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Thread: Supreme Court decision gives 13 Lancaster juvenile killers chance at freedom

  1. #1
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    Supreme Court decision gives 13 Lancaster juvenile killers chance at freedom

    By Wesley Robinson
    pennlive.com

    Thirteen inmates convicted of murder in Lancaster County might have a chance at freedom for crimes they committed as juveniles.

    The Supreme Court ruled Monday that people serving life terms for murders they committed as teenagers must have a chance to seek their freedom, a decision that could affect more than 1,000 inmates
    .

    Lancaster County District attorney Craig Stedman said a statement the decision does not guarantee release for the inmates, adding that he understands the impact on the victims and their families.

    "The decision is sickening for prosecutors and law enforcement on many levels, but we have been preparing for this possible outcome," Stedman said in a news release. "We will fight for the victims and their family members every step of the way, in any courtroom or forum where we are needed."

    The justices voted 6-3 to extend a ruling from 2012 that struck down automatic life terms with no chance of parole for teenage killers. Now, even those who were convicted long ago must be considered for parole or given a new sentence.

    The court ruled in the case of Henry Montgomery, who has been in prison more than 50 years, since he killed a sheriff's deputy as a 17-year-old in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1963.

    There are about 450 inmates in Pennsylvania serving life sentences for murders committed before age 18, according to the district attorney's office.

    Stedman said his office will work to "salvage what we can for justice in each and every one of these murders." He added that public safety is a major concern if the 13 Lancaster convicts were to be released.

    The offenders are as follows:

    • Alec Kreider was 16 when he killed three members of a Manheim Township family in May 2007.


    • Tabitha Buck was 17 when she aided in the killing of Laurie Snow in 1991.


    • Gregory Sourbeer was 14 when he killed his mother in Columbia in 1976.


    • Levar Jones was 14 when he killed taxi driver Brian Whetts during a 1995 robbery in Lancaster.


    • Manuel Ortiz was 17 and Jones' accomplice in Whetts shooting death.


    • Melisa McManus was 17 when she suffocated her newborn son in 1993.


    • Ricardo Cruz was 13 when he shot Debbie Rivera, 18, on a city playground in 1992.


    • Michael Bourgeois was 17 when he tortured and killed his adoptive parents in Ephrata in 2001.


    • Emru Kebede was 16 when he conspired to rob and shoot Ray Diener in West Donegal Township in 2007.


    • Aramis Gonzalez III, then 16; Anthony R. Lewis, then 17; Rodney Lee Walton, then 16; Clarence Laudenberger, then 16, when they were involved in the shooting death of Michael Heath 1996.

    http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/01...rt_river_index
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #2
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    Pa. man convicted of 3 murders as teen kills himself in prison

    CAMP HILL, Penn. -- A man who broke into a classmate’s home in 2007 and stabbed the teenager and his parents to death has killed himself in prison, authorities said Monday.

    Cumberland County Deputy Coroner Jeff Miller said Alec Kreider, 25, was found hanging in his cell Friday at the state prison in Camp Hill. The Department of Corrections said staff members tried to revive Kreider after a guard found him unconscious in his cell.

    The State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill said that staff provided CPR, which EMS personnel continued, CBS Harrisburg affiliate WHP reported. Holy Spirit Hospital medical command pronounced Kreider dead at 4:31 p.m.

    Kreider was 16 when Kevin Haines and his parents, Thomas and Lisa Haines, were killed in May 2007. The couple’s daughter, a college student, was awakened by the attacks and escaped unharmed.

    Kreider pleaded guilty in June 2008 to first-degree murder and was sentenced to three consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

    Prosecutors in Lancaster County said Kreider lived with his mother in 2007, and their home was about a 10-minute walk from the home of Kevin, his 10th-grade Manheim Township High School classmate. Kreider was wearing dark clothing and wielding a hunting knife with a four-inch blade when he entered the victims’ suburban Lancaster home through an unlocked door around 2 a.m., prosecutors said. He attacked Kevin’s parents and then the youth in their bedrooms, they said.

    The couple’s daughter, a Bucknell University student home that night, awoke to the sounds of a struggle in Kevin’s room and rushed to her parents’ room, where her mortally wounded mother told her to get help. She ran to a neighbor’s home to call police.

    Prosecutors read aloud excerpts from a journal Kreider wrote after the slayings expressing a “want/need to kill people” and admitting having “murderous thoughts.”

    Told by the judge at his 2008 sentencing that the family and community deserved an explanation, Kreider replied, “There is none.” He told the judge he had received treatment for depression and continued to take medications daily.

    Kreider’s father, Tim, told Lancaster newspapers in 2014 that when his son confessed, he “never gave a motive ... only said something about Kevin annoying him lately.”

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/alec-kre...-in-jail-cell/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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