I thought I might resurrect this pretty freshly-dead zombie thread, but I decided not to tempt fate. Instead, I merely mention that the prosecution of John Mark Carr has quietly disappeared:
What a strange, strange world we live in.
This shouldn’t be so hard. You do the job right. You do it by the numbers. So that even if the man you want behind bars is the scummiest slime to slither across the face of the earth, there is no chance for him to weasel out of justice.
But no. We have too many people too het up about getting on television and Making A Name for themselves, they can’t be bothered to actualy do their jobs correctly. So we now have a man with admitted violent pedophilic fantasies free in our society, and his neighbors can’t even post warnings for fear of being sued for defamation of character.
The “prosecution” is alive and well in Georgia and Alabama. Mr. Carr recently moved back to the Atlanta area to live with his father, but has been greeted by significant hostility. He may be giving Alabama a shot now.
http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=86707
http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_297131145.html
That’d be persecution, not prosecution, yes?
I opted for prosecution in quotes only because persecution sounded too much like he hasn’t done anything wrong. I don’t know if he has or hasn’t. I’m not trying to judge him. I don’t feel it is my place. Other folks around here do seem to think it is their place though, hence the quotes.
Got it.
I know absolutely nothing about law but how is it possible that he is able to walk away free without being charged with something? He confessed and turned himself in, causing a lot of people to be all tangled up in his sick bid for attention when their attention could have been spent elsewhere helping to solve other crimes that don’t involve a fake murderer. Shouldn’t he at least face fines? A few months in prison? A mental hospital? Even the Runaway Bride had to pay restitutions to her hometown.
I haven’t investigated much, but I wonder what happened to the child porn charges that were pending when he skipped town in California.
Well, the radical religious right hasn’t yet got this country to the point where fantasies are illegal.
We were expecting so much from him. How disappointing.
From what I heard on the radio, the Cali court lost the computer that the porn was on. And thus, no evidence.
Bastard got a free plane trip from Thailand, first class, eating shrimp and champagne.
What as clusterf—. Someone should lose their job over this.
Surely I’m not the first to consider this theory… What if Carr did something really bad in Thailand & then confessed to the Ramsey murder in order to be extradited to the US? I mean, wouldn’t you prefer a US prison over a Thai prison?
Just throwing it out there. Or talking out of my arse. ::shrug::
Well… the PC porn case aside, what exactly did he do that was illegal, other than confess via email to the guy who was goading him on in his twisted fantasy?
I’m not about to proclaim his innocence of child molestation, because the things he’s said are awfully suspicious, but the fact remains that it’s legal to think about - you just can’t do it. If somebody wants to jerk off to thoughts of cannibalism and necrophilia, they’re entitled to it as long as they don’t go the Dahmer route.
And those who:
- seek attention by confessing to crimes they didn’t admit
- publicize violent fantasies of sexually harming children through interview and email
- have a history of working with children and seeking out access to them
- show no remorse or awareness of the consequences of their actions
should, IMHO, be committed to a mental health facility due to the likelihood that they will in the future harm others. Prison is acceptable so long as the prosecution and conviction meet the standards of American jurisprudence, but it is a second choice as it means that someone has already been harmed by him.
No, fantasies are not grounds to prosecute or commit a person, but when it is one symptom in a constellation that defines a pathology we have no ability to treat meaningfully and that has the potential to harm others, especially children, then we should take those fantasies - especially when the afflicted person broadcasts them - as an indication that this person should be investigated, and if necessary, deprived of their freedom.
I’m not angry with John Mark Carr. We will always have broken, dangerous people among us.
I’m angry with the law enforcement officers and court officers who allowed themselves to get sucked into a media circus, neglected to keep track of vital evidence, and then resigned themselves to not being able to prosecute John Mark Carr. John Mark Carr is either a talented sociopath playing off society’s obsession with the media and certain high profile cases, or he is pedophile with no ability to gauge the morality, legality, and ethicality of his desires. Either way, we should be using the legal processes at our disposal to ensure that he cannot harm anyone.
My hope is that there are competent, guarded, exacting members of the law enforcement profession out there keeping an eye on Carr, and as soon as they have the evidence necessary, they will bring him to justice.
Pre-crime in 2006. The future is here!
Well… per the Karr confession scenario, assuming were talking mainly written fantasies, and not child porn users and traffickers, the problem is the slippery slope of who determines where harmless fantasy ends and predilection for violence begins. If we start institutionalizing people for inappropriate private fantasises (when exposed) by definition psychiatric personnel get the say on who gets put away, and the psychiatric profession hasn’t exactly covered itself with glory in making these kinds of decisions.
Instead, take the Slauson Cut-off!
Well, the thread title is a bit confusing: his case was dismissed because the authorities *lost the evidence, * so they can’t bring him to trial at all.
As to whether something should be brought up to at least seek to recover the expense incurred in grabbing and extraditing him, well, HE was not the one who went to the Boulder police/DA and said “Hey! Guys! Come get me and put me on a plane in Business Class!”. The professor-correspondent tipped the authorities in the USA, who got the authorities in Bangkok to grab him, and then he said to the folks questioning him “yeah, you got me”. It was the authorities’ initiative and choice to make a Big Deal of it. I get the feeling the Boulder police/DA just don’t want to bring attention to their incompetence AGAIN, which is what trying to get paid back would achieve.
As it stands, you need to accuse him of some sort of crime, or else have *evidence * that his mental state makes him immediately dangerous to others and himself, to hold him against his will. All we SEEM to know is that he is APPARENTLY delusional and has a disturbing obsession with cases of child-murder, but no proof in hand of danger, AFAIK