The former Chief Public Defender of Allegheny County, PA lost his bid to be elected District Attorney last week when he was defeated by longtime incumbent Stephen Zappala Jr. Steve Bohnel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Zappala’s opponent, Matt Dugan beat him by 10% in the primary last May after progressive billionaire George Soros contributed $700,000 to his campaign.  While both candidates are democrats, republicans nominated Zappala as a write-in candidate, allowing him to face Dugan again in the November 7 election.  Soros-funded groups contributed another $1.3 million to Dugan in an attempt to buy the election, but voters from both parties did not want Pittsburgh to go the way of Philadelphia, where Soros-bankrolled Larry Krasner as the District Attorney.   Since Krasner assumed office, both violent crime and property crime have increased dramatically, while arrests and prosecutions have sharply declined.

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An Alabama murderer has been scheduled for execution between January 25 and 26 of 2024.  Kenneth Eugene Smith was twice convicted of murdering Elizabeth Sennett in March of 1988.  As reported by Devon M. Sayers and Emma Tucker of CNN, earlier this year Smith won a state Supreme Court decision accepting his request to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia rather than by lethal injection.  The article cites a description of the method by the Death Penalty Information Center (an opponent of capital punishment) as depriving the brain and body of oxygen, so the inmate would die by suffocation.  That is technically true, but a person breathing nitrogen gas simply goes to sleep painlessly.  Last year 717 Americans died similar deaths from accidentally breathing carbon monoxide.  Now Smith’s attorneys argue that nitrogen hypoxia is an untested experimental method which is unwarranted.

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For over two years the American public has been told by the major media and a select group of criminal justice “experts” that the unprecedented increases  in crime and violence which began in 2020 and continues today were the result of “the disruptions of the pandemic—the social isolation, the closure of schools and jobs lost—likely led to an increase in crime,” as reported in the New York Times.  In a post last August, we addressed this claim pointing to multiple factors having nothing to do with the pandemic, particularly the widespread reduction of consequences for crime and policies that hogtied the police, which caused and continue to cause increased crime and violence.  In his piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, Joshua Crawford, of the Georgia Center for Opportunity, compares and contrasts crime in cities where “woke” policies remain in place with cities taking a pro-law enforcement approach.

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A ballot measure recently authorized for signature gathering would roll back provisions of California’s Proposition 47, which turned drug possession, drug trafficking, and theft into misdemeanors. If adopted by state voters next November, “The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act” would give prosecutors the discretion to charge hard drug addicts with a “treatment-mandated felony” after two previous drug convictions. Offenders charged with the “treatment-mandated felony” would be given the option to complete a drug and mental health program or serve time in jail. After a fourth conviction, judges would have the option of sentencing the offenders to jail or state prison. The act would also increase penalties for drug dealers and allow judges to sentence dealers who possess firearms to state prison, rather than county jail. It would also categorize non-prescription fentanyl as a hard drug and allow dealers who sell a fatal dose to be prosecuted for second-degree murder. Continue reading . . .

A longtime tent city in a busy industrial district of South Boston has been targeted by the mayor for removal.  Brianna Herlihy of Fox News reports that the encampment, which starts at the corner of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue has for years been dubbed the “Methadone Mile”  where addicts, criminals and the mentally ill have taken over the neighborhood.  The levels of crime, drug use and drug overdoses in the area have at times forced the city to prohibit caregivers from even visiting to protect their safety.  There have been several sweeps to remove tents and addicts from the area since 2019, but after each one the homeless have returned in greater numbers.  The city’s Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu recently announced that as of November 1, the police will begin to remove tents and take occupants to housing, rehab and mental services.

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Progressive California Attorney General Rob Bonta appeared at a recent Placer County press conference to congratulate Placer County’s district attorney for convicting a drug dealer of second degree murder.  Columnist Dan Walters writes in Cal Matters that the dealer, Nathanial Cabacungan knowingly sold a 15-year-old girl a fake Percocet pill containing a fatal dose of fentanyl.  The dealer was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to 15-years to life in prison.   Bonta called the prosecution “historic” and told reporters . . . “to me, it’s an example of good law enforcement at its finest, working together, following the facts, building the case.” Bonta cited the alarming increase in fatal fentanyl overdoses among young people, saying, “It’s cheap, it’s potent and it’s lethal.”

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A mentally disturbed New Jersey man who attacked a woman in front of other commuters at a crowded New York subway station in July, was not arrested although he was well known to police.  Last week the same man pushed another woman into a moving train, nearly killing her.  Michael Ruiz of Fox News reports that Sabir Jones, 39 was observed by dozens of witnesses during the lunch hour at the crowded 53rd Street station as he pushed a 30-year-old woman into the side of a train.  Bystanders pulled the woman off the tracks and she was rushed to the hospital with severe head trauma.  Minutes earlier Jones had punched a man in the face, breaking his jaw.  All of the attacks, including slugging the same poor woman he shoved twice last July, were random.

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