Saturday, July 09, 2005
A judge Unaware - Continued
And the possibility Duncan being involved in the unsolved disappearance of another child is being reviewed to see if he is linked to it.
judge (lower case "j" intended, you don't deserve the title, Mr. Schroeder!) Thomas Schroeder, after the fact said "It [bail] would have been substantially higher," he said. "I mean, looking back, it probably would have been quite a bit higher". Too late, too little judge.
Police were tracking Duncan, and monitoring his blog entries.
"The blog came to light some weeks ago; it is not something that was just discovered after his arrest," said Becker County, Minnesota, attorney Joe Evans, head of the office that prosecuted Duncan. "I know (police) were viewing and paying attention to his blog."
Despite law enforcement's hopes, the 42-year-old computer programmer's sporadic postings did not give away his location. Instead, the last entries took a disturbed and ominous tone. In a May 11 posting titled "The Demons Have Taken Over," Duncan hinted of violence in his past and future. "I am scared, alone and confused, and my reaction is to strike out toward the perceived source of my misery, society," Duncan wrote. "My intent is to harm society as much as I can, then die."
Based on the blog postings, "We were worried that he was either going to re-offend, or commit suicide," said Skuza.Throw Away The Key is a national advocacy group that works on behalf of past and future victims of crime. They are seeking the resignation of judge Schroeder, of which I previously wrote.
Here is the contact information for Throw Away The Key: Contact: Michael Paranzino of Throw Away The Key, 202-253-4863, and at media@throwawaythekey.org.
PLEASE CONTACT THE COUNTY AND THE "judge" AND LET THEM KNOW THE "judge" NEEDS TO RESIGN AND STEP DOWN FROM THE BENCH.
Here is the address and telephone number for the Becker County Courthouse:
Becker County Courthouse - Telephone (218) 846-7305
915 Lake Avenue
Detroit Lakes, MN 56501
We have a severe problem in this country with how we're dealing with sexual predators of children and pedophiles. Personally, I don't think someone like that can be rehabilitated. So what is the answer?
Well, the Minneapolis Socialist Tribune would have you believe that tracking sexual predators is incredibly difficult:
Monitoring sex offenders is tough task
Paul Gustafson, Howie Padilla and David Chanen, Star Tribune
July 7, 2005
Minnesota probation and police officers have their hands full in trying to keep tabs on the thousands of convicted sex offenders who live among us.
But recent changes in state law are making it easier for them to monitor -- and warn the public about -- the state's most dangerous offenders.
A law enacted by the 2005 Legislature and signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty closed one loophole by requiring sex offenders who move to Minnesota from other states to undergo an assessment to determine how much of a threat they pose and whether people in the communities where they settle should be notified of their presence.
"That's a very significant thing. That was one of the huge loopholes," said Rep. Morrie Lanning, R-Moorhead, a sponsor of the bill.
Legislators also overwhelmingly enacted tougher sex-crime laws, subjecting more of what they termed "the worst of the worst" offenders to life sentences without the possibility of parole.
And legislators added a requirement that sex offenders who say they are homeless must report their whereabouts to local authorities once a week.
Yet, caseloads remain challenging for probation agents supervising sex offenders. Even in Minnesota's largest cities, police have limited resources to ensure sex offenders keep their reported home and work addresses current.
Joseph E. Duncan, a registered sex offender from Fargo, kept up with his regular registration requirements while living in the city's Roosevelt neighborhood. In March, however, he was charged with second-degree criminal sexual conduct and second-degree attempted criminal sexual conduct stemming from an incident in Detroit Lakes last July.
He fled his Fargo home, and those charges in May then reappeared early Saturday morning in Idaho with an abducted 8-year-old girl who had been missing for weeks, authorities said.
Duncan was charged Tuesday in Idaho with two first-degree kidnapping counts and ordered held without bail. He's also suspected of murdering the 8-year-old girl's mother, two brothers and the mother's boyfriend.
Duncan's arrest shined a national spotlight on sex offender registration laws and on Fargo, where the 42-year-old had lived since 2000.
Fargo Police Chief Chris Magnus said Tuesday that he hopes people channel their fear and anger over the Duncan case into urging legislators and Congressional representatives to pass more stringent laws when it comes to tracking offenders.
He said residents should call upon lawmakers to create a uniform, national sex offender registry and go beyond the state-by-state approach to tracking them. He also suggested passing laws requiring offenders to check in with agencies more often than when they move or change jobs.
Finally, he touted the increase in the number of civil commitments since Alfonso Rodriguez, a registered sex offender, was accused of kidnapping and murdering University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin in 2003.
In Fargo, which has about 150 sex offenders posing varying degrees of risk, officers check in with each of them three times a year. Offenders also receive a letter from the state twice a year and must return it to verify their home addresses.
"I can't imagine that there are the resources to make those kinds of checks in larger cities with the number of offenders they must have," he said.
I disagree. What I do know is this: If you end up owing the state of "ManyTaxes" five bucks, damn, THEY KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, and will make every effort to recover that five bucks you owe them, even if they have to spend $50 to collect it.
Well, how about making every pedophile a debtor to the state, and make it so the debt cannot be repaid, thus, the state will always have their "GPS" on you?
I know that's not possible, so here's an idea: Perhaps a fifty year prison minimum on first time offenders (no EXCEPTIONS), with no chance for parole whatsoever, would be a good start. Too expensive you say? Bullets are cheap by comparison. I'm buying.
Most likely, Duncan will get his justice in prison. Word is, pedophiles and child molesters are the "bottom of the barrel" in terms of prison population. Even the most heinous killer in prison has no sympathy or compassion for the likes of Duncan. I just hope his cell and prison-mates make the justice coming to Duncan slow, agonizing, and painful.
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