Peoria Pundit

On Feb. 2, 2007, Amanda Hamm’s attorney predicted his client would spend just 14 months in custody afer being sentenced to 10 years in prison for drowning her children, ages 6, 3 and 23 months. After all, she gets credit for time served waiting for trial, plus half off for good behavior. But Hamm actually served 17 months in prison, having been freed from prison today.

Look on the bright side: Hamm is still young enough to have more kids.

Links via the Peoria Journal Star:

• Here’s some discussion of traffic along West Main Street in the West Bluff. Hopefully, all these traffic studies will provide details that will replace all the anecdotal evidence that the street needs to be narrowed. I’m 45 years old and I can’t recall a time when West Main wasn’t congested. It’s certainly not as congested on Friday and Saturday nights as it was in my youth, when teens from four different counties converged to “cruise Main.” As someone who lives in the area, I don’t want to see traffic diverted onto the side streets, rather than onto Interstate 74. Frankly, I don’t buy into the contention that folks will naturally start using the interstate to avoid driving on West Main. There are instances in which it’s quicker, but easier? Interstate driving is different than driving on city streets, and I am one of those people who would rather spend 15 minutes on city roads than 7 or ten on an interstate.
• You know all these wonderful old houses that everyone wants to preserve? Well, their wonderful old lead pipes and wonderful old lead paint chips are poisoning Peoria’s children. Scientists are concluding that there is no safe level of lead. But don’t worry. Peoria’s powers-that-be for decades successfully ignored the disease-causing human feces the city was pumping into the Illinois River. No doubt everyone in a position to try to fix this problem will explain this away as a statistical fluke.
• The city has identified who is responsible for the shooting death of former Manual track star Teddy Jackson. Apparently, it was the building. The structure exerted a form of mind control on a yet-unidentified person, forcing him to obtain two handguns and fire them into a crowd. The wise and all-knowing Peoria City Hall bureaucracy, knowing full well the powers this evil structure possesses, denied it a dance hall license. But this evil building would not be denied, and it used it’s powers to find a loophole that allowed it to be rented out for events.

It’s become a habit to dismiss the lives of the victims of gun violence. So many of the victims seem to be on the wrong side of the law. The Journal Star has turned in its second-day story on the murder of Teddy Jackson, there’s no indication that the young man was a negative influence on his community. He was working as a security guard at this Christian club and was apparently trying to break up a fight.

From the Peoria Journal Star:

Teddy C. Jackson, 26, of 2020 W. Howett St., was shot in the head about 1:05 a.m. outside The Rock Christian Entertainment Complex, 815 S.W. Adams St., according to Peoria police. He was pronounced dead in the emergency room at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center at 1:30 a.m., said Peoria County Coroner Johnna Ingersoll.

We will no doubt be inundated with theories, rumors, accusations and denials. The young man was apparently a patron of a Christian dance club that night (Website here), and there will be those who will no doubt complain about that concept as well.

All I’m going to say is that offer my condolences to his family, friends and the Manual High School community.

Unless noted, all links are via the Journal Star:

• The 18-year-old who was found murdered behind Sterling School apparently had an “unconventional relationship” with the man prosecutors say killed her. No kidding. There was an eyewitness to the murder, they say. And she snitched. Apparently she never got the memo saying that Peorians never talk to police.
• Some details on the new school calender. Why in the Hell did Peorians have to go through all this for? It was a stupid idea to begin with, and D-150 compounded the problem by getting its back up over criticism. Well, at least the district is in the black.
• Oh, good heavens. A tourist attraction is gonna close two days a week. Will the bloodletting never end?
• A New York Times reporter is going to visit Peoria to tell us details of the Rwandan recovery effort and that we screwed up in Iran.
• Here is nice long article about how the City of Peoria is getting input from the public about the city’s budget. Not much in the story about what that input has been, though. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they folks want more essential services and lower taxes.
• The Peoria Journal Star’s award-winning editorial page today opines on the practice of not paying attention while walking around. They are opposed.
• HOINews: Free public WiFi comes to Normal. I’m guessing, though, that within 10 years or so, new technology and competition will make municipal wi-fi unnecessary.
• WEEK: My condolences to the family, friends and comrades of Rockford native Private First Class David John Badie, who was killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan.

The California Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of WIlliam Dennis, convicted by a Santa Clara County jury for the 1984 Halloween night murders of his former wife and her unborn child.

In an unanimous opinion written by Justice Ming Chin, the Supreme Court rejected Dennis’ appellate arguments challenging the convictions and the imposition of the death penalty.

Deputy DA Pauly Kuty said that “it was a horrible crime.” Dennis remains far from an execution date because he is likely to seek further appeals.

A jury in 1988 found Dennis guilty of using a machete with an 18-inch blade to slay his ex-wife, Doreen Rae Erbert, and her 8-month fetus at their San Jose home. Prosecutors argued at trial that Dennis, now 47, had plotted to kill his ex-wife and her husband as revenge for the 1980 death of his 4-year-old son, who drowned in Erbert’s swimming pool.

The jury convicted Dennis of 1st degree murder for Doreen Erbert’s death, and of 2nd degree murder for the killing of the fetus. Dennis conceded he was the assailant who donned a Halloween mask and went to the nearby home of Erbert. After his ex-wiftold him to leave, Dennis struck her repeatedly with a heavy blade. Jurors said they did not haev enough proof that Dennis knew his former wife was pregnant to convict him of 1st degree murder of the fetus.

Defense lawyers for Dennis argued at trial that he should not be given the death penalty because he was so tormented by the death of his son.

(source: San Jose Mercury News)

,tags>California Supreme Court,death penalty,death row,murder,william dennis,Santa Clara County,Ming Chin