The Sad Story of Judith Clark: How Ideology can Ruin a Life. The Question Remains: Should She Go Free?
The incredible story by Tom Robbins about Judith Clark that appears in today’s New York Times — an advance posting of a feature in their coming Sunday Magazine — tells the story of Clark, one of the four arrested on Oct. 20, 1981, after a failed attempt to rob a Brink’s truck in a shopping mall in Nanuet, New York. The action led to the murder of one black and one white police officer, in what Robbins correctly calls “one of the last spams of ‘60s-style, left-wing violence.”
Clark was part of an offspring of the Weather Underground that they called the Republic of New Afrika, a non-existent utopia that Robbins writes “existed mainly in their fevered dreams.” She was part of those young people whom Peter Collier and David Horowitz termed the “destructive generation,” the movement of those who had turned against everything America had given them, and proceeded to ruin their lives trying to build a revolutionary movement that would bring the United States down as they rebuilt their native land along a Stalinist-Maoist model.
Clark had grown up in a Communist household. Her late father was Joe Clark, once the foreign editor of the Communist paper The Daily Worker. After the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, Clark joined with his colleague Joe Starobin and the paper’s editor John Gates in an effort to move the Communist Party towards a new anti-Soviet position. Within a few years, all had left its ranks.
I knew all three fairly well. They had evolved to advocates of social-democracy and had become firm anti-Communists of the Left, who ended up as Clark did on the editorial board of Dissent magazine. I never met Judy Clark, but her infant daughter — whom she left with a sitter as she went off to perform her duty for the revolution — attended P.S. 87 on W. 78th Street in New York City, the same public school my son Michael attended in which she was in the same grade.
What is amazing about the profile of Clark is that unlike other leftist terrorists inexplicably freed by President Bill Clinton in the amnesty he granted to Silvia Baraldini in 1999 and to Susan Rosenberg in 2001 — one of the last acts carried out before he left office — Clark acknowledges thoroughly and honestly the depth of the crime she committed. Those Clinton pardoned, including the Puerto Rican terrorists who had tried to kill Harry S. Truman, have never said anything to indicate any regrets for their crimes.
Journalist Robbins’ article is a powerful example of the effect that ideology can have on young people, who in effect give up all that God has granted them in an American life to serve the dictates of the warped revolutionary ideals they believe in. After years of acting like a hardened revolutionary who spouted rhetoric in an attempt to prove her fidelity to the cause to her comrades — a woman who could condemn Vietnam War vets she spoke with for would-be murder of our enemies in wartime, and yet sanction the blood-curdling murder of police officers with young families by her own comrades — Clark was a model of a deluded young person consumed by ideology.
Judy Clark believed for a time that she was “the keeper of the flame that flickered out in her parents’ lives” instead of realizing that perhaps her parents had something vital to teach her about disillusionment, and hence believed that “anything less than total commitment to the cause was betrayal.” What shattered the core of her belief system was her daughter, whose existence slowly led her to realize that she had to abandon her loyalties to become anything of a mother.
Clark did not kill anyone herself; she was driving what was supposed to be a getaway car for her comrades. Her comrade Kathy Boudin pleaded guilty and got 20 years to life, and was paroled in 2003. Clark refused to follow Boudin’s path, and hence received the harshest sentence possible, although Boudin was as guilty if not more so than Clark. Eventually, a sociologist visiting the prison made her comprehend that she did everything she suffered to herself, and that she had no right to cry for her own daughter “and not see that the children of the men who were killed cried the same way for their fathers.”
No longer using her radicalism to “avoid confronting her own doubts” and walling herself off in “the safety of doctrine,” she acknowledged that what she believed was crazy. As Clark told Robbins: “I’ve experienced so much loss, and created so much loss, for the sake of an illusion.” (My emphasis.) She eventually found her once-neglected Judaism and attended Jewish services. After her father died of a heart attack in 1988, she spent Yom Kippur “alone, walking and thinking about the crime and about my father.” She also said aloud the names of those who had been killed by her comrades, and realized that “there were nine children who were a lot younger than me grieving for their fathers. And I was responsible for that. There was the human toll. It was a terrible truth, but it was my truth.”





A truly sad story. Of course, she’s a coreligionist – what the h*ll did she see, or does she, in the Communis? Wherever there is Communism, there is poverty and and suppression. Is that what she believed (or believes) in? I come down on the side of David Horowitz here, for the reasons you cite.
I wonder if Horowitz would write an article accusing you, Ronnie, of shilling for a leftwing murderer. Is he ready to call you her mouthpiece at Pajamas Media.
The way he writes only an evil person or an idiot would take the stand you have.
And they would be right about Ron. I love this, “Nothing will bring back the lives of those who were murdered”. How rich! This is the drivel from the weak, the ones who in the end will lose our country. Getting old an weepy in your old age Ron, or has your conversion not quite stuck? What about the nine other kids Ron? This broad should never see the light of day. So much for being an intellectual and highly educated thinker-da both of ya’s.
No way on this earth should this woman be pardoned and just to reinforce
my view, …”what if”…this woman was of a different race??
Race should never play a roll, but as we all know it does and will always
be a factor when we have someone like Eric Holder as our top cop and calls
the new black panthers his people…..
It’s only a matter of time before she is walking free and all will be
forgiven and lost in the cesspool of politics……
She’s sorry. Good. Parole? Clemency? Pardon? No, I’m with Horowitz. Let her continue to try to make amends to those whose parents she assisted in murdering while she lives out her life in prison.
I agree with Horowitz – she needs to come clean about ALL her and her friends’ crimes – names, dates, places, sufficient to facilitate their prosecution for any murders they committed. The ENTIRE story needs to be told.
I’m a Catholic – we believe in forgiveness, and repentance. That having been said, we also believe that forgiveness is not possible if you haven’t accepted responsibility for your crimes, and made EVERY effort to repay what you can, and give to the victims their justice.
She ain’t done that. Until and unless she does, she can die in jail.
I’m with you there; if she were truly repentant she would confess–and in this case her inside knowledge protects criminals. If she made a full confession and actually managed to close a few cold cases I might be inclined to agree she should be released. I’ve never understood why so many are so willing to grant clemency based on ideology, as if that lessens the crime. Unless, of course, they share the ideology secretly, which I think the NYT certainly does. While I agree that communist/socialist/progressive etc ideology is pernicious in every way, and has no positive side, I don’t reckon we’ll ever see anyone asking for clemency for a KKK or Neo-Nazi murderer/accomplice, even though they suffer identical ruination. What’s different about someone seduced by their communist professors into become a ‘revolutionary’ leftist and a kid taught bigotry and racism from birth? Seems in both cases the cosmic justice scale will bring wrath down on the teacher more than the taught, but the legal system of mere humans can’t judge such things, which is why communist professors and racist parents or uncles goad the kids into doing the crimes. Same thing goes for the leaders of radical Islam; you don’t see a Bin Laden or Zawarhiri running out to die in a ‘martyr’s vest.’ While God might be able to determine the exact degree of guilt, I see no reason the society upon which any of these parasitic growths depend should show them any clemency, unless they turn against their former comrades and try to make amends by taking others of their type out of the equation.
“I opt on the side of release.”
Big of you, Ron, but – whew! – that Horowitz sure is a hangin’ judge. It’s fun seeing ol’ radicals, who helped roil the waters in the ‘50s, ‘60s and (in Horowitz’s case) ‘70s, pass judgment on those they helped radicalize.
Patriot493 – Don’t be so critical of Ron Radosh or David Horowitz or anyone who has made the journey from Left to Right. It can be gut-wrenching to realize that one’s position is the wrong one, and then to be able to admit that and change his/hers position on matters.
I could say that going from one extreme to the other doesn’t count for much, but the new, Bircher-friendly GOP has moved so far to the right that the term “radical right” has almost become redundant.
“Bircher friendly”?
Yeah, yeah. Fascism is always threatening from the right — but arriving from the left.
Don’t forget “Landing in Europe.” Somehow, we manage to take Orwell to heart, and Europe thinks “1984″ is an instruction manual.
I made that journey a long time ago, early ’70s. The hardest thing for me, and one of the reasons I’m so harsh with the useful idiots that appear here from time to time, was grappling with the fact that he who thought he was so damned smart and superior had to accept that he’d simply been a mind-numbed robot programmed to parrot the line. If you had an IQ above room temperature it was very hard in the mid-’60s to accept anything you heard from pulpit, podium, or stump in the rural South. When I started college in ’67, I was the perfect mark for marxist professors and lefty organizers. I went from going to “actions” and “demonstrations” to helping organize them and then lead them, and before long I had my own Little Red Book in the pocket of the de riguer raggedy blue jeans. But, I wasn’t rich and I really couldn’t stand the notion of working in a government office or some such, but I had to work and along the way acquired a wife and a kid, so I really had to work which put me out in the world of real people who hadn’t had the cloistered life of the college and college town. Somewhere in there it is fair to say that I got mugged by reality but my transition, especially after I got to Alaska, was more to a small l libertarian bent, but by then I was seriously reading and studying things not assigned to me by lefty college professors and sorta parked myself for awhile at the conservative Democrat, old-fashioned trade unionist stop. My last gig there was with Committee on Political Education, the AFL-CIO’s PAC. I went to a Democrat navel-gazing session in early ’81 in which Party leaders and allies such as the AFL-CIO were contemplating how Alaska, once a Democrat petri dish, had just lost its sole remaining Democrat in statewide office. It was very evident that the young up and comers in the Party had no use for us old troglodytes who weren’t communist true-believers. Hell, I was 32 years old, and I was OLD. Those guys took the “never trust anyone over 30,” or at least who acted like they were over 30, thing seriously. In fact, a lot of the new breed were my age or even a little older, but they were so much younger, still in college intellectually; the marajuana haze through which they viewed life may have had a lot to do with that. I know all about that line about how I didn’t leave the Party, it left me. I voted for my last Democrat in the ’83 governor’s race, but that was pure self-interest, not ideology, because by then the only ideology I had was making money. Along the way, I learned that if you went straight from college to a job in government, academia, public schools, the leftist interest groups, or entertainment, you could keep the same dumbass ideas and self-destructive habits you acquired sitting cross-legged on the floor of a dorm room smoking dope in 1969, and if you had to actually go do something where you were evaluated on the quality of your performance rather than the purity of your ideas, you had to get shed of all that crap real quick or you’d starve.
Thanks, Art. What a beautifully succinct takedown of the whole leftist mentality. The contrast between the politics of a “doer” vs. a “thinker” is a life lesson too few ever learn.
Thank you for the kind words!
tommytruffle – I’ll ditto that; and Art, thanks for well-said comments.
I think you a bit off point with, “The contrast between the politics of a “doer” vs. a “thinker” . . . ” Thinking and Doing are not mutually exclusive! Art actually became a thinker by the necessity of being a doer.
@Robert – It isn’t so much the “thinker” v. “doer” dynamic, it is really who you think and do with. A good example is the perhaps apocryphal story of the woman from NYC who couldn’t accept that Nixon had been elected because everyone she knew voted for McGovern. College produces lefties and if you stay in the company of your college cohort, you stay a lefty. Teachers really don’t socialize with anyone but other teachers and they pretty much all have and keep for life the same groupthink, likewise public employees, union staff and leaders, members of or employees of left-leaning interest groups. Lefties listen to public radio and watch public television, they go to lefty community theaters and before they go they have dinner at a restaurant frequented by lefties and after the play they have drinks at a bar frequented by lefties. On winter weekends they cross-country ski and get to their ski spot in a Subaru, Prius, or Volvo. Everybody they know voted for Obama and they all have “War is not the Answer” signs or bumper stickers. There was one street in Downtown Juneau, otherwise known as the People’s Republic of Juneau, which had those blue “War is not the Answer” signs on every single house. There’s an area here in Anchorage even that is like that, close in to town with lots of lawyers, teachers and such. Really what happened was grandaddy came here on the lam, made a lot of money and married a whore, there weren’t all that many teachers and nurses to go around, and sent Junior to Hahvud law, and Junior and now his son and grandson have all gone to Hahvud law, and everybody they know went to Hahvud Law, or Stanford, which is just as bad, and they all drive cars with Obama stickers and have “War is not the Answer” signs in their yards.
You really see this in capital cities and college towns; there is pretty stict political segregation and the only exception is non-partisan community events or big events like inaugurations; everybody goes but the Democrats sit with other Democrats and likewise the Republicans.
In my case, work and responsibility took me away from the cloistered world of lefties, especially after I moved to Alaska. Even my time with the unions back then took me further from the college lefties because the union guys, especially the trades and crafts types, were pretty conservative except on pure labor matters, so much so that the McGovernite types that were coming to control the Democrat Party REALLY didn’t like us. The leftward lurch of organized labor in the last couple of decades is as the result of its having become dominated by public employee and third sector unions, many of which are openly outright communist these days. And this fact only reinforces what I said earlier about ones associations; if you go straight from college to government job or one in the putative private sector but which relies on government, everyone you know for your whole working life will be a lefty except in government, your stately progression to retirement might ocassionally be interrupted when “the people” in their unenlightened state elect some troglodyte Republican and s/he comes in and mess up your neat little world and fire all those “good people” who had been running things. But, you know those appointees will make you happy at least once; you’ll go to their going-away party, just to make sure it really is happening, and the newly elected Democrat will fire everybody the Republicans appointed and any in the bureaucracy who colaborated with them, and the World will be set aright again. This dynamic is why any Republican elected to executive office at any level needs to immediately make smoke and noise and break things; fire everybody you have anything resembling a legal right to fire and reorganize the government so that you don’t have a bunch of holdover Democrats and their collaborators in the bureaucracy running your agency while you wonder why you’re being leaded, thwarted, and sabotages while your poll numbers go down the toilet.
Great stuff.
Another great post, Art. You never disappoint.
This is a moving piece. I agree with you, Ron, and I don’t even think Clark should be pressured to tell all about her ex comrades. I would hope that if her turnaround is genuine, she herself will come to see that she finally must tell the whole truth — so that her daughter and other young people will see what extreme radicalism has wrought. But it would also show how outrageous it is that Ayers and Dohrn came out of this mindless violence and treason unscathed and — without even recanting — became friends of an American President.
I think I could support releasing her if she told everything she knows AND challenged Ayers and Dohrn to recant. If she is unwilling to take that step, it speaks volumes.
I’d be happy to let her out…if her confession meant that the smug punk Ayers would take her place, along with his “wife”.
And If it made Obama look like and prove that his association with Ayers was for planning future terrorist attacks at Harvard….that’d be one hell of HOOT…to watch as “O” became a perp. And Ayers dragged the One down with him.
I would love to agree with you, Ron. After Googling Judy Clark, I cannot. She must show her remorse from prison, as she seems to have been far more active than either you or the Times reporter want me to believe
I hadn’t even read Horowitz’s piece when I wrote that on my smartphone. Ouch.
Ron, good piece. I agree with you. I can also understand Horowitz. What I find dismaying is the level of self-righteousness I’ve seen on the right regarding this case, as evidenced for instance on Ann Althouse’s blog, where I got caught up in a battle with people who seem every bit as vindictive and ideologically inhumane as Clark herself once was. I, too, see a difference between her and others like Ayers or Susan Rosenberg. I don’t know if it is just the echo chambers of the blogosphere, or what, but I think there are too many precincts on the right now where, just as on the left, the concept of justice reigns supreme utterly untouched by any concept of mercy at all. Whether Clark should go free I would leave to the parole board. I don’t know. Her crimes are still what they were then. But I do think the mysteries of the human heart are not amenable to a political litmus test.
“…who seem every bit as vindictive and ideologically inhumane as Clark herself once was.”
Except that they have not robbed banks or killed people. Sad that you can not see the difference.
Tolbert,
What is sad is that you cannot read carefully enough, or just slow down in your indignation enough, to see that I absolutely do see the difference and made that clear. First, I acknowledge David Horowitz’s dissent here as legitimate. Secondly, I made and make no case for releasing her. Unlike all too many venting over her, I am ready to let the parole board decide that matter based on all the facts as only it can obtain them. It is possible to be as “inhumane and ideological,” as I put it, as Clark was without robbing banks and killing people. I see both the diffrerence AND the similarities. Perhaps you might also. I am not calling on people here to spend 75 years in prison, after all. Just to show a bit of modesty and temperatness.
Well you have to admit that’s an awful lot of posturing for being “only a bit more of open to seeing Clark as contrite than Horowitz is.”
And that’s the crux of it isn’t it, whether this woman is in any way truly contrite or whether she is lying to get out of prison. Since one can use judgement and instincts and still not know the answer, everyone is revealing more about themselves than about Clark.
For my part it is easy to believe that criminals are sorry they got caught and hard to believe a bank robber has turned “good” merely by the act of being punished, especially when there is an ideological component involved. While you are right that one cannot be convicted of a crime done for ideological reasons, it does come into play when assessing remorse compared to other prisoners in her situation. In fact it makes remorse less, not more likely. How many prisoners have been “cured” of Islamism in Guantanamo?
Clark should be happy she’s alive, others aren’t. If this wasn’t true she would’ve committed suicide long ago. It’s a small favor but she’s breathing and appears to want to continue to breathe, even inside lock up. If she can breathe life into the dead I say let her out.
“It is possible to be as “inhumane and ideological,” as I put it, as Clark was without robbing banks and killing people”
No it isn’t. Insisting that someone serve a sentence for killing someone is the not the equivalent of actually killing someone.
Clearly.
Good lord, when did we lose the ability to think it through?!
“One of these things is not like the other; one of these things is not the same.”
Perhaps you might also. I am not calling on people here to spend 75 years in prison, after all. Just to show a bit of modesty and temperatness.
That’s your idea of a reponse? You’re not calling for any of us to serve 75 years in prison. “Modesty?” You crossed the line from appearing to be “temperate” to being just another shill for the Judith Clarks and David Gilberts of the world. Apparently you think that our lack of interest in seeing her go free puts us in a worse category than them. That’s indefensible.
Moira,
I will say this to you as a general response to people here and be done with this. This is also for the many others weighing in on this topic on Ann Althouse’s blog. You and many others seem to think I am criticizing your side for, as you put it, “our lack of interest in seeing her go free.” It really does amaze me you could see it that way. I have made it more than clear that I MYSELF am not that interested in seeing her go free. That is not my issue at all, and yet it is what others continue to throw back at me as if I had actually said it. So let me be very clear. I am not interested in seeing her go free. I said I was happy to see that left up to the parole board. What I was moved to comment on and what I am faulting others her for is the venom and self-righteousness I have seen expressed (not by you, but by many others). And by the way I do NOT see that venom as “worse” than what Clark did. I do see it as very bad.
The vicious reactions to Clark here are, in my view, a sign of how the conservative blog world cuts itself off from humanity in a way almost as ideologically rigid and hate-filled as the Sixties radical cults did to their followers. Neither Radosh nor Horowitz here (both of whom understand this issue far better than you or I) have stooped to such vile rhetoric and cold indifference, which is not only cruel morally but also, by the way, a sign of profound ignorance about your adversaries. Conservativism will NEVER make any inroads in this society if it does not figure out how to avoid this sort of morass of paranoia and hatred which is daily visisble in venues like this. And when I say “venues like this,” it is doubly tragic given that these venues are made available by people like Radosh and Althouse who are models of a totallyt different manner of being.
Thanks Jon.
All readers should go to the back and forth between you and others at Ann Althouse’s site. Here’s the link:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/01/defendants-insisted-on-representing.html
You and your respondents indeed raise all the essential questions we’re talking about.
I think you’re referring to me: if so, I hardly appreciate you misrepresenting me. I disagree with your dramatic performance of emotional superiority: it also isn’t an argument. And the only person being vindictive is the guy who values his opinion so highly that he equates those who disagree with him with cop killers for doing so.
I’m heartily sick of the “v” word being casually tossed around. Neither my feelings nor yours are really relevant. As I suggested at Althouse, Theodore Dalrymple has an excellent article at NER about the wild justice of mercy –in other words, a system that allows feelings such as yours to supercede the law is no better than a system that allows mob justice in the other direction. Forgiveness and mercy can occur without approving of release from prison, also.
Contrary to Ron Radosh’s assertions here, Judith Clark has not really accepted responsibility for her crime. She is cobbling together a series of claims to suit the evolving standards for parole –thus the unbelievable story of not knowing about guns. These parole guidlines are very troubling. They privilege the performance of emotion, too. Yet if you examine the AIDS activism and education activism Clark and others claim as evidence of rehabilitation, as I have, you will find a moral universe as antiAmerican and hate-filled as the one she claims to have abandoned. Activists agitating for the release of all of the Brinks offenders and other violent felons who should never see freedom again are using prison education programs to both radicalize offenders and to offer proof of their rehabilitation. It’s a disturbing racket, and the fact that it is being encouraged by the parole commission reflects badly on the entire system.
Sixties radicals aren’t just sitting behind the bars in New York’s prisons. They also wield power throughout the courts and the parole boards. The Times article is a clever piece of work. You can practically cut and paste it into the parole forms. And that’s the real story here, not how you or I feel about a criminal with friends in high places. Though you wouldn’t know it by reading the paper.
One more thing: the real victims have been treated very badly here and elsewhere. Characterizing them as vengeful is offensive. When victims want justice, they are frequently slurred this way.
Tina, I do not know why you think I was referring to you, if it is me you are referring to here. I wasn’t. But I am glad you have a well worked out rationale for dismissing mercy. To repeat (I apparently will have to endlessly it seems), my call for a spirit of mercy has nothing to do with arguing for Clark’s release. I am arguing for mercy as a value per se – and for prudent caution in casting down judgments from on high. It is rich that so many in this discussion and on Althouse’s have reacted to me as if I am the one assuming a stance of superiority and certainty. The “put a bullet in her head” reactions to this have been plentiful, more so on Althouse’s list than here, but plentiful enough here also. People who feel a need to be hard and prove their manhood or something. THEY are the people whose pretense of moral superiority ought to worry you. They are Leninist in their embrace of hate as a politically justified tool. And from people who claim to be conservative. Pathetic.
Yes, my comment was directed at you — the indentations make it seem otherwise. I’m going to try one more time.
I and others, I think, are reacting to your broad accusations of inhumanity on the part of “people who seem every bit as vindictive and ideologically inhumane as Clark herself once was.” Those are your words. You accuse people of being as bad as a terrorist convicted in a triple murder she helped plan and execute, and then you backpedal from your own words as if you had not just committed them to the page. You call people Leninists and “haters” in the name of superior sensitivity, when they are, at most, expressing outrage over an outrageous situation.
The personal attacks mask the real issues. The people here supporting Clark’s release refuse to engage the discussion regarding the deceptiveness of the NYTimes’ account of Clark’s crimes and their suspect motive for publishing such a piece. They refuse to consider the argument that her own appeal for mercy is substantively deceptive. They refuse to consider her other crimes. They refuse to engage in discussion about the systematic elevation of this cohort of criminals by powerful people in society and in our justice system.
The issue is the manipulation of the justice system by powerful people who view the dead officers and security guard as less important than the political cause Judith Clark has not yet really denounced, and also less human because they were police and soldiers. The issue is a political movement that continues to make heroes out of people who, if they had real remorse, would refuse perverse encomiums like the Times piece and quietly serve out their time. Those are the real terms of this debate, which is actually much larger than Clark’s case: Marilyn Buck was only the most recent of several terrorist killers who used these deceptive tactics to gain release on false grounds. The parole and pardons process is barreling towards disaster, thanks to such political activism of the Times and others machinating Clark’s release, which will then be used to grease the skids for the release of the next killer: paroles and pardons are negotiations that set precedents, even when they should not. Many families still wait for justice, and yet you keep talking about your feelings and what you think are mine.
That’s why we are angry, not because we lack mercy. Why you feel the need to police our reactions, instead of addressing these issues, I don’t know.
But on the subject of feelings, what could actually be more inhumane than privileging a lying killer’s hobbies and alleged personal growth over the maintenance of justice as delivered for three murdered men AND over the resolution of many other violent crimes?
Guess I can keep this up as long as you, Tina. Yes I said and stand by the statement that many of those attacking Clark here “seem every bit as vindictive and ideologically inhumane as Clark herself once was.” But no, that does not mean what you say it does, that I “accuse people of being as bad as a terrorist.” Being vindictive and ideologically inhumane is absolutely not the same as killing people, and I have not equated the two at all. Being vindictive and ideologically inhumane is, however, a serious disease.
It is a disease I saw corrupt the left when I was on the left and that I see corrupting the right now. That is and has been my concern here, not Clark all that much at all. You on the other hand excuse the vicious rhetoric here by referring back to Clark constantly. But you can ALWAYS excuse such sentiments in yourself by finding them in your opponents. (“fearing not I’d become my enemy, in the instant that I preach.”) But that is no excuse. I am really not that interested in Clark’s fate or any machinations by the Times to get her off. Why should I be? Neither you nor I nor anyone else here will have any impact at all on those things. As for the Times story, I responded almost entirely to Clark’s own words in it about sin, her refusal to make the excuses other leftist terrorists of the past have made, her seeming (to me) honest embrace of the idea that she ruined lives for an illusion. To me, those things merited a different reaction to her than to other imprisoned leftiest terrorists. Now if you have any solid evidence she does not feel these things and is lying, present it. Otherwise your complaints about her are what I called them, vindictive and ideologically inhumane.
By your standard putting people in jail has some moral equivalence to committing crimes. It is done out of revenge and inhumanity. The inhumanity of criminals is downplayed and the inhumanity of incarceration is magnified. You’re fighting a losing battle on this one. Some people don’t deserve to be on the street and have made their own case for this by their own behavior. Saying people who wish Clark to remain in prison have some share in moral guilt is nuts.
Now that the communists finally have one of their own in the White House, they all want to recant and proclaim a new found allegiance to the American way. Not. Communists have now co-opted the OWS movement, which they intend to use to help the number one comrade get re-elected. And, will we care? Hell no, we will be too busy worrying about whether or not Bain Capital is a bunch of greedy capitalists. No wonder all the communists are trying to get out of jail now. They are afraid they are late to the party.
“Now that the communists finally have one of their own in the White House….”
Case in point, re: my response, #4.
“BIRCHERS!!!!!!!!”
Grow up, child.
You couldn’t be farther from the truth on both counts, boy.
I am as anti-communist as anyone. I don’t like anything they stand for, their methodologies, their despicable deceit and/or the damage they have done to my country. I would try them for treason, murder, and conspiracy to commit treason and murder. If found guilty…I would take the worst of them and hang them from the highest tree.
However, I do believe in redemption. And, anyone…who did not “pull the trigger” may serve out a sentence and then HELP IN THE UNVEILING of the heinous acts that were committed and are being committed.
To salve the wounds of orphans or widows who lost loved ones to the soulless fiends is impossible.
However, displaying something more than crocodile tears and self-serving “reflection” requires that no other “damage” can be inflicted on this nation or our countrymen …in fact it requires not “fervent words” devoid of meaning, but fervent actions that prove an acknowledgment of and attempt to reverse the damage done to all of us, and in the name of those she plotted to destroy…she MUST make amends. The only way to do that, is to work with someone (other than fellow travelers in the Obama administration), such as David Horowitz…to tell all she knows and unveil the heinous acts, plots, intent, methodologies and expose the vast network and how it goes about its business.
If she does so openly and willingly without hesitation or reservation, I would find the sincerity in her actions, not her words. If she refuses, then perhaps sitting a while longer in prison she can contemplate what it means to be an American.
Compassion for her victims and her countrymen must come first. Absent that, she is precisely where she belongs.
Spot on ! Recognizing the evil one has committed is a good first step, however, it doesn’t begin to demonstrate redemptive behavior.
I would have to believe there are thousands of prisoners who have stories of reflection and realization that their crimes were horrible and have taken steps – even before possible release to renounce and atone in some way.
Not sharing what she knows about past crimes is a form of collaboration with the other perps and shows no change of heart.
You save me the trouble of a lengthy comment. Redemption has to be earned by more than simply acknowledging one’s crimes and the consequences thereof. Uncovering the mask of other fellow travelers would be a better first step on that road to redemption. Tactics have changed over the last few decades. The end game is the same. Knowing the players and their hidden intentions and agendas is one thing, exposure by one of their own is another.
All this is terrible.
Tragedies upon tragedies, created by the folly of ideologies, rooted in nihilism.
I understand both positions here, and I don’t know what to say.
Judging too harshly looks like pride and sin to me, but I do see the commies laughing at American Freedom, and from the top positions of power.
I pray for God to help us all, help us to forgive those who repent and help us to fight on against those who hate Freedom and Life.
Blessed are You Lord, our God King of the Universe.
De profundis, indeed.
Justice was served on her. The children of the murdered officers do not forgive. Why should we? Besides, she seems to be doing such a good job in prison. I’m fine with letting her stay there until the 75 years are up.
A few thoughts (from a libertarian Canadian):
1. Clark’s unwillingness to disclose her knowledge of past events is troubling; it is more that possible that so doing would materially advance the cause of Justice.
2. A merciful and wise heart is loath to too harshly judge human behavior (especially that of a young woman who had no advantages of a loving, moral, and grounded upbringing).
3. A 75 year sentence, without parole, seems to contradict your Constitution’s guarantee of freedom from Cruel & Unusual Punishment.
Yours very truly,
Niall from Winnipeg
She wasn’t hung, drawn, and quartered, a punishment not unheard of in Colonial America, and more what The Founders had in mind with “cruel and unusual punishment.”
What this is all about is she knows she’s the patsy here, to quote another communist murderer, because she sees all her old comrades living long and prospering outside and one of her own in the WH. She kept “the faith” and was defiant back in the day while the rest of them whored as necessary to stay free and become wealthy and powerful. She knows the Revolution is its own morality so she’ll do and say whatever is necessary to get out so she can get in on it with her old comrades. After we restore a legitimate government, we should round them all up and execute them.
Excellent. Let her rot. Then she will become a “Good Communist.” She was part of an effort to overthrow the United States; an effort that resulted in the death of two people. No penalty is too harsh. It’s a shame that hanging, drawing, and quartering has gone out of fashion.
This genuinely repentant criminal left her child in the care of unrepentant criminals.
Sure. I’m sure she’s sorry she’s in jail.
Why don’t we make a deal with North Korea. If they will take all our communists off our hands, we will give them food. Then everybody gets what they want. The revolutionaries can live under communism and the rest of us can be left alone; not to be tormented by a gigantic federal government telling us what kind of toilets and light bulbs we are allowed to buy.
True, Boudin helped AIDS victims in prison. That is not exactly rectitude for acts of murder.
And observing Yom Kippur is? The fates of Ayers, Dohrn, et. al. is no yardstick for justice. They needn’t even be considered here.
I see people here implying that any criminal who comes around to a normal frame of mind should go free. Really? We lock people away because of their crimes and consequences, don’t we? In some cases we keep them in strictly because of their predilections, but I think our prisons are the right place for remorseful murderers.
I’m glad you brought this point up. Many have the mistaken impression that Yom Kippur magically removes their transgressions–forgiving means forgetting. There are two basic misconceptions here. First, there is a fundamental distinction between forgiving and forgetting from a traditional Jewish perspective. In the Talmud Tractate on Blessings, the Oral Tradition relates a metaphorical conversation between Israel and God about the fate of the first generation of Jews leaving Egypt–they were sentenced to live out their lives in the desert and not enter the Land. This generation merited liberation from Egypt and the Revelation at Sinai–for this they can be forgiven; but, for the Golden Calf, which cannot be forgotten, they must accept their fate–and they did.
This distinction is an important one in Jewish Law, especially over damages and capital crimes. A person is expected to seek redemption for the crime through forms of regret, reflection, and atonement. But, this process of redemption is not the same as “paying” or atoning for the crime–redemption does not cancel the prescribed penalty for a crime. Jewish tradition is pretty clear about this.
Secondly, most Jewish denomination liturgies for Yom Kippur make clear that the redemption sought is between the Community as a whole and God; the damages and atonement between People is a separate account. The Divine accounts before the Heavenly Court may be clear; but the Temporal accounts, person to person, must be handled in a Worldly Court. The former does not trump the latter.
I am very glad to hear that Ms Clark has begun the process of returning to her roots. It is laudable that she has become so reflective and a source of help to her fellow inmates. It would appear that she has begun the difficult process of seeking forgiveness for the crime for which she was sentenced. I pray that God should grant her forgiveness.
Be that as it may, the actual deed(s) cannot, and will not, be forgotten. No matter what kind of person she is or was, the facts are that she was a key member of a group of people who committed some very serious crimes. That fact must not be forgotten. And the penalty for those crimes must be paid regardless of whether the person who committed those crimes is in a state of Divine forgiveness or not.
More importantly, the questions of penalties and punishments are legal. I find it ironic that the person who railed against the System and its laws, now seeks that very same System to show clemency. And this brings the entire discussion back to the beginning. IF Ms Clark truly has regretted her past actions, then the clearest demonstration would be a complete accounting of all that took place–to shed light into the dark places.
Of course, that may be one reason she is still in the slammer.
The real injustice here is that so many of her comrades are “free as a bird.” They all should have been charged with treason, convicted, and hung – and there are quite a few more who should be even today.
“They all should have been charged with treason, convicted, and hung – and there are quite a few more who should be even today.”
I agree. It seems alot of them end up teaching once out– not a coincendence.
Oh, indeed!
There’s an element (which I won’t deny) of, “At least she’s half-way honest, and has paid some penalty, and that low-life Ayers – so say nothing of his wife! – hasn’t, so let’s cut Judy Clark some slack.”
She was, at least, unrepentant at trial, an “honest” revolutionary. I have a certain sneaking sympathy with that, especially contrasted with Ayers’ rich daddy getting him a lawyer good enough to get Ayers out of his predicament.
But I freeze, because I read all the articles except Horowitz’s, then did a search on what Judith Clark had been involved with, and I end up saying that just because Ayers and Dohrn got away with murder doesn’t mean I’m going to forgive her for not explaining who did what to whom and when and where, especially since she was involved in at least two murders. Let’s not make excuses for her.
What else is she responsible for?
It’s not full repentance and atonement until you have acknowledged all your guilty acts.
There is no redemption without the conviction of sin, repentance, and atonement to the degree it’s possible.
Three wrongs don’t make a right?
You are correct that the Clinton pardons are inexcusable, and it is a discgrace that Ayers and Dorn are mooching off the state rather than serving hard time.
Clark was a heinous criminal and is being punished for her actions. Leaving her locked up – and keeping her profile high – servies as tangible proof that being a revolutionary idiot has consequences. Ayers et al are loudly telling the opposite, and much more dangerous, story.
Why should she get any more consideration than any other murderer and bank robber? I went to school with two people that are doing life for murder, one of them was a friend, but I hope that no one starts begging for their release because they say they are sorry. Sorry doesn’t bring back the dead, and the damage they have done still hurts the families of their victoms. Because Bill Clinton was an ass does not mean any future Presicent should repeat his mistakes. You do however have a fellow traveler in the White House. She may get lucky.
What i see is a convenient “jailhouse conversion” with an aim toward a pardon or time served.
If she is truly a “new person” let her tell the police all that the “old person” she was knew abut her and her feliow revolutionary’s actions.
That she doesn’t apparently want to do this tells me that her “conversion” and “repentance” are phony.
She did the crime, let he pay the time.
Let her rot in prison. Those were terrible crimes and execution would have been more appropriate. That others were released, mistakenly in my view, is not an argument for Clark’s release. Besides she is probably on the pardon list for an exiting President Obama.
Of course if she named names in other crimes and those names included friends of the President, well I suppose I would send a thank you note. However, an early release? No.
I think the standard here, regardless of the politics involved, should be two-fold: first, has she expressed remorse and told what she knows, and second, is she a danger to society any more? The first half she seems to have half-completed; she may be waiting to be released to write the book, so she can collect the royalties. The second seems obvious, in that she’s not going to go out and do this again (I think) and she doesn’t seem likely to inspire anyone else to follow the revolutionary path. So the question is, will she tell what she knows about what her friends did, and who they killed?
The comparison with Ayers and Dohrn brings up an annoying aspect of this whole thing. The two of them, especially, aren’t just guilty of their crimes, and they’re not just unrepentant now. They’re bald-faced hypocrites, living in a mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood, hobnobbing with other wealthy people, and so forth. They worked, in the past, to destroy everything they enjoy now, and as far as I know they’ve repudiated none of their actions, but somehow they just live their lives, smirking at themselves in the mirror, and acting as if living their lives the way they do isn’t even a bit hypocritical.
I’m so sick and tired of that old pathetic chestnut used repeatedly to justify so called compassion: nothing will bring back the lives of the victims. Save your compassion, Ron, for those who are truly deserving of it. This spoiled middle class elitist doesn’t rate a second thought.
Clark is where she belongs and where the other well-off white brats of the Me generation who took part in such crimes should be as well. If poverty, fatherless homes, and ignorance are no excuse for the crimes committed by the black and/or white working classes, then why should this broad get a break?
Your class-ism is showing, Ron.
If she’s truly remorseful and fully understands the crime she committed, then she understands why she’s where she is and why she can not be released. She can take comfort in the fact that unlike the victims of her crime, she is still alive.
I’m with Horowitz.
Redemption is a gift of the State as well as of God. The State must insist that this woman informs on all of her allies in that long ago time, before contemplating any sort of pardon. That seems to be obvious to me.
I wonder why she hasn’t done so? What sort of people were her allies, and what are they doing now?
“What is amazing about the profile of Clark is that unlike other leftist terrorists inexplicably freed by President Bill Clinton in the amnesty he granted to Silvia Baraldini in 1999 and to Susan Rosenberg in 2001 — one of the last acts carried out before he left office — Clark acknowledges thoroughly and honestly the depth of the crime she committed. Those Clinton pardoned, including the Puerto Rican terrorists who had tried to kill Harry S. Truman, have never said anything to indicate any regrets for their crimes.”
Poor argument. Just because Clinton acted immorally and freed people that should have not been freed does not mean we should free others who should continue to serve their time.
I still believe in the old-fashioned notion that a prison sentence is not only for rehabilitation, but also for just retribution. So Ms. Clark has rehabilitated herself in prison? Good for her. But just because other, even more guilty, parties managed to get themselves released (which I think was wrong), that doesn’t make it right for her to escape the sentence that was justly pronounced on her. I would cheer and throw a party were the execrable Ayers and Dorhn to wind up in prison, because that is where people like them belong.
This makes a person wonder just how many people one can be a party to murdering, while desiring to overthrow our government, amongst, I suppose, other crimes, and not be considered for parole.
If society does choose to forgive this person, does that forgiveness have to include release from prison?
Every act she took part in led to the deaths of two police officers. Every step she took was premeditated.
She can be sorry or repentant in prison. For the rest of her life.
I recall reading about how Ronald Reagan, when he was still an actor crusading against commie influence in Hollywood, made it a point to keep his arms open to commies who disavowed their former belief. I know that Ms. Clark was involved in actual murders, and that’s a big difference. But my point is this: we have to be open and accepting to people who change their minds/attitudes, even if their former beliefs were despicable (communism, fascism). In fact, we should try to be civil with everyone almost all of the time. As Ann Coulter said, we should try to be “nice” to crazy liberals, as they can change. David Horowitz is a great example. He was a dyed in the wool commie. Now he is one of our loudest voices. Now I know David never committed violent acts. But keep in mind that if this were 1968, we’d be screaming about what a scum he is. Let’s keep that in mind: try to be civil to everyone, even if they’re crazy. When the craziness starts to manifest itself into violence, then you can call your buddies Smith and Wesson for some backup.
“then you can call your buddies Smith and Wesson for some backup.”
Assuming that you happen to be fortunate enough to live in a state that recognizes the 2nd amendment….none of the less free…liberal / progressives….do. Warning….coming to an activist judge near you.
I forget her name but you all remember the girl in Texas that helped kill a man with a pick. She became the living model of Jesus Christ while in prison and everyone claimed she had repented. GWB said that he believed her but let her execution proceed anyway. This is the way that this woman should be treated IMHO.
She may feel remorse but that is not why she is in prison. Remorse is something only she can feel and it has no value to anyone else. The fact that she has not, on her own, asked for a confessional with a federal agent is proof enough that she still has obligations to the other terrorists that she worked with and has no intention of ever telling the full truth. This attitude of not telling all should be proof that she is still part of a “Team” and will not rat out the rest. It also shows that she values their fate more than her freedom. Is that not the definition of radical ideology?
Karla Faye Tucker
“Far more important, a truly remorseful terrorist will feel obligated to turn his back on his fellow terrorists and their supporters and do the innocent a service by revealing what they know, and who their networks are, and what they actually did — not just what they got caught doing. This kind of truth-telling is an authentic form of atonement and would protect others — and particularly young radicals just starting out who may become involved in criminal ventures just as Clark did when she was young and the tragedies she caused were still in front of her.”
Judy Clark is sorry. Now let her show her remorse by serving life imprisonment-without whining- for the lives she took, and the lives she maimed-crimes which can never be remedied.
The relatives of the dead are not crying out for “vengence”. They want, at least, some approximation of justice. The lives of the dead officers are gone forever. Let Judy clark spend forever in prison-unless she were to be truly honorable and take her own life as a sacrifice for the enormous harm she caused.
If I were a member of the parole board, I would ask Clark if she thinks Northwestern University should have hired Bernardine Dohrn and U Illinois-Chicago should have hired Bill Ayers. I believe her answer to that (unanticipated) question would tell me all I need to know about her “repentance.”
If she clearly and emphatically says NO, if she admits that their promotion is the sign of a morally diseased elite, then I might believe that she truly believes her own actions were horribly wrong.
What do you think her answer would be? My guess — and it’s just a guess — is that it would be pretty much along the lines of Obama’s. Which is to say that she wouldn’t take their crimes seriously at all. How then am I to believe she feels remorse for her own?
(As far as Radosh’s insistence that “she herself did not kill anyone” and that he “would fell differently if Clark herself had pulled the trigger,” I would remind him that he could say the same about Charles Manson.)
I am familiar with a similar case. A man, during a drug induced fit of insanity had been approached by four policemen. He managed to get one of their pistols and shot all four. Two died, one was paralyzed, and one recovered fully. A fifth officer gave him a full load of buckshot. How he survived that, I dont know. He became a guest of the state. Some years later I began working at that facility. I thought I got to know him. I thought I knew him fairly well.
During his time there he had become very penitent and religious. After he had been in that facility for 32 years he was deemed ‘well’, no longer a danger to himself or others. Upon release, he was driven to the home of one of his children. He got all of his bags out of the car and took them inside. I noticed that his bible, which was worn from his constant carry was lying on the back seat. I handed it to him and said ” Hey Mr. X, you forgot your bible.” He snorted and refused to take it. He said ” I am out now.” He turned his back and walked into the house.
I am familiar with a few other cases nearly identical, some worse. Your sentiment is commendable Ron. It shows your humanity. Mr. Horowitz’s sentiment shows his empathy toward the victim’s family members.
Call me a hardass, but I say Clark can rot in prison until she can fix what she broke; put back what she took away. Additionally she should have to tell everything she knows. If she cant, or wont, then she is where she belongs and she should stay.
I am not ignoring your point about how ideologies can destroy lives, but I will have to think about that a bit before I can put my two cents in.
Thank you for sharing the personnel part.
I was thinking of samiliar indcidents where the convicted was released and committed the same offence killing another victim. Compasion is not justice. People tend to confuse the two.
If it was up to me, she would have been executed decades ago.
Then we wouldn’t be having this idiotic conversation.
Indeed. What has happened to justice in this once proud country? And the rule of law?
she should stay in prison.
the death penalty would have been more appropriate.
I’m with Horowitz on this one. She’s not sorry for what happened, she’s merely realized that the victims of the crimes she helped commit didn’t “deserve it.” A step in the right direction but not nearly good enough.
Let her rot in prison. I don’t care how many powerful friends she has. She did the crime, let her do the time.
Ron Radosh ended, “I would feel differently if Clark herself had pulled the trigger, although by her silence, she helped those who did.”
It’s true that Clark herself never did shoot any of the victims of her murderous conspiracy. Neither did Charles Manson. They were convicted on identical charges, conspiracy to commit murder. They had the same motive, their belief that their crimes would encourage political revolution. If you support parole for one but not the other, you judge identical crimes for identical motives by two different standards.
Just as a matter of objective principle I think the penalty should be executed as handed down. Being sorry and remorseful for the offense is a good thing, but it doesn’t make up for the wrong done.
I don’t think that it means that her life has to be without purpose or hope. She has lost precious liberties, but she can have a purposeful, meaningful life within the circumstances she is in. She can make amends in what way she can, but she can have peace within whether her victims ever let her off the hook or not.
As far as any of us know, Judith Clark could be pulling an ‘Alinsky’ in telling the Times and Ron what THEY WANT TO HEAR, so that they can be at ease with her repentance.
What I find amazing in all of these attempts recently to free the most vile of criminals for time served as if its enough for the crimes they committed and the lives they’ve taken and the other lives they’ve changed and in some cases destroyed.
What is a life worth? These two officers lives are obviously not worth very much; in freeing convicted killers and their confederates we are saying that some people’s lives are worth, oh, 25 years in prison, and, oh, some other lives have a value of, say, 75 years.
We’ve gone, in the past 50 years, from executing these killers for their heinous crimes to life imprisonment to the point that, in England in some cases, 15 years is the norm, with time off for good behaviour, and release after 8 years. In other words, life in imprisonment is now cosidered ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’
The only ones who receive ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ in our society are the victims and their families. The perpetrators are absolved of their guilt by our lax criminal justice system and the the state and local governments who have decided to go god one better. No longer an eye for an eye, but two years for any eye, 8 years for a murder, etc.
Sorry for the rant, but if life as any value and meaning then we must show that we value life.
Yesterday Joran Van Der Sloot said he was very sorry he killed Stephanie Flores. Very contrite as he faces 28 years in jail. But he still won’t say where Natalee Holloway’s body is.
To all who posted; each of the arguments were good ones. Well thought out and reasonable. But never fear. Ayers will convince Obama to pardon Ms Clarke and the reason she’s not allocuting to the crimes is because it would prevent her from writing a book. I mean, she might be a communist idiot but she’s not stupid.
“unlike other leftist terrorists inexplicably freed by President Bill Clinton”
INEXPLICABLY?! You’re brighter than that, Ron. He pardoned them because they were the heroes of the far left. They did what he and Hillary only dreamed of.
“Clark did not kill anyone herself”
Felony murder. She willingly took part in the commission of a felony during which someone died.
I had the same reaction when I read the term “inexplicably”. I remember when those pardons occurred and I waited for some journalist to ask Bubba for an “explicable” reason for his actions. I am still waiting. I suppose that his actions were perfectly understandable and deemed appropriate by our left-wing media so why bother seeking an explanation just to satisfy the curiosity of us Neanderthals.
I was with Radosh until I read Horowitz’s last paragraph.
If she refuses to reveal what she knows about the terror networks of her era, she should not be pardoned. It’s outrageous that Ayers and Dohrn got off scot free, but that’s not a reason to let Clark out.
The whole question depends on whether you believe a prison sentence is for rehabilitation or punishment. Some states, including mine, define their criminal justice system as being rehabilitative. If the pardon and parole board concludes that she’s been rehabilitated, then maybe you let her go; she ain’t likely to be planting bombs at her age, planting flowers is probably getting to be a painful experience if my ageing sixty-something bones are any indication. If you believe, or if state law requires, that she be punished, she does the time. I’m pretty much on the punish side because I just have a lot of trouble believing acts of contrition when there is a direct reward for that contrition.
She wants out? Well then she should be required to debrief. It is insane that today we have folks that were murdered and no one even tries to find the truth. Until she is willing to give a full and accurate depiction of what she did and the actions of those around her, she is not repentant really at all.
There have been many cases internationally, such as in South Africa, where to participate in the new government, both sides (ANC and South African Government) had to come to the table and unload their baggage. Its been pretty darn effective and neutering FARC’s effectiveness by offering a way for former rebels to re-enter society. But the requirement was still a full debriefing. For whatever reason, we never did that here, ending up with dangerous people allowed to torment their victims by living it up and lying about what they did. (cough cough…Bill Ayers and company…)
You’re right: if she is remorseful she should be volunteering everything she knows to do the right thing, without regard for playing legal games. I don’t believe her; she’s sorry she’s in prison – they all are.
Full allocution or throw away the key. Otherwise, this is the Left protecting its own and it’s is more like an unpublicized aspect of the “Truth” and Reconciliation Commissions:
Shortly after the 1994 elections, when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was formed to investigate the evils of the apartheid era, I offered to give evidence about incidents to which I had been a witness. Some involved government departments and forces, but others involved Umkhonto we Sizwe terrorists, including several acts of murder and violence perpetrated by them. I received an unambiguous warning from an ANC elected representative, to the effect that I was welcome to testify about the ‘evils of apartheid’, but that if I dared try to bring attention to what the ANC had done during the same period, I would be ‘dealt with in the harshest way’. That’s when I realized that there was no future for me in the land of my birth. I’d spent years trying to help the victims of violence (perpetrated by both sides), and was prepared to do my utmost to promote the reconciliation process – but it proved to be one-sided, partisan, and basically a lie. (I have little doubt that Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chairman of the TRC, was sincere and honest in his approach; but I believe his efforts were hamstrung by political intervention.)
http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2012/01/no-reason-to-celebrate-this-anniversary.html
A criminal justice system should strive to make punishments proportional to the associated crimes and to apply this standard uniformly. Many murderers have been set free with much less time than Judy Clark and with less thorough going remorse. In the interest of proportionality – let her go.
“Many murderers have been set free with much less time than Judy Clark and with less thorough going remorse.”
Under what circumstances? Examples? Each jurisdiction is a bit different.
Many of us “make the journey from left to right”. I certainly did, though never as far to the left as many. While I respect Radosh’s opinion, I have to stand with Horowitz on this one.
People die every day for little more than a stupid act. We are all responsible to know that stupidity often has a cost, and sometimes that cost is prohibitively high. She involved herself in a felony (and she was no newcomer)and people got killed.
I have compassion for Ms. Clark and appreciate her journey. I only wish she had made it before people got killed. Compassion does not mean she gets out, nor does forgiveness, for that matter. The victims of her group are still dead, and none of the perpetrators should be out.
Were it up to me, I might consider time served if, and only if, she gave up everything she knew, on every crime she know about, especially those that resulted in the death of the innocent. As Horowitz pointed out, there is no suggestion that she has turned her backs on her murderous friends, and I think a true revelation should include that. Until she does so, she is where she belongs.
Sorry, Judy…
“Were it up to me, I might consider time served if, and only if, she gave up everything she knew, on every crime she know about, especially those that resulted in the death of the innocent. As Horowitz pointed out, there is no suggestion that she has turned her backs on her murderous friends, and I think a true revelation should include that. Until she does so, she is where she belongs.”
Well put. I’m with Horowitz on this one, as well. As you said, if she gave up everything she knows about her former comrades (including the President’s friends in Chicago), and the info led to convictions, at that point I might also consider time served. Otherwise, she’s where she belongs.
Having had a day and a bit to think about this, I must say that Ron Radosh has a fine and compassionate heart. It’s a fine thing to believe in repentance and redemption.
This article speaks to your compassion and mercy.
Ron is compassionate.
I would be torn personally endorsing a release for somebody like Clark myself.
Would her release set a legal precedent(even a minor one) for other left wing loons to be released? I dont trust this particular justice dept at all. If political gain could be had, they would take it. She should also bring forward information on other crimes she could help solve. No statute of limitations on murder, right?
She declared war and is now a POW. Her ideology might require her to lie to get out and then blow up something. Who knows? Why take a chance? She had a chance to repent before the robbery and at trial and said eff you.
Okay.
Oh
What a
Story
“Nothing will bring back the lives of those who were murdered, and who served the community of Nanuet with valor and love. I understand the feelings of vengeance that motivate their children, colleagues, and offspring.”
It’s a big day for money quotes.
Vengeance is the motivation? Really? Would I feel better knowing that this woman is breathing free air? Can any rational person make the case that it’s better for her to be about than in prison?
So often it is that, aside from the actions of Ms. Clark, bad or horrible things happen to good, decent people and we shrug. It’s bad luck, or, it’s fate…we accept it because we have to accept the fact of it. This woman exercised her choice to participate in her own destiny, even as she was helping to erase the future of her cohorts’ victims. We understand that she had a say in the turn of her life’s events. She chose unwisely. Like many terrorists, she purchased a one-way ticket. More’s the pity.
We depend upon the law to remain consistent and to be consistently applied even when it is perverted by a President. Because presidents come and go…
I don’t believe she should get out nor should Bouldin or Rosenberg have gotten out. These people were vile upper class pseudo revolutionaries who were chumps for common criminals like Huey Newton and the Black Guerrilla Family. Now they’ve “matured” they want to be welcomed back into society. Screw them. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
These were the elite darlings of the professors in Ivy League political science classes while 58000 far better men from blue collar families, ghettos and barrios bled out in southeast Asia fighting the communists the Clarks of that age were so enraptured with. Die in a lonely prison cell, Judy, unmourned, uncelebrated and reviled. You deserve it.
“…58000 far better men from blue collar families, ghettos and barrios bled out in southeast Asia fighting the communists the Clarks of that age were so enraptured with.”
Ironically, all three of the men murdered by Clark and her pals, were veterans.
Ed O’Grady served two tours in Nam with the USMC, Waverly Brown was in the USAF, and Peter Paige had served in the USN.
Just in case anyone cares about the people Clark and her gang killed.
In 1970 somebody left a bomb at Park Police Station in San Francisco. SFPD officer Brian McDonnell died from wounds suffered in the expolsion. The DA suspected the Weather Underground, specifically Ayers and Dohrn. Judith Clarke could probably shed light on this unsolved political murder.
Several members of the Black Liberation Army were found guilty of the 1971 murder of SFPD officer George Young. The DA in San Francisco thought several other BLA members escsaped culpability on this case. Clarke might have evidence that would lead to the convictions of additional scumbags here.
She could also shed light on the 1971 bombing of a police funeral at St. Brendan’s church in San Francisco.
The Weather Underground was a gang who tried to terrorize people, mostly humble police officers. If a prison gangster wants a shot at daylight, he has to defrief 100%. Debriefing is like renouncing your religion. Acknowledging everything you stood for was an illusion.
Till then, “Ain’t No Sunshine” for Jusith Clarke.
The main reason criminal laws are enacted in the first place is as a *preventive* measure. The primary purpose is to discourage people from committing crimes in the first place. The primary purpose is not revenge, retribution , punishment for the sake of punishment.
Letting convicts out early because they act contrite or remorseful does send a message to other prospective criminals. That is, it’s something like “If caught, just say and act like you’re sorry and your 30 years sentence won’t really be a 30 year sentence.”
In this case, if Clark has information that could lead to the conviction of other killers, perhaps she could use that to plea bargain. Otherwise, I say she stays locked up. As a deterent to other would-be killers.
In fact, it’s probably a good thing for those thinking of committing the same crimes to see people like Clark be miserable in prison. Maybe it will save other innocent lives in the future.
I have met far too many good and decent Jews who were raised in far left homes and were totally screwed up by their radical parents. Had their parents not been far left loons, they could have had happy and responsible lives. Many of these folks are older now, and you know what, they are deeply unhappy and depressed, they wasted their entire lives on an ideology which was totally empty to begin with.
To hell with Clark. Let her rot in prison, then piss on her corpse. MARINES!
Some have reacted to the “viciousness” of comments in effect calling for Clark’s death or worse.
When thinking people see the left setting us up for another con job, it tends to outrage some of us. Clinton’s pardons of his radical role models, the media’s transformation of virtually all of these killers, and their acceptance into academia and legitimacy are all part of the communist drip, drip, drip destruction of society. And they do it, as in this instance, with a typical sanctimonious appeal to Christian mercy. The NYT piece was a nauseating piece of crap. It should not surprise anyone that the reaction of many might be virulent.
She can go free on one condition: that she gives evidence which will lead to the arrest and imprisonment of William Ayers and the jackal he married. All the rest of it is a phony as hell. I know Nanuet New York very well. And I can assure you that on that day in 1981 that community lost its soul. She can rot in hell. There is a marker along the road where those officers were killed that day. The event was so staggering in its evil and violence that people still remember the monstrosity. I really don’t give a crap how many times Clark has soul searched. Dead is dead. BTW – David Horowitz is one of the most astute and brilliant thinkers America has. He is, in my opinion, a political philosopher, pretty much unequaled in his experience, insight, and brilliance. If he doubts the veracity of her regret take it to the bank.
Dear sir
Who are you and what have you done with Ron Radosh? You reduced the murdered officers, Waverly Brown and Edward O’Grady, as well as the Brinks Guard, Peter Paige, to pieces of dead meat! Just because Bill Clinton was and is an ass adds no support to her. Convincing the public of ones conversion requires deeds and lots of them! Produce them or shut up! Also, release Ron Radosh!!!
Death penalty opponents cite long sentences as the better alternative.As this thread shows, there is no such thing.
Any thoughts of parole or any form of release from incarceration until death is anathema to any person with a firm grasp upon reason and compassion. To set her free so that I or anyone can feel better is just disgusting in the extreme.
Letting her free does no one any good except the one who chose that path. So what that she didn’t pull the trigger, she enabled and condoned the action and defended it in court and from prison.
She is not deserving of grace or pity.
I see an Attention Whore, who got it in her youth as a screaming leftist radical, and now wants it as Restoration Saint Icon. If the justice system put people in “redemption boxes” instead of “penalty boxes”, then, hell’s bells, we could just make prisons a revolving door for career criminals, deviants, and such. Oh, wait, they already are. Never mind.
Judith Clark received her justice from the judge, let her serve her time, though her co-conspirators escaped the penalty they deserved. Perhaps she should have had her venue moved to Mississippi, where pardons are reportedly falling from the sky.
Until she comes clean and names names about BLA, she can rot there. I don’t want another ‘Ayers’ chirping about beating the system and cultivating another Obama!
Well said fellow Bob from Virginia (we Virginia Bobs should stick together).
I am red diaper too and Clark is my cousin. The article by Robbins asks us to believe that Clark, who was involved with the radicals for as long or almost as long as she has been in prison, didn’t really intend to do what she did. Really?
Why would we believe this? She had already been a fugitive and in prison before for violent crimes. These were people she knew and she stuck with them over many years. She knew perfectly well what their thinking was, what they intended to do and she agreed to drive the getaway car.
Moreover, in his article, Robbins allows Clark to frame the story as she would wish it to be told. He uses terms to describe Clark as someone’s “sweetheart,” as someone’s mother, as warm and loving, hard working, as generous and charitable to her jail mates. After spending alot of time on her, he gives short shrift to the families of her victims, ending with the story that the family and/or friends of the black policeman killed in the robbery believe she should be released. If you didn’t know which side you should be on when you started the article, you sure know by the end.
Clark has paid dearly and her life has been destroyed. It is disgusting that the others involved have gotten off and that the likes of Ayers and Doehrn are today enjoying the benefits of the society they tried to destroy. Yet that doesn’t excuse Clark.
Communism is not benevolent and it is not mere theory. Millions of people were its victims and today it has developed new appeal. Sadly, our schools and colleges are infected with leftist ideology and many young people are not familiar with the history of the 20th century. Most think Hitler was the only vicious dictator.
Having grown up with this, Radosh should have more sense.
Bravo.
(Not to be confused with Bob IN VA)
Try to view this as a nature vs. nurture argument. I suspect Clark was born with psychopathic tendencies. Political extremism gave these tendencies an outlet, an outline and a MO.
Traditional Christian teaching says to the sinner to atone, and to the abused to forgive. Atonement includes not only admission of guilt, but also actions to repay the victim. If this woman wrote a confession including what she knew that would bring justice and closure to the victims, she would thus prove the claim that she is a changed person.
As a reader of many David Horowitz books, I am interested in the culture that spawned the ‘red diaper’ babies, but have not found any explanation or investigation. Perhaps someone could suggest a source?
I wouldn’t mind if Judith Clark walks… if it means they lock up Ayers and Dohrn.
“one of the last spams of ‘60s-style, left-wing violence.”
Spams? Try spasm.
I’m with Horowitz on this one. she, and all the domestic terrorists, should rot in jail until they die.
Art, you make some good points and I have shared many of your experiences with the left, having been raised DEEP INSIDE the left. However, beyond that your generalizations about teachers and government workers are just off. I am one and I’m married to one and we’re both registered GOP and Conservative in NYS. We’re NRA lifers. The problems is that there really is nothing to listen to on the radio or read that you can get delivered to your house. I mean, what morning paper shall I read? Make a recommendation. And as for the radio, every talk radio show spends a third of the time trying to sell me gold or some wrinkle cream.
Please, don’t generalize.
I agree with D. Horowitz. Simply radical leftism concurrent with criminal violence is equivalent to participation in a cult be it political or religious one. If a cult leader was sexually abusing other members of the cult and you as a victim of that abuse decided to come clean and truly abandon the precepts of the cult, when its time to cut bait and go home one should forgo feelings of guilt or the sensibilities of regret on becoming a snitch and start naming names and exposing the cult and its leaders as the frauds and criminals that they truly are. Anything less subverts the idea and ideal of a true repentant heart. Murder or sexual abuse require equally a full airing of the repentant individual. Nothing less.
Is it just a coincidence, this call to free various cop killers, knowing as we do what cops represent to the left?
What is equally interesting in the hagiography of the left, is the way that other liberal institutions have cooperated in air-brushing the violence of the youthful “revolutionaries” of the sixties.
Case in point — Jamal Joseph, now the chairman of the Columbia graduate film program, formerly better known as Edward Joseph.
His 1985 conviction on a federal felony for ‘acting as an accessory after the fact’ to the 1981 Brinks armed robbery in Nanuet, New York — an adventure of the Black Panther Party and Weather Underground which killed two Brinks guards and police officer Waverly Brown — is not noted in his Columbia University faculty biography. One would have thought that the first requirement of teaching was to be truthful about the past.
Compare http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/law/usvferguson758F2d843.htm with http://arts.columbia.edu/film/jamal-joseph. On Wikipedia, it is simply noted that Professor Joseph was “incarcerated for his active participation in the Black Panther Party.” Active indeed. Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic” is still with us.
Nothing will bring back the lives of those who were murdered, and who served the community of Nanuet with valor and love. I understand the feelings of vengeance that motivate their children, colleagues, and offspring. But at times, compassion too has to be considered.
Ron, I will cede acknowledgement of every bit of good will and intention to you in this article. You come across as a magnificently decent and thoughtful person.
But at the same time I’m flummoxed. The passage above … “vengeance”? Really? You really wrote that, and you chose that word deliberately?
Just out of curiosity, have you ever been the victim of a violent crime? Have you lost a loved one to a violent crime?
I was mugged at gunpoint a few years ago. We caught the guy (thanks to dogged police work and the fact that’d I’d gotten an excellent look at the scumbag before he nearly shot me and was therefore able to immediately identify him in a photo lineup) but he chose to forego a jury trial & instead get a verdict from a judge, who is the most defendant-friendly judge in our county, having been previously the head of the public defender’s office. Surprise surprise, the judge let the scumbag off. Judge does not have to explain his reasoning to anyone. Ever. “That’s that.”
I can say that my understanding of the concept of justice has improved by, ohhh, about 1000% since that incident. When you or your loved one is the victim of a violent crime, you are violated in the most heinous way … not just body & property, but in spirit. That Which Should Never, Ever Be Done to Anyone … has just been done to you. It is a monstrous wrong. An offense not just to you but to something that transcends both you, the criminal, and the entire “justice system.” You get a fire in your gut for that offense to be wiped clean, for that which was torn asunder to be mended. A yearning so visceral that those who have not been there can never really understand it.
So, no, Ron, I don’t think you “understand the feelings” of the children, colleagues and offspring of the murdered officers. Because if you did, you would not call those feelings “vengeance.” Hell, *I* don’t even understand their feelings, because I was blessed enough to be able to walk away from the person who nearly shot me. But I do think I grasp, just a little, the intensity of those feelings.
You added that “compassion has to be considered.” Passive voice. Considered by whom? And why “has to”? Is compassion something that the families of the slain officers somehow “owe” Judith Clark? If so, why? Is compassion what “society” owes Judith Clark? If so, why?
Compassion, moreover, is just an emotional connection. Why are you presuming to instruct the families of the officers on how they should feel? This is odd, at best; grossly presumptuous, in worse light. NO ONE who has had a loved one murdered needs to or should be told what the “proper” emotions are in response to that kind of violation, unless they go seeking advice from a spiritual advisor (in other words, unless the families solicit advice from a qualified and trusted authority).
Or maybe you mean, “mercy has to be considered”? Again, the same questions: Considered by whom? And why “has to”?
Neither compassion nor mercy is an obligation of a victim to a victimizer. Neither is something that “has to” be done because the victimizer somehow “deserves” it. Beyond justice, the criminal deserves BUPKISS. If the criminal gets justice, then the criminal gets exactly what he or she deserves, not a jot more and not a jot less. Any thought or act of compassion or mercy that the criminal receives is a GIFT, not an obligation.
The question is whether Judy Clark’s original sentence is a just response to the crime she was convicted for. Was it justice, at that time and at that place and in those circumstances (including but not limited to her truculence and militant unrepentance at the time of trial)? If it was justice at the time, then it is STILL justice today. Nothing. More. Is. Owed. To. Judy. Clark.
Nothing.
Period.
Ever.
The ONLY consideration in any question of whether to moderate her sentence is not whether Clark “deserves” release (she does not), but whether the families and the courts want to give her that gift.
I believe Horowitz has made a convincing argument that Clark’s actions strongly suggest that such a gift would be wasted on her.
And if the families don’t want her out … that, in my book, is the real clincher.
If Clark’s original sentence was just, and the families don’t want her out, then to release her against their will would be yet another gross, stinking injustice to these people, who have already suffered the worst injustice that families can suffer: the taking of a precious life that can never, ever be returned, and the severing of so many beloved relationships that can never, ever be restored.
Exactly what I thought above. Thanks for expanding.
Sorry, Judith Clark should rot in jail.
If she has succeeded in her quest for “heaven on earth,” here in the USA, we would now be looking at 20 to 50 million american citizens who were exterminated under the orders of, and encouragement of Judith Clark and her perverted, arrogant, narcissistic, totalitarian, mass murdering “revolutionaries.”
It is indeed unfortunate that Bill Ayers, Dohrn etc., were also not convicted years ago and EXECUTED (along with Jane Fonda).
Jeff Turnbull,
Your comment (way up there at #7 with mine) like many of the others I’ve received has no relationship at all to the point I was making. My point had nothing to do with Clark’s imprisonment, whether it is inhumane or not (I actually think it is not inhumane, she’s been dealt with very gently), or whether it should end. I am fine with her own cousin’s comments here regarding that. That just is not my point, period. It is very dismaying to me how relentless people are in seeking to make it my point no matter how much I clarify that it is not. My point regards us, this group, here, not her there. Can you get that, please? I am astounded by the onslaught of crude commentary by people here along the lines of “let her rot,” “put a bullet in her head,” etc., etc., ad infinitum. It’s sickening and stupid. It is absolutely a part of the leftist Sixties rhetorical and stylistic legacy. It is a danger to the conservative movement now. It is NOT a danger to the left.
We can read and we understand. What you don’t understand is that you have far more insulting words for people who don’t like Clark than for Clark herself who was involved in an armed robbery in which 2 people were killed. No matter how “self righteous” I am it doesn’t place me on Clark’s level or have me endangering anything. How dangerous is my rhetoric compared to a gun purposefully used? You are engaging in word games.
In fact it is the massive misplaced compassion of the Left that has endangered citizens in this country by treating criminals, especially minorities, like they are in fact political prisoners deserving of endless mitigation and explanation. Clark could make her own case and soften my own view by wholeheartedly volunteering to give info on past crimes she has knowledge of. Since she hasn’t, I don’t believe her.
And mercy? I certainly possess it but it is not for others to define.
What you don’t understand is that you have far more insulting words for people who don’t like Clark than for Clark herself
I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with the Clarks of the world. She’s in prison. She is not my concern. So yes, I have had harsher words for people here. I do not apologize one bit. I do not owe the people here whom I’ve “insulted” (as you inadequately put it) anything. Their simple-minded invective is threatening the political movement I care about, the one they say they embrace. I took it on the chin from the left a long time ago and it did not wound my ego much. If they couldn’t keep me quiet, it is unlikely anyone here will. But this thread has pretty much worn itself thin. Time to move on, don’t you think?
Simple-minded should be reserved for Clark rather than people reacting to Clark. Your priorities are those of the Left, not a Conservative. Your priorities are also askew in characterizing disagreement as threatening an entire political movement while actually participating in murderous robberies somehow isn’t quite as threatening. The political movement being threatened is the ideology of your own political correctness and its upside down eco-system where one’s social position invites morality rather than actual crimes inviting immorality. This is typical of Marxist Critical Pedagogy and not Conservatism.
OH, I forgot to mention, ideology does not ruin one’s life; the individual ruins one’s life.
It’s bad enough that drug addicts, etc, can ruin their lives. That is truly a very sad thing.
But what is far far worse is when self hating, immature, arrogant individuals want to MURDER, EXTERMINATE OTHER PEOPLE because they want to impose their world view on others.
Who the hell do they think they are !!
By what right have they decided for everyone else how they must run their lives?
Further, history has clearly demonstrated (Stalin, Mao, Hitler) that what Judith Clark sought, would in fact lead to total loss of individual rights and the extermination of millions.
Judith Clark should rot in jail and in hell.
Wait 13 months. When O can scribble pardons on his way out the door…
She can stay where she is. I just love it when the excuse “nothing can bring them back” is tossed out as if it’s some kind of justification in excusing an horrendous crime. Well, gee, they’re just victims. The point is, two human beings, regardless of the environment that existed at the time are the poor dears upbringing, lost there lives, were killed! Nothing excuses that!!
‘I am astounded by the onslaught of crude commentary by people here along the lines of “let her rot,” “put a bullet in her head,”’
Well, excuse me for not playing kissy-face with a communist revolutionary traitor, who dabbled in armed robbery and cold-blooded murder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Liberation_Army
Here’s a little reminder of what poor little Judith Clark and hers pals were up to back in the day.
Compassion for her?
Dream on.
I have compassion for the people they murdered and robbed. None whatsoever for her and her gangster friends.
Talk is cheap. Cheap talk buys equally cheap sympathy and cheap forgiveness. Cheap sympathy and forgiveness purchase no resolution, but rather continue to provide a hiding place for evil and its tentacles. In other words, Judy Clark must first come clean about her criminal associates and all of their criminal activities. The latter kind of talk would be a costly way for her to serve the cause of justice, and possibly bring closure for innocent victims and their equally innocent families.
At this point, Judy Clark, by her silence, other than to seek sympathy, is simply adhering to the maxim that “the end justifies the means”.
I come down on the side of not releasing Ms. Clark. Her fanaticism reminds me very much of another 60′s cult group that wanted to foment a revolution, the Manson family. One of the convicted Tate-LaBianca murderers, Susan Atkins, was dying of cancer in prison, and asked to be released as a humanitarian issue. She also sincerely apologized, found God, was a model prisoner, and claimed to regret her former loyalty to that evil cult.
In both cases, their regret does not sway or persuade me. Murder is forever. The punishment should match the seriousness of what you’ve taken from your victim.
Let’s not forget that the investigation into the murder of San Francisco Police Sergeant Brian McDonnell, who was killed by a bomb which may have been planted by Weather Undground radical Bernadette Dohrn, acting on the instructions of her now husband, Bill Ayers (and in who’s living room our President announced his first race for the Illinois State Senate), has never been closed. If Judith Clark knows anything about this bombing, she should reveal what she knows, now.
“Nothing will bring back the lives of those who were murdered”
We know this. This is irrelevent, except perhaps to lay the groundwork for smearing any who dares oppose your proposal of release.
“I understand the feelings of vengeance that motivate their children, colleagues, and offspring. ”
You have absolutely no right to smear these people with such aspersions. Moreover, Judith Clark was found guilty by the PEOPLE, not the victims or their survivors. She was found guilty for a reason, and received the punishment for a reason.
“Still, I think she has served enough time. She is no longer a threat to anyone, and is not by any mark any kind of a revolutionary or a leftist. I understand those who differ with my judgment, but I opt on the side of release.”
Yu cannot KNOW that she is no longer a threat just as you cannot KNOW that all of the victims families are driven by vengence. Since none of can know (either way), and since we DO know that she is guilty of hideous crimes, let the sentence stand. You would advance your case farther had you not veered into such reprehensible territory. These things are said reflexively by any defense attorney.
Is is not our role to grant forgiveness to Judy Clark and muse about the need or justice regarding the setting of this bird free.
Yet, if the families of the dead want her to be freed, then I guess it’s okay with me.
At the same time, please, Ron Radosh, when you write these articles, don’t ignore the law as it pertains to culpability between the one who pulls the trigger and the one who pulls away in the getaway car. Not a lot of difference in the eyes of the law. Failing to make legal distinctions makes me think the writer of the article doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the law.
One more thought.
If the idea of equal treatment under the law has any impact, I would say this.
If Barack Obama is going to be jail-free after he spends a term or two trying to kill this nation, then maybe Judy does deserve to go scot free taking a day trip on a killing spree decades ago.
I believe Obama is the real criminal that the nation should be considering bringing to justice. Disgusting to so many Americans, Obama’s intentional acts bent on destroying this nation are a fact of life that deserve being discussed. Judy belongs on the back burner, not wasting space here.
I do wonder, though, whether she’s truly sorry about taking part in wasting lives. And I’m not referring to her own.
We are talking about a 31 year old convicted felon with a history of violence; call me unfeeling but I just don’t believe any of the mitigating parts of her story (I just did the robbery so I could spend more time with my child? Not even the Lifetime network can make that story plausible. I wasn’t going for that gun in the car, I swear I didn’t even know it was there, Oh the ammo? I always carry a few clips in my purse. I use them to not shoot people). As for being convicted more for her abject stupidity during the trial rather than her actions, I find the idea of that distasteful. Three men died, had that not happened I’m sure she would be out by now no matter how big of a dumb@ss she acted like during the trial.
So the question for me is can a person who is still clearly lying about what happened really be “remorseful” or “rehabilitated”? I say no. This woman is just another malignant narcissist looking to shine the bleeding hearts into letting her go from prison. In any case Cuomo won’t do it (he’s running for future office and doing it would hurt him especially if he runs for nationwide office) so her only hope for now is Obama, my guess is that he’ll pardon her next year if he loses and in 2017 if he wins another term. It’s fantastic and wonderful irony that what is better for the revolutionary “cause” (reelection of Barack Obama) now means an extra four years in jail for her. Wonderful stuff. I guess that would be one silver lining if Obama gets reelected, 4 more years in jail for Judith Clark.
Respectfully;
Just Another Heartless Rightwinger
Yes, she committed a terrible crime; driving a getaway car makes her just as culpable in the eyes of the law as pulling the trigger. But isn’t 30 years in prison sufficient punishment, especially as she is remorseful and no longer any kind of risk to public safety? The lack of compassion shown by some posters here is truly depressing. I think Ron has more rachmonis (mercy) than David. Other than vindictiveness, what is gained by keeping her in prison till she dies? Does nobody here believe in the possibility of redemption, repentence, and forgiveness?