For those who think that our current laws are not tough enough on crime, death penalty and all, I found this in a newspaper in a section that recounts the news from 100, 50, and 25 years ago.
“50 YEARS AGO: Local prisoners on the state’s list of pardons and parolees included _____ ______, who had served 11 years and 11 months of a 25-year sentence.
He was sentenced in November 1945 for the killing of his three-year-old cousin, Connie Janet Rench, on October 3 on the Rench farm.
He entered a plea of guilty to the charge and said he fired at the girl to get even with her father, an uncle by marriage and in whose home the man lived. The bullet from the .22 rifle wounded her little brother who was standing nearby after passing through her.”
So, a man admits to murdering a three-year-old girl out of revenge against her father, gets only 25 years in the first place, and is then pardoned and paroled after 11 years? That was apparently justice 50 years ago. 25 years was considered to be too long?
If this is typical of the era, it seems like we’re much tougher on crime now. I wonder if it has made a difference in our crime rates between then and now…
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