Editing 78-01-B3 (section)

=== Transcript ===
We talk of human rights and civil rights but is there any greater right --
human or civil -- than the right of an honest man to his life, the right of a child
to walk on the street without fear or a housewife to feel secure in her own kitchen?

I have just received a letter from the father of a young man who was brutally
murdered on New Year's Eve five years ago. His letter was a cry of protest because
one of his son's two murderers has been free on parole after only two years in
prison and now has been discharged from parole and is totally free.

The judge who sentenced the man to second degree murder and the prosecuting
attorney are both outraged . They had spent 16 days in court, one presenting and
the other listening to the shocking evidence of the brutal crime. The judge says
of the parole, "It is a miscarriage of justice. Two years for a brutal murder like
that?" The prosecutor expressed disgust with what he called "another failure of
the system". And he asks, "What is a human life really worth when compared to the
degree of punishment?"

The victim of the crime was a young man 24 years of age with a wife and a young
child. The murderers -- one 21 and the other a year younger -- were both on parole
for previous offenses. Having beaten the victim and abused him in other ways, they
decided he'd have to die so their paroles wouldn't be revoked.

The testimony at the trial showed that in the hours before his death the victim
had been beaten, sexually abused and then bound hand and foot and stuffed in the
trunk of a car. He was taken to a remote country road where he was shot in the
back of the head and twice in the back.

At the trial, the two killers tried to blame each other. On May 9, 1974
they were found guilty; one or murder in the first degree for which he was sentenced
to life imprisonment. Under California law he'll be eligible for parole three-and-
a-half years from now. The other was given a five-year to life sentence for murder
in the second degree. He is the one who was paroled after two years in prison and
now a year-and-a-half later has been released from further parole.

A spokesman from the parole board, which in our state is now called the
"Community Release Board", said there was nothing wrong in the decision to release
him because the board didn't have the full details of his involvement in the crime.
Is it asking too much to suggest that a board having the power to send a convicted
murderer back into society should take the time to get the details?

As Cicero said, "The safety of the people shall be the highest law".

But, in California, a father writes, "After two years the murderer of my son
goes free, but my son is dead."

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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