A guilty system

— The guilty verdict in the murder trial of Ricky Ray Anderson is yet another tragic wake-up call regarding our legal system’s inadequacies when it comes to protecting the most sacred of all rights.

The right to life is the very first unalienable right identified in Thomas Jefferson’s timeless phrase, placed appropriately ahead of both liberty and the pursuit of happiness because, obviously, without it any subsequent rights are useless.

On June 26 last year, Jill Lynn Ulmer had all her rights taken from her. When Anderson brutally deprived her of her right to life by stabbing her between 25 and 30 times, she lost her right to worship, to peaceably assemble, to speak freely, to bear arms, to be secure in her person and things, to claim due process, to vote, even to choose life for her baby. (She was 2 1 /2 months pregnant.)

Like most violent criminals, Anderson was a defective citizen already identified as a danger by the government. His attack on Ulmer might not have been completely predictable, but itwas hardly a shocking surprise. He had a solid history of breaking the law and infringing on other people’s rights.

It was no secret that Anderson was capable of violence; it was an officially documented fact. He was on parole after convictions in Oklahoma for aggravated assault and armed robbery. He had been out of prison barely a year before killing Ulmer.

Furthermore, the government was well aware that he posed a direct danger to Ulmer. On two occasions in 2009, she filed for restraining orders because she feared for her life. She had plenty of reason to be afraid. In her petitions for the orders of protection, she described his overt threats against her verbatim.

Anderson “said he would beat me so bad I couldn’t call the police andtold me he would kill me,” Ulmer wrote in her Feb. 4 petition. After the couple broke up on June 4, her worries heightened. “He told me if he ever saw me again, he’d make it where no one else would ever want me again,” she wrote in her June 8 petition.

When a violent felon makes such threats, they must never be brushed off as the hollow, emotional ranting of a spurned lover.

On June 7, police arrested Anderson on a criminal mischief charge after he reportedly broke into Ulmer’s apartment and destroyed her televisionset and other property in a rage. He sat in jail until June 18, when he was freed on $3,500 bond.

The very next day, his first out of jail, Anderson used both texting and voice mail to contact Ulmer despite the order of protection she had againsthim. This time his get-out-of-jail card cost only $1,000.

Anderson’s fiendish intentions toward Ulmer couldn’t have been more pronounced if he had taken out an ad. He finally made good on them by overpowering her, pinning her down, beating her and stabbing her with a butcher knife. Most of the last eight minutes of her life were spent on the phone in terror with a 911 operator.

This series of events, leading to its inevitable result, should never be allowed to repeat itself. But the law hasn’t changed. Men with histories of violence continue to waltz throughmisnamed orders of protection to attack, harm and kill women.

There’s no special restraining order to deal with threats from violent felons, even though data show that paroled violent criminals are overwhelmingly predisposed to commit more violence.

Why not adopt a zero-tolerance policy for convicted felons and parolees when it comes to restraining orders? Don’t toss them in county jail. Send them back to prison and make them serve out the remainder of their sentences. That simple remedy might have saved Ulmer’s life and countless others’.

Adding injurious insult to homicide, Anderson denied ever stabbing Ulmer, and his attorneys all but accused the police of recklessly killing her because one of the nine shots they fired at Anderson to stop his attackricocheted off the couch and struck her in the head.

After what Ulmer’s father understatedly described as 15 “agonizing” months, a convicted Anderson apologized and asked for forgiveness.

I wish the judge had told Anderson that criminal justice is an area in which weneed more separation of church and state. Mercy is the realm of religion. The court’s duty is punishment, restitution and the prevention of further crimes.

A great start toward that end would be to put real teeth, the kind that violent criminals like Anderson understand, into restraining and protection orders. The red flags of imminent violence are everywhere in such cases. The inexcusable thing is to ignore them.

Dana D. Kelley is a free-lance writer from Jonesboro.

Editorial, Pages 15 on 09/24/2010

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