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This jerk's lawyer argues that the First Amendment should apply to prisoners in supermax for life without parole.
Maybe the Second Amendment should apply, too? :roll: Where do people get such ideas?
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro ... 0515a.html
Maybe the Second Amendment should apply, too? :roll: Where do people get such ideas?
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro ... 0515a.html
Rudolph taunts victims from prison
Supporter's Web posts of Centennial Olympic Park bomber's may be within prison rules, laws.
By Jay Reeves
Associated Press
Published on: 05/15/07
Victims of Eric Rudolph â€"- the anti-abortion extremist convicted in the fatal bombing at Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta â€"- say he is taunting them from deep within the nation's most secure federal prison, and authorities say there is little they can do to stop him.
Rudolph, who also was convicted in a 1998 bombing at a Birmingham abortion clinic, is housed in the most secure part of the "Supermax" prison in Colorado. He has no computer and little contact with the outside world, aside from writing letters.
But Rudolph's long essays have been posted on the Internet by a supporter who maintains a Web site for the Army of God, the same loose-knit group that Rudolph claimed to represent in letters sent after the blasts.
In one piece, Rudolph seeks to justify violence against abortion clinics by arguing that Jesus would condone "militant action in defense of the innocent."
In another essay about his sentencing, Rudolph mocks former abortion clinic nurse Emily Lyons, who was nearly killed in the bombing in Birmingham, and her husband, Jeff. He uses pseudonyms rather than naming the couple, but there is no doubt he is describing them.
Rudolph recalls how Emily Lyons, in court, described the pain of her injuries and made an obscene gesture at Rudolph as she showed off a finger mangled by the blast. Rudolph writes: "It was a great speech and one that the denizens of freedom should be proud to enshrine in a museum somewhere. Perhaps they could put it next to MLKs 'I Have a Dream.' They could call it 'I Have a Middle Finger.'"
Jeff Lyons said he doesn't often look at the Web site, which has had some items posted for nearly two years. But he said he is worried that Rudolph's messages could incite someone to violence against abortion providers.
"He's still sending out harassing communication. He's still hurting us," Lyons said.
"This guy has too much of a voice," complained Rob Stadler, news director at the Star 94 radio station. Rudolph has acknowledged setting off two bombs at a Sandy Springs abortion clinic in 1997 that nearly killed Stadler, his twin daughters and his wife.
"We're not supposed to hear from his again," Stadler said. "We're not supposed to see him again. Let's silence the guy."
"What a sick man," said Ken Magee, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was in Centennial Olympic Park the night Rudolph's bomb blast killed Alice Hawthorne of Albany and severely injured her daughter, Fallon Stubbs.
Oregon resident Magee, who tended to Stubbs' wounds, said he hopes most people see Rudolph's writing "for what it's worth â€"- rhetoric and rambling of a very disturbed individual."
State Sen. Tommie Williams (R-Lyons) said the posting of Rudolph's essays on the Web is similar to prisoners being allowed to display photographs of their victims in their cells. Williams sponsored legislation that would outlaw the practice for Georgia prisoners and said he believes Rudolph's mail should be censored.
"We should consider the victims who have been abused by this criminal," he said. "Whatever goes out of a prison cell or into a prison cell ought to be screened, and if what's going out is offending victims, then it ought to be stopped."
But Rudolph's Atlanta lawyer, Paul Kish, said the confessed bomber is entitled to express his opinion.
"We're a country of laws and people have rights, even when they've done very bad things," Kish said.
Bureau of Prisons regulations give wardens the right to reject correspondence by an inmate for "the protection of the public, or if it might facilitate criminal activity." That includes material "which may lead to the use of physical violence." But U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, who helped prosecute Rudolph for the Alabama bombing, said there is nothing the prison can do to restrict Rudolph or the supporter who keeps posting his writings, anti-abortion activist Donald Spitz of Chesapeake, Va.
"An inmate does not lose his freedom of speech," she said.
Spitz said he corresponds regularly with Rudolph and posts some of Rudolph's essays because of their shared desire to end abortion. As for those who might be offended, he said, "They don't have to look at it on the Web site."
John Hawthorne, husband of bombing victim Alice Hawthorne, said he isn't bothered by Rudolph's essays.
"As far as I'm concerned he's out of sight, out of mind," Hawthorne said. "I don't mind him saying whatever he's going to say as long as they keep him locked up."
Staff writer Kevin Duffy contributed comments from Rob Stadler, Ken Magee, Tommie Williams and Paul Kish.
