House Arrest for Murder Suspect? To borrow an expression from the South, a lot of the judges and legislators of this country "need killing".
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Netscape carried this Associated Press report today.

"PRINCETON, W.Va. A 14-year-old girl under house arrest on charges of murdering her father escaped after cutting an electronic monitoring device off her ankle and gluing it to a cat, authorities said.
"Police searched on Wednesday for Kayla Marie LaSala, who fled an uncle's house early Saturday.
"If she thought pinning the device to the cat would fool authorities, it did not work: An alarm went off when a circuit in the device was broken, officials said. But she was gone before police could get there.
"'She's very, very sharp. She's cunning,' said sheriff's Detective C. T. Lowe.
"Kayla is awaiting trial Sept. 7 on charges of stabbing her father to death in February. Sheriff's Sgt. A. D. Beasley said the motive for the slaying was unclear.
"Lowe said Kayla told family members she planned to escape by July 2. He said the relatives were asleep when she fled.

Why on Earth was an accused murderess who was believed to constitute a serious risk of flight ever given bail to begin with or allowed to set so much as one little toe out of a full-scale, high-security jail? Who allows such things?
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Stabbing is up-close-and personal. Someone accused of that kind of murder must be considered especially dangerous — and when the victim is her own FATHER, she plainly is not going to stay in any given location by FAMILY considerations. So why was she with an uncle?
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If the family knew she intended to flee, why wasn't her bail revoked so that she would be confined to jail? Did the family refuse to report that information? If so, slit their throats, as co-conspirators in the stabbing of the father and release of a dangerous criminal into society. If they did report it and the police/judicial authorities did not revoke her bail and send her to jail, their throats should be slit.
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Altho the Constitution says that bail shall not be "excessive", the idea of giving bail to anyone accused, with good reason and good evidence, of committing MURDER is crazy. I do not believe the Founding Fathers intended that murderers should be let out of jail and allowed to wander unsupervised.
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Murder was relatively rare but was still known to the Framers of the Constitution. It is a unique crime and should not be lumped in with all others. There should be no bail and no unsupervised house arrest for people accused of murder who do not have massive and persuasive connections with the community as provides reasonable certitude that no flight will occur. And I'm not persuaded that any such certitude is possible when it comes to murder.
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Presuming innocence as a legalistic formality can go too far, and it is entirely reasonable to confine people accused of the most serious crimes for however long it might take to get a trial underway, especially given that we now have rules requiring speedy trial. Children who murder their parents are not entitled to a supposition of harmlessness.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 10:52 PM