplant as a condition of life-sentence suspension in MS
In 2007, the tragic result of a pardon created a big problem for Mike Huckabee in his run for the Republican presidential nomination, fairly or not.  If Haley Barbour decides to make a run at the 2012 spot, he may have to explain his thinking on a sentence suspension and the ethics involved in its conditions.  The Mississippi Governor issued a suspension (not a commutation or pardon) to two sisters with life sentences for convictions in 1994 of an armed Robbery that netted $11 total from two...

09 parole of officers killer gets hard look
Source: Boston Globe Dominic Cinelli sat before the Massachusetts Parole Board in November 2008 and insisted that he was no longer the Heroin addict who shot a Security Guard during an armed Robbery to feed his drug habit. “I’m new and different,’’ he said in a soft voice. “But I realize that deep inside me there is still that ugliness, and I know that I have to deal with that and control that, and I’m doing a real good job of it.’’ Four months later, Cinelli was a fr

Washington woman convicted of killing daughter
A jury has convicted a D.C. woman of fatally stabbing her 7-year-old daughter. The U.S. Attorney's Office says 33-year-old Carlese Hall has been convicted felony Murder, Arson and other charges. Authorities say Hall flagged down a Police Officer on Dec. 26, 2008, and said that she had killed her daughter and set her house on fire. When police and fire officials searched the house they found Hall's daughter, Amari, with a stab wound to the chest. At trial, prosecutors said Hall was under the infl...

Bernard Williams Charged In Murder Of Police Officer David Blake
A Chicago teenager was charged Wednesday in the Murder of off-duty Chicago Police Officer David Blake, who was found fatally shot in his SUV last month. Bernard Williams, 18, of the 2500 block of West 81st Place, has been charged with one count of first degree Murder and one count of armed Robbery with a firearm in Blake's slaying, according to police News Affairs. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Williams killed Blake because he wanted to steal his "extensive gun collection" and that the ...

2 charged after purse-snatching, chase
An off-duty St. Clair Shores Firefighter tried to stop the male suspect but was tripped by the female suspect, Roseville police said. Larry Settles, 38, and Kimberly Hyte, 35, are charged with unarmed Robbery and Conspiracy to commit unarmed robbery, both 15-year felonies, and receiving and concealing stolen property and fleeing a Police Officer, both 5-year felonies, police said. Settles was ordered held in Macomb County Jail on a $1-milllion bond. Hy...

Madison NORML Examiner looks back at the Wisconsin year in cannabis 2010
MADISON: The year 2010 was a breakthrough year for cannabis in Wisconsin. While the year began with medical cannabis Legislation that ultimately failed to pass, efforts to support the bill helped lay the base for new heights in cannabis Activism that saw major media coverage, statewide events and the formation of new alliances and groups dedicated to changing cannabis laws. In between were many developments including Elections that on one hand brought Wisconsin two historic medical cannabis elec...