Red Clay Citizen

Civitas Poll: Voters Want Laurean Charged With 2 Murders

Should murderers who kill a pregnant woman that is carrying a viable fetus be charged with one murder or two?

34 states including California and Massachusetts say that is considered two separate murders.  In the state of North Carolina, the death of the viable fetus is an "aggravating factor" that can yield a higher punishment, but is not considered murder.

For our April poll, we asked likely voters: "If a woman is carrying a viable fetus and she is murdered, should there be one or two murder charges?"

82% of respondents said two.  12% said one.  7% were not sure.

Read our full press release here.

Civitas Poll: Death Penalty Should be Used

As you know, we currently have what amounts to a de facto moratorium on the death penalty as the General Assembly finds one excuse after another to clarify the state law.

Well, the U.S. Supreme Court took one of the General Assembly's excuses off the table yesterday by upholding the constitutionality of lethal injection by a 7-2 decision.

It just so happens that we included in our poll this month a question on whether NC voters support the use of the death penalty.  From our press release yesterday:

In conjunction with today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of lethal injection as a means to administer capital punishment, the Civitas Institute released results of its April DecisionMaker poll revealing that North Carolina voters approve of the use of the death penalty by a greater than two to one margin.

The Civitas Institute’s April DecisionMaker poll reveals that 60 percent of North Carolina voters support the use of the death penalty in North Carolina, while only 27 percent are opposed. 12 percent were undecided.

Read the full release here.

Will the General Assembly now act during the short session to clarify the use of the death penalty one way or another?  Seems as if the public deserves an up or down vote one way or another.  Either use it, ban it or pass a moratorium, but the General Assembly cannot shirk its responsibility to decide this issue (as they are elected to do, unlike the NC Medical Board) once and for all.

Mixon on the Criminal Justice System

Civitas' Jeff Mixon has a nice quote in this News 14 video.
-Max Borders

Seen this man?

If so, contact the Chapel Hill police.

Fetal Homicide Bill: Opportunity Foregone

Jameson Taylor's N&O piece is poignant: the N.C. General Assembly has missed a serious opportunity on the question of fetal homicide -- proving just how out of touch the Democrat leadership is with the citizens of North Carolina, not to mention other southeastern states:

If convicted of first-degree murder Laurean will either be sentenced to death or imprisoned for life without parole. Under North Carolina's "injury to a pregnant woman" law, the death of Lauterbach's unborn child is essentially treated as an aggravating factor that would make Laurean guilty of a "felony one class higher than the felony committed."

Because no crime is more serious than the Class A felony of murder, it doesn't seem to matter whether Laurean is charged with a double homicide. At least that's what state Sen. Julia Boseman, D-New Hanover, says. Convicted murderers are "going to go away forever or die, and adding another charge to it is not going to make them die twice or spend two lives in prison."

But by that logic, anyone charged with first-degree murder should not be charged with any other crime. Think of the time and expense to be saved if we dispensed with multiple convictions. Take, for example, Gary Hilton. Hilton is accused of murdering a hiker in the north Georgia mountains. He is also a suspect in the murder of two hikers killed near Asheville. But why bother? Hilton has already been charged with one murder. What good will it do to charge him with two more -- not to mention another murder in Florida?

Perverse logic. Taylor goes on to explain why justice for all victims is the duty of our institutions. No matter where you stand on the question of abortion, ending the life of a fetus is certainly not a choice a murderous non-mother has a right to. This is one failure the G.A. leadership deserves to get bludgeoned with, politically.
-Max Borders

Ghetto Nihilism: Reflections on MLK Day

Civitas just had NPR's Juan Williams as a guest speaker. In his open forum discussion, he laid out a case against ghetto nihilism similar to this one made by Rod Dreher (whom I usually cannot stomach). Williams' basic point is that the black community must say "enough" to the adoration of no-account rap stars, pull itself up by the bootstraps, and stop buying into the victimology propogated by people like Al Sharpton, (not to mention so-called "scholars" in our institutions of higher education).

When it comes to all the trouble in the inner cities (gang violence, poverty, etc.) the problem many conservatives like to point to is a bankrupt culture - or set of cultural icons, such as hiphop stars and badboy athletes. But we should ask: are these causes or symptoms?

There are two major factors that could lead to all this death and ghetto nihilism in the black community, of which music and culture are probably just symptoms (albeit reinforcing symptoms):

a) the welfare state, which incentivizes people to live at subsistence poverty and abnegate personal responsibility;

b) drug prohibition, which creates high-profit margins on a black market. Gang wars are the result of protecting those markets and associated turf. Simple economics;

c) guilty white folks in academe who perpetuate the notion of institutionalized racism and the contemporary peddlers of race-baiting who feed upon such narratives;

When one considers all of these factors, it's a recipe for total failure in any urban community. But there is no political force in the world that will ever fully deny ghetto kids welfare checks. Nor is there a force strong enough to see decriminalization through. So these problems - particularly those in the urban black communities - are going to be with us for a long time to come. (One could say something similar about rural whites dependent on welfare and meth.) We can talk all day about Snoop Dog or lay blame at the feet of black athletes, but role models will never emerge from a community that the government has set up to fail.
-Max Borders

More on Raleigh Spending Priorities

WRAL has a story that talks about the high turnover of Raleigh police officers and mentions the fact that there are 58 vacancies on the police force.

So why then, is Raleigh spending $1 million to spruce up a restaurant downtown while police officers quit over low pay?  Apparently, the Mayor of Raleigh places a higher priority on having a fancy place to eat in his beloved downtown than ensuring the safety of his city's residents.

How many police officers could have been hired for $1 million?  Or retained from resigning by a new pay structure?

Maybe if the Mayor got out of his Ivory Tower, he'd notice that there has been 3 homicides in Raleigh already this year.  Hmm... wonder if filling those 58 police vacancies might do something about the crime rate.

Rome may be burning, but Meeker will sit idly by and fiddle at his lovely new amphitheater next to his lovely new convention center, down the newly reopened Fayetteville Street from his lovely new white table cloth fancy restaurant.

Priorities matter.  It's time to hold Raleigh's leaders accountable for theirs.

Where is Al Sharpton?

This story points to the sickening, racist double standard we've had to live with since the principles of civil rights movement were abandoned for political correctness -- a double standard that threatens to undo all the gains made by real civil rights leaders like MLK.

How have we come to a place where six people who, having given a life-threatening beat-down against one young man, get marches for "justice"? But people of other races victimized by racist attacks are basically ignored? Where's the outcry? Where are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson? Why has this not yet been classified as a hate crime?

Contact the Rainbow Coalition and let them know that hate crimes against any race are still hate crimes. Violent crime is violent crime -- and we should not tolerate it by anyone, regardless of their ethnicity. Does their rainbow not include the victims in Baltimore?
-Max Borders

Gambling OK, so long as its done by the State

Earlier this week, state ALE agents raided an underground gambling operation in Johnston County that busted over 70 people for doing such despicable acts such as playing blackjack and poker.

Illegal gambling, according to state law, is a misdemeanor.  That is not to be confused with legal gambling that is the North Carolina Education Lottery ticket.  Or better yet, the state-permitted gambling that occurs 24/7/365 in Cherokee at the Harrah's casino.  Hypocrisy?  Quite possibly.  I wonder how many gas stations selling lottery tickets the ALE agents drove passed on the way to bust up this operation?

So gambling is OK, just as long as the State is involved.  That seems a little similar to how the mob operates, doesn't it?  It's fine to operate your business, just make sure to give the mob boss his little taste of the action.

Nope.  These people are all criminals, and so are thousands, if not millions, more in North Carolina who put a few bucks in the office NCAA pool or go over to a buddy's house to watch a little football and play cards.  It's pretty ridiculous, actually.  Individuals voluntarily going to private residence to conduct transactions by their own free will shouldn't be of the interest of government. 

I thought it was bad enough when the know-it-all Republicans in Congress stepped in and banned wire transactions to online casinos and effective shut down online poker.  Now I've got to worry about the state ALE busting through my patio door for having some friends over to play five-card stud. 

Thank goodness I can count on government to step in and prevent me from gambling.  Oh wait, I mean, unless it's done in one of the operations they run.

New Data on Death Penalty

A new report released confirms what supporters of the death penalty have said all along, namely, that the death penalty deters murder.

A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. "The results are robust, they don't really go away," he said. "I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) — what am I going to do, hide them?"

So how many lives are being lost through the current de facto moratorium that exists in North Carolina?

Crime and Punishment

Chloe Gossage sets out the issue of statutory change in North Carolina's crime and punishment here. Rob Schofield gets it mostly right here. (Yes, there are things upon which liberals and conservatives can agree.)