CO Murderer Pleads Guilty to Avoid Death Sentence:  A Colorado man who murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters was sentenced to five life-without-parole terms Monday.  Emily Shapiro of ABC News reports that Chris Watts pleaded guilty to all charges related to the murders last August in exchange for an agreement that prosecutors would not seek the death penalty.  The state of Colorado will likely save millions in trial and appeals costs because of the plea deal.  According to a 2009 study by CJLF;  "The average county with a death penalty disposes of 18.9% of murder cases with a plea and a long sentence, compared to 5.0% in counties without a death penalty."   Watts reported his wife and daughters missing on August 13, and made a passionate televised plea for their return to reporters from the porch of his family's home.  Watts admitted the murderers after investigators caught him in several lies about events leading up to the victims' disappearance.  Days later his wife's body was found in a shallow grave and the girls' bodies were found in an oil pit where Watts worked.   

Push to Pass Sentence Reduction Bill:  Congress is pushing to pass a bi-partisan sentencing reform measure called the "First Step Act" that would allow the release of "4,000 hardened federal prisoners" immediately upon passage, according to Daniel Horowitz at the Conservative Review.  The proponents' current plan is to combine the early release provisions of the House bill and the front end sentence reductions of the Senate bill and get it passed before the end of the year.  As usual proponents claim that the measure will cut prison costs by sending thousands of drug-dealers to halfway-houses and home-confinement under "community supervision."  The Bureau of Prisons found that such alternatives cost two to three times as much per diem as prison.  While the author agrees that code review is necessary to cure unjust sentencing disparities, cutting sentences for drug dealers by 2/3s and releasing thousands of drug dealers, including armed dealers, early will increase crime at a time when drug overdoses and urban violence are at record levels.    

Released Illegal Charged With 3 Murders:  An illegal alien released from a New Jersey jail in defiance of an ICE detainer, has been charged with killing three people in Missouri.  Louis Casiano of Fox News reports that Luis Rodrigo Perez killed the three victims and wounded two others in shootings on November 1 and November 2.  An ICE detainer for Perez was ignored by New Jersey police when they released him from the Middlesex County Jail last February after serving two months for domestic violence.  Middlesex is a sanctuary county which refuses to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.  Missouri police determined that Perez killed two men in Springfield who were former roommates who had kicked him out.  The next day Perez shot and killed a 21-year-old woman who allegedly saw him kill the two men.   Middlesex County issued a statement claiming that it would honor detainer requests from ICE if the inmate has convictions for first- or second-degree offenses or is ordered deported by a federal judge.  Considering that illegals are protected from arrest on their immigration status in sanctuary jurisdictions and that the backlog for deportation hearings before a federal judge are several months, if the illegal shows up for the hearing, the county's claim that these deaths are the fault of ICE is groundless.  

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