Sara Jane Moore, who tried to kill Gerald Ford, freed

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Sara Jane Moore, whose 1975 assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford was foiled in San Francisco, was released today from a Dublin prison.
Moore, 77, had been scheduled for release on Tuesday, but she was instead freed a day early.

Moore pleaded guilty to attempted assassination and was sentenced to life in prison. She was released after 30 years because she had not broken prison rules, said Tom Hutchison, chief of staff for the U.S. Parole Commission.

The mother of four children, Moore fired a single pistol shot at Ford on Sept. 22, 1975, as the president stood in front of the St. Francis Hotel, near Union Square. She missed, mostly because a bystander knocked her arm away as she fired.

Her attempt came less than three weeks after Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme pointed a loaded revolver at Ford in Sacramento. She was arrested before she could fire a shot.



Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_7850790?nclick_check=1

I remember it well; I was a senior in college. Absolutely whacky that two women tried to kill Gerald Ford in a three-week period.

Squeaky is going nowhere, I am sure.

Sad, considering she was under the influence of Charles Manson, but true all the same.

she isn't going to be hurting anyone.

77 yr olds are just as capable of pulling triggers, right?

She might not win in a fist fight, but anyone with a gun can be dangerous.

the American people.

"If we can't have the opportunity of talking with one another, seeing one another, shaking hands with one another, something has gone wrong in our society. I think it's important that we as a people don't capitulate to the wrong element," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071231/ap_on_re_us/assailant_released

Too bad he was such an establishment hack, though. The Warren Commission, the pardon...

From Keith's Dec. 27, 2006, show devoted to Ford after his death:

"And perhaps, despite all of the qualifiers, perhaps one of our most important presidents, the calm after the storm that was Richard Nixon and Watergate. The seasoned professional, matter-of-factly smoothly healing a nation‘s wounds, honored in fact, for having done just that in the inaugural address of the man who would succeed him and fondly remembered for his good humor about himself."

Gerald Ford couldn't be elected dogcatcher in today's fascist Republican Party. From his comments, I don't think he would want to.

since errand boy was a role in which he found himself quite comfortable.

But he did teach a generation that the higher up you go, the more you can get away with and never get punished, even if you get caught. And didn't Gonzales and Cheney and Libby learn that well.

The conventional wisdom myth about "healing" is right up there with Saddam has WMD.

i mean c'mon,Ford? 5-10 tops.
they give the guy who tried for Reagan day passes for crying out loud.

President Rockefeller... tin foil hat alert... :yoiks:

It's not like she's going to get the chance to do it again.

Mz Pip
:dem:

They won't have a chance to "do it again" either.

Whether or not any specific individual is worthy of being released is not a question that can be addressed with such a broad-brush question.

(Note to DU'ers up here in the Real World: Down in the Gungeon, there are individuals advocating that released felons be able to have firearms, with little or no consideration of the crimes of which they were convicted.)

What do you say, Slack? Too broad-brush for you?

What do you say, Slack? Too broad-brush for you?

I think she's proved herself to be unstable enough that, if I had a say in it, I'd suggest that she remain restricted from owning a gun. Or voting. If I ran the zoo I probably wouldn't have approved letting her or any other proven violent felon out of prison, ever.

All I said in my previous post was that every prisoner deserves fair parole hearings. I'm sure you recall the flap last year when John Hinckley Jr. requested that he be granted unsupervised weekend visits with his parents. We have processes to determine the merit of requests like that. That works for me, as long as justice is given out uniformly and fairly.

But in reality your question is moot, Paladin. California presently has no process for a convicted felon to apply for relief from disability. She'd have to move to another state to have any chance at all.

...there are individuals advocating that released felons be able to have firearms, with little or no consideration of the crimes of which they were convicted....

You mean like Sarah Brady and Paul Helmke?

http://www.bradycampaign.org/media/release.php?release=953

There is a bill working its way through Congress that would obligate states to provide a path for a person to apply for relief. It's the same bill being pushed by the Brady Campaign to clarify states' responsibilities for making timely reports to the National Instant Check System of events that disqualify individuals (under federal law) from owning firearms, and provide for financial relief for states that encounter hardships in meeting those obligations.

As to whether no consideration is given to the crimes of which people were convicted, I haven't seen any reliable source of information to back up that statement. It does not pass the smell test IMO. Relief from disability was originally intended to provide a path to rehabilitation for non-violent people like tax felons.

....there are Gungeon denizens who have advocated exactly the sort of guns-for-felons policy I mentioned. Why don't you make their day and inform them that they're in bed with Brady and Helmke?

Full credit to you for being against Moore having guns....

The cognitive dissonance created by the Bradys and the NRA supporting the same bill is more than some people can handle. (I mean people on both extremes.)

She didn't. It was a failed attempt and while I don't really have a problem with her staying in jail, I also don't see much point in keeping her in.

True, her intention was to knock off Ford, I do think there is a difference between intending to and succeeding at.

Mz Pip
:dem:

or any other federal officer, for that matter. Under federal law, an attempted murder of a federal official is subject to the same penalties as a successful murder.

This actually isn't that unusual. Its fairly common, I believe, for states to treat the attempted murder of a police officer as subject to the same maximum penalty as a successful murder. And in other jurisdictions, the difference between the maximum penalty for attempted murder and murder is that the death penalty applies to the latter, but only life imprisonment to the former.

"so should sirhan sirhan and mark david chapman be let out of jail"

All other things being equal, if we're applying the precise same standards and assuming the sentencing was exactly the same, AND they behaved appropriately in prison as did Pres. Ford's would-be assassins, then yes-- let them out too.

But since different situations done by different people for different reasons so rarely line up in precise and relevant parallels in intent, action and consequence, I'd imagine that Chapman and Sirhan still have time to serve...

while some drug dealers get mandatory life sentences? What is wrong with this picture? She should have spent the rest of her life in prison. She tried to kill a President and no matter what one thought of his policies, he was still the only one we had.

desperate for the approval of a radical counterculture that dismissed her as a possible security risk. In frustration, she said, she would call the FBI from time to time and feed agents insider tidbits ...

Would-be Ford assassin released from prison
By Steve Chawkins, Larry Gordon and Richard Winton
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
January 1, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-ford1jan01,1,2916191,full.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california&ctrack=1&cset=true

:evilgrin:

Very sad story.

She's one of the few living Presidential assassins who could see themselves on stage. John Hinckley Jr. is years away from any possible parole.

What greater punishment is there than to be old on the mean streets of America with no health care?

I was going to say something, but I'm afraid I would get a warning from a Mod if I said what I really wanted to say. Sometimes I wish we still lived in a land where you could say what is on your mind. Oh, and no--this isn't about the original poster, but about hopes and wishes better left unsaid.

:evilgrin:

30 years is a very long time....
Squeaky will never get out....

from their wounds and from PTSD. That is the true tragedy, that we conveniently forget. I was reading about Audie Murphy and his battle with PTSD. Most of the men who fought in Desert Storm and in this Afghanistan and Iraq war will die young and unnecessarily sometime in the future and our country will be poorer because of their battle with PTSD. You may be wondering how I know all this. My father fought in WWII and Korea and died at the age of 51 and my dad who fought in Korea, died at the age of 64. My brother who just served in the service for a few years, no war, died at age 25. I love the military, but it is a hazard to the health of most of its members, especially when someone like * is in charge.

ie retired US servicemen have a lower life expectancy than non-servers?

tab used to visit younger troops who were showing the signs of PTSD. I could see it even then. I also grew up as military and married military. The higher rate would fall mainly in the troops who are combat types not desk types. My brother died young because young troops sometimes settle their disagreements with physical force instead of negotiation. they are quick to whip out the fists.

While I understand you have a certain point of view based upon your particular family situation, your allegation is pure anecdote. You made an allegation, military types die young. So we can test it. We can examine the life expectancy of military types v. non-military types. I am sure it has been done. But without the data I don't see how you can reasonably expect anyone to believe you.

"But without the data I don't see how you can reasonably expect anyone to believe you."


Well, my anecdotal evidence in conjunction with her anecdotal evidence reasonably leads me to believe her...

Big deal. I don't apply the scientific method of statistics to each and every presumption I make. I'm sure there are people who do-- but I doubt they're much fun at parties...

"Man-- that's the best beer ever!"
"Oh really? Do you have peer-reviewed scientific studies to back that up?"
"No."
"Well, I can't reasonably believe you then..."
"Riiight. Have a nice evening..."


Sheesh.

then took his own life at age 50.

The military life is quite a stressful one - most people cannot understand what constant moving does to you - I know because I grew up as a GI brat and also served.

"After discovering her son's secret, Sipple's mother reacted to the knowledge of her son's sexual orientation by cutting off contact with him."

This, after he goes off to fight a war, gets wounded, and saves the President's life. How does the mind of a mother who does that to his son work?

Mankind is rotten.

Is she celebrating by sharing a few cold ones with Neil?

Ms. Moore will be on the first plane to Caracas I presume.

"...convinced that convinced that the government had declared war on the left.

“I am very glad I did not succeed. I know now that I was wrong to try,” Moore said a year ago in an interview with KGO-TV.

Just 17 days before Moore's attempt, Ford had survived the first attempt on his life in Sacramento by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson.

“I was functioning, I think, purely on adrenalin and not thinking clearly,” Moore told KGO. “I have often said that I had put blinders on and I was only listening to what I wanted to hear.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20071231-1403-ca-ford-assassinationattempt.html

A slightly different version of this story by Paul Elias of the Associated Press appears in today's print edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

I found the timing amusing coming soon after a GD thread dealing with assassinations.

She was funneling information on the Bay Area radical left to the government. It's a case of her guilty conscience and derangement when she realized the radical left weren't the bad guys. They should be careful in who they recruit.

for would-be-political-assassins ( Arthur Bremer and Sara Jane Moore )

Arthur Bremer and George Wallace - Déjà Vu all over again

Real History Blog: Happy New Year, Sara Jane Moore

Period!

There still has to be consequences for our action, Humans and their Societies haven't progressed that far.

It's not like she's a menace now.

But for how long?

Seems to me as though, without further qualification on your part, she's already passed your litmus test.