burlingtonfreepress.com

Sponsored by:

vt.Buzz ~ a political blog

Political notes from Free Press staff writers Terri Hallenbeck, Sam Hemingway and Nancy Remsen


8.07.2008

 

Sex offenders on the agenda

Senate Judiciary has convened the first of its hearings on sex offender laws and what might have gone wrong in the state's dealings with Michael Jacques, the man accused of kidnapping his niec, 12-year-old Brooke Bennett of Braintree, who was found dead this summer.

Room 10, the smaller of two hearing rooms in the Statehouse, is fairly full with state officials, vicitms advocates, legislators and media.

The Legislature has a link on its Web site related to these meetings, which will include three public hearings around the state. You can see it here: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/workgroups/sexoffenders/

The goal of the committee, according to its charge from Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin is to examine what went wrong to allow Jacques to be released from probation early, to see if there is evidence that sex offender treatment works, to see how recent changes to sentencing laws might have made a difference, to see if the laws the governor proposes (Jessica's Law, civil commitments, changes to sex offender registry) would help, to see what other changes may be warranted.

Whether they'll get the answers to the first question is unclear. There's a heap of stuff the state can't talk about for a variety of reasons. But that's one of the biggest looming questions.

What do you want them to explore?

- Terri Hallenbeck


- Terri Hallenbeck

Comments:
Reinstating the death penalty, and actually sentencing people the entire sentence, this 3 years all suspended but 2 weeks is pathetic.
 
Treatment should be mandatory for offenders, not voluntary like it currently is. These bozo's took someonelses liberties away so why the hell should we care about theirs? ACLU be damned.
 
That's kind of like forcing someone to read a book. You can set the book in front of them and open it up and turn the pages for them ... but if they don't want to read it, they won't.

Right now, offenders who don't accept treatment are required to spend more time behind bars.

The ACLU has had no problem with that.
 
I think that the committee should investigate why the Dept. of Corrections is being staffed by temps who have no corrections experience.
 
I think the committee should determine why the Douglas Administration told the Judge this guy should be released.

It amazes me that DOuglas comes out of this unscathed - it was his people who made the convincing arguments.
 
It amazes me that the soft on crime Shumlin and Symington continue to get off scott free. All you have to do is look at their records that are available online to see that everytime they had an opportunity to get tough they failed. Don't forget to lock your doors and windows tonight before you go to bed.
 
Symington and Shumlin lead the way in passing tough new legislation for sex offenders.

Douglas lead the way in letting a pervert out of prison early so that he could re-offend.
 
Here is a great question for the committee:

Why has Mr. Douglas failed to establish Special Investigative Units for sex crimes as mandated by the Legislature under Symington and Shumlin?
 
Anon 10:26pm has hit the nail on the head. The SI units were authorized by the legislature and Does less has just done less. Where is the media on this issue? Com'on Terri time to get some real reporting work done!
 
How many little girls have to die before the Administration starts enforcing the law, not letting perverts out early and puts these Special Investigative Units in place?

Come on!
 
What? SIUs have been created in several counties . . . Chittenden's has been up and running for some time . . . but it is also up to each county's states attorney to put it all together, the state provides the funding.
 
Oh, I see. The governor can't be held accountable for the fact that his administration hasn't established Sex Crime Units, as mandated by the legislature.

I see a trend here ... something goes wrong ... the person in charge of state government says, "Not my fault" and goes to cut another ribbon.
 
See, this is the problem.

Instead of making the prevention of sexual abuse a priority, he passed it off and made it someone else's problem.

An effective governor would have made it his charge to make sure that EVERYTHING was in place to prevent sexual abuse.

An effective governor would have made sure that ALL counties had Special Investigative Units in place -- for the safety of ALL Vermonters.

Douglas won't do that. He just points fingers.
 
Peabody J. Flash said...

"It amazes me that the soft on crime Shumlin and Symington continue to get off scott free."

Well, given the fact that they weren't responsible for Doogie's choice of Corrections Commissioner and executive branch incompetence over the past six years, that only stands to reason, cap'n wrong-way peach-fuzz.

Clearly, your ignorant ass ain't from this neck of the woods. Let me try to explain to ya how things work in this Country under our system of government.

Ya see, it's the job of the executive branch to enact and enforce the law. That would be shrubco on the national level and the doogie/dubie debacle on the state level.

Clearly, they're incompetent trash whose ignorance is surpassed only by their ignorant-trash apologists and the slime that supports them.

Take the schmuck residing in your mirror, for example.

"All you have to do is look at their records that are available online to see that everytime they had an opportunity to get tough they failed."

In other words, doogie was able to override their vetoes or he signed their legislation into law and just failed to enforce it.

Thanks for clearin' that up, little fella.

"Don't forget to lock your doors and windows tonight before you go to bed."

Yeah, ya gotta point there, little fella. Crime has certainly gone up as Vermont's economy and standard of living have declined under the jimi douglas experience."

Clearly, their strategy for the coming winter is to hope it's too cold for your standard criminal activity and to put all their chips on the assumption that if crooks and citizens freeze first, there will be less crime.

Ya gotta love that gop-slime school of "thought."

That's bound to be as successful and efficiently run as the first six years of the Bush Administration and the doogie/dubie debacle.

Always a pleasure.
 
When it really counted, Douglas provided no oversight on probation. Now, that a girl is dead, the first thing Douglas does is instruct probation officers on procedure.

Action by Douglas could have saved a life.

This is entirely how Douglas operates. Remember wilderness? Remember the tire burn? Remember Bennington?

Unless you light fire under his ass, he does absolutely nothing. Anything to preserve status quo.

This time it cost a girl her life.
 
Anonymous said...

"Treatment should be mandatory for offenders, not voluntary like it currently is. These bozo's took someonelses liberties away so why the hell should we care about theirs? ACLU be damned."

Yeah, the ACLU who's always stickin' up for the rights of nazi-slime nitwits to have a parade in Skokie or to protect oxy-moron extraordinaire, flush limbo's medical records from being opened in his doctor-shopping case.

You'd think a schmuck named flush would know enough to flush the stash.

Of course, the only thing dimmer than lard-butted gop-slime named flush are the ignorant swine ditto heads who buy his shtick.
 
I would just like to point out that there are a lot of people who have been convicted who have never committed the crime. I know a teacher who told me that there was a girl in one of his classes that he had to fail and she told him that if he failed her than she was going to say that he raped her. IS THAT JUSTICE?
 
what you talkin' 'bout? has left a new comment on the post "Sex offenders on the agenda":

"I would just like to point out that there are a lot of people who have been convicted who have never committed the crime."

Ease up on the hyperbole, little fella. Clearly, you don't know a lot about everything.

"I know a teacher who told me that there was a girl in one of his classes that he had to fail and she told him that if he failed her than she was going to say that he raped her. IS THAT JUSTICE?"

No, it's grounds for her expulsion from that school system, possible criminal charges against the girl penalties for filing false police reports and a probable civil suits against the girl and her parents to be filed by the Teacher and the VT-NEA, little fella.

Gee, the ol' "I know a guy who told me he knew of a girl who's cousin's uncle's former mother-in-law's pizza delivery guy told him that he knew a girl who's cousin went to the prom with a guy who looked just like Saddam Hussein, and her little brother said he must have had the wmd in the trunk of his '83 Ford Escort." standard of evidence.

If only you'd made the case to invade Iraq to Cheney with that evidence, little fella.

Forty Thousand US Military Personnel wouldn't have been killed or maimed for nothing, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would still be alive and in one piece and the Country wouldn't be in debt to China up to Yao Ming's eyeballs, because that slop wouldn't have been enough to even sell Cheney on the idea, little fella, it would have been more than enough to talk him out of invading Iraq and clearly, that would have been on small feat since fact evidence and reality didn't slow him down.

What's more, Wolfowitz would have laughed ya out of the room and Rumsfeld would have dismissed it as a Gary Coleman/Tard Bridges Fart and immediately converted to Islam.

Get yourself a paper route, schmuck, and save up for a case and a clue.

Always a pleasure.
 
JWCoop Charm School contact info:

Jeffrey Cooper
894 GALLISON HILL RD
Montpelier, VT
802-223-1098

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=opera&rls=en&q=montpelier+vt+%22894+Gallison+Hill%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=title

http://jwcoop10.stumbleupon.com/
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

June 2006   July 2006   August 2006   September 2006   October 2006   November 2006   December 2006   January 2007   February 2007   March 2007   April 2007   May 2007   June 2007   July 2007   August 2007   September 2007   October 2007   November 2007   December 2007   January 2008   February 2008   March 2008   April 2008   May 2008   June 2008   July 2008   August 2008   September 2008   October 2008   November 2008   December 2008   January 2009   February 2009   March 2009   April 2009   May 2009   June 2009   July 2009   August 2009   September 2009   October 2009   November 2009   December 2009   January 2010   February 2010   March 2010   April 2010