Majes me feel safe and secure

[larrymeyer]

http://www.officer.com/web/online/Top-News-Stories/Elaborate-Jailbreak-Sparks-New-Jersey-Manhunt/1$39372


Elaborate Jailbreak Sparks New Jersey Manhunt


Updated: December 17th, 2007 11:13 AM EDT


The Associated Press
ELIZABETH, N.J. --

Two inmates escaped from a county jail, hiding the holes they made in the walls by putting up photos of bikini-clad women, officials said.

Authorities searched over the weekend for Jose Espinosa, who was awaiting sentencing for manslaughter, and Otis Blunt, who was facing robbery and other charges. They also launched a review of jail security.

The two got out of the Union County jail Saturday evening. The county prosecutor's office said the two apparently removed cement blocks from two walls, squeezed through the openings, jumped to a rooftop below and then made it over a 25-foot-high fence. The section they escaped from was supposed to be the most secure area of the facility.

"I'm extremely disturbed that a jail with the capability of security it has would foster a breach of this nature," County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Monday's editions.

Espinosa, 20, an alleged gang member, was awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to manslaughter in a 2005 drive-by shooting in Elizabeth. Blunt, 32, was awaiting trial on charges of robbery and weapons offenses.

The men helped cover up the break by placing dummies under their bed blankets, and hiding the wall holes with magazine photos of women in bikinis, authorities said.

Authorities launched a review of security measures, and barred inmates from pinning up pictures from magazines on their cell walls.

[Chazman321]

Can we say :Shawshank Redemption?


ChazIlovethatmovieman321

[DaveM55]

What say there, fussy-britches. Feel like talkin'?

[Shawn.L]

Wow, they must have been laughing the whole time! Thats like every jailbreak scene ever.

When these guys come kicking in your door to hole up and get supplies / take your car and $$$ and wife be glad you could only buy one gun that month. Cause you would have sold them one. Wait, how does that work again? Oh no wait, your in a gun free zone so bullets dont work ! No, wait..... thats not it.... Oh yeah after they murder you with the gun you illegally sold them cause you got so many (they pay with the money they stole from you that you couldnt defend from cause bullets dont work in gun free zones) then you have to report it stolen ! Man, there has got to be some way those laws would have protected us, I mean they where COMMON-SENSE LEGISLATION !!!!!!!!

[larrymeyer]

Welcome to NJ

Dec 17, 2:10 PM EST


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT


New Jersey Bans Death Penalty

By TOM HESTER Jr.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/MJ Schear

Latest News
New Jersey Bans Death Penalty
If Death Penalty Abolished, What Next?

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed into law Monday a measure that abolishes the death penalty, making New Jersey the first state in more than four decades to reject capital punishment.

The bill, approved last week by the state's Assembly and Senate, replaces the death sentence with life in prison without parole.

"This is a day of progress for us and for the millions of people across our nation and around the globe who reject the death penalty as a moral or practical response to the grievous, even heinous, crime of murder," Corzine said.

The measure spares eight men on the state's death row. On Sunday, Corzine signed orders commuting the sentences of those eight to life in prison without parole.

Among the eight spared is Jesse Timmendequas, a sex offender who murdered 7-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994. The case inspired Megan's Law, which requires law enforcement agencies to notify the public about convicted sex offenders living in their communities.

New Jersey reinstated the death penalty in 1982 - six years after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to resume executions - but it hasn't executed anyone since 1963.

The state's move is being hailed across the world as a historic victory against capital punishment. Rome plans to shine golden light on the Colosseum in support. Once the arena for deadly gladiator combat and executions, the Colosseum is now a symbol of the fight against the death penalty.

"The rest of America, and for that matter the entire world, is watching what we are doing here today," said Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo, a Democrat. "New Jersey is setting a precedent that I'm confident other states will follow."

The bill passed the Legislature largely along party lines, with controlling Democrats supporting the abolition and minority Republicans opposed. Republicans had sought to retain the death penalty for those who murder law enforcement officials, rape and murder children, and terrorists, but Democrats rejected that.

"It's simply a specious argument to say that, somehow, after six millennia of recorded history, the punishment no longer fits the crime," said Assemblyman Joseph Malone, a Republican.

Members of victims' families fought against the law.

"I will never forget how I've been abused by a state and a governor that was supposed to protect the innocent and enforce the laws," said Marilyn Flax, whose husband Irving was abducted and murdered in 1989 by death row inmate John Martini Sr.

Richard Kanka, Megan's father, noted Corzine signed the bill exactly 15 years to day that death row inmate Ambrose Harris kidnapped, raped and murdered 22-year-old artist Kristin Huggins of Lower Makefield, Pa..

"Just another slap in the face to the victims," Kanka said.

The last states to eliminate the death penalty were Iowa and West Virginia in 1965, according to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The nation has executed 1,099 people since the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized the death penalty in 1976. In 1999, 98 people were executed, the most since 1976; last year 53 people were executed, the lowest since 1996.

Other states have considered abolishing the death penalty recently, but none has advanced as far as New Jersey.

The nation's last execution was Sept. 25 in Texas. Since then, executions have been delayed pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether execution through lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.