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Ex-Con Guilty in Fla. Girl's Slaying
MIAMI (AP) - A sex offender was found guilty Wednesday of kidnapping and raping a 9-year-old girl and burying her alive in a case that led to a crackdown around the country on people convicted of sex crimes.Hallelujah and saints be praised. The US justice system isn't totally bankrupt yet. It still seems to work on people without money. Jurors deliberated about four hours before returning the verdict against John Evander Couey in the slaying of Jessica Lunsford, who was snatched from her bedroom in 2005 about 150 yards from the trailer where Couey had been living. Why did it take so long? Her body was found in a shallow hole, encased in two black plastic trash bags. She had suffocated, and was found clutching a purple stuffed dolphin. Don't forget how she had tried to poke some airholes in the bag before she died. The jury next must decide whether Couey, 48, should get death by injection or life in prison. Tough one, I know. Unfortunately given the odds here I'll bet you'd do better to play "eenie-meenie-minie-moe". You don't think the US is too wussified yet, do you? Couey admitted to investigators shortly after his arrest that he committed the crime, but the confession was thrown out because he did not have a lawyer present as he had requested. Retarded law. Especially since he revealed details only the killer would know. The evidence at trial included DNA from Jessica's blood and Couey's semen on a mattress in his bedroom, as well as Jessica's fingerprints in a closet in the trailer. That's all I need to know. Hang him. But wait, there has to be more or it wouldn't be fair! Jail guards and investigators testified that Couey repeatedly admitted details of the slaying after his arrest and that he insisted he had not meant to kill the third-grader but panicked as police searched for her. It's the police's fault, eh? Couey had a record as a sex offender. In 1991, he was arrested on a charge of fondling a child. In 1978, he was accused of grabbing a girl in her bedroom, placing his hand over her mouth and kissing her. I'm sure he can be rehabilitated. But he can't live anywhere near me. But authorities had not known that Couey was living near the Lunsford home even though he was required to tell them he had moved. Why? Things too complicated to figure out before you have about 10,000 cases like this to help point the way? Gotta take a few polls to accurately decipher public opinion before actually doing implemented some half-hearted wussified measures to drive the problem further underground rather than just kill it? Jessica's killing prompted Florida and a number of other states to pass new laws cracking down on sex offenders and improve tracking of them through databases and satellite positioning devices. Killers would be much easier to track if they were all cremated and buried in a landfill somewhere. Posted by: gorb 2007-03-07 |
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