Details are not clear as to his motive, but apparently Jerry Case, 52 years old, took a family of four Friday afternoon from the Belmont, N.C., area and drove them to Cherokee County in South Carolina. While pulling over for gas, police say Case got distracted, and the family got away and called 911.
Court documents show Case was originally sentenced to death in 1986 for the first-degree murder of a taxi driver. He and another man kidnapped the driver in Tennessee, drove to Gaston County and murdered him by stabbing him seven times. He was retried in August 1992, when he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the crime and saw his sentence reduced to life in prison. He also received 30 years for a guilty plea of second-degree kidnapping.
One thing stands out is that 25 years ago he used a knife, this week he used a gun. Do you think that's an example of the criminal progression some of our commenters talk about?
The most obvious thing is that a man like Jerry Case should never have been released from prison. Does anyone doubt what the fate of that North Carolina family would have been had they not escaped? After 22 years in prison, Case had been rehabilitated so little that within a year of his release, he did almost the same crime that put him there in the first place.
The problem is how to distinguish between the criminals who serve their sentence and can be safely released and those who continue to be dangerous and should not get out. It's a similar dilemma we have when trying to assess the difference between your average gun owner, who is safe and responsible, and the ones who are not, and should not have guns in the first place. In both cases we want to protect the public without unfairly inconveniencing the innocent.
In both cases I'm afraid we have to err on the side of caution and prudence. Violent criminals who are truly changed, the ones who find Jesus or who get involved in substance abuse programs in jail, may have to serve longer sentences in order to keep the hardened, unchanged criminals behind bars longer. In a similar way, lawful gun owners, the ones who never were a danger to anyone may have to be inconvenienced with stricter gun control laws, less flexibility in the way they buy and sell their firearms and total bans on certain types of weapons. These measures would result in the lessening of gun availability which would result in a proportional lessening in gun violence.
What's your opinion? Do you think stricter sentencing guidelines for violent criminals combined with stricter gun control regulations might be the solution? Or do you think this is just part of the price we have to pay? Most men who serve 22 years for murder don't immediately repeat their crimes when they get out. Just like most gun owners don't become criminals. The ones who do, we just need to accept, is that what you think?
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