Paul DeMarco: lock 'em up and throw away the key!

Alabama's morning news. I'm JT. Paul DeMarco joins us in the studio this morning. Happy Friday, Paul, good to see you. Good morning. Hope y'all are well today. Yeah, we're doing fantastic. It's a weekend. We got sunshine for the next 10 days, 70s. I mean, let's come on. Looking forward to a lot of outdoor events this weekend. Let's go. All right, well, let's talk about what's going on in California. I'm sure you saw this case. Yesterday broke. This guy named David Allen Funston was convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting multiple children under the age of seven years old back in the 90s, all right? Convicted, 16 felonies, gets two 25 for life-to-life sentences on top of that, more charges, actually three consecutive terms of 25 years to life. He served a couple of decades in prison. And now because California has this California's elderly parole program, he's getting out. I'm sorry. I think the death penalty should be there for people that commit sexual assaults on children under the age of seven. Sixteen convictions, not charges, convictions on doing this. And now they're looking to let him out. He's 64 years old. Apparently that's an elderly person in California. I'm sorry, the death penalty for him. Gavin Newsom, they went to him about it. The police are furious about it. Even the district attorney, furious about letting this guy out. Apparently, it's the parole board's decision. Gavin Newsom says, I'm not getting in this. Send it back to the parole board. Let them decide what to do. Horrible situation for those crime victims, for those families. This is what's wrong with our criminal justice system across the country. Let me add an Alabama take to this. You've got folks here in Alabama that want that to happen here in Alabama with elderly prisoners. Well, well, they can't hurt anybody anymore. It doesn't matter. Look what they have done to these kids. Look at these crime victims. It sticks with them for the rest of their life. I don't care if you're 40 or 80. If you committed a crime like this, a monster, as they described him. That's exactly right. Horrible, violent felon. You should die in prison. This is not complicated. And I agree with you. Or you should give them the death penalty. 100%. You mentioned it. The judge described him as the monster parents fear the most. You know, and like you said, this guy's not 100 years old and terminally ill and dying in two weeks. And even then, if you do this to kids under the age of seven. Sorry, you're not getting out. I don't care. You die in jail. Goodbye. You're lucky to be alive. You're lucky to go get lunch tomorrow in the jail cafeteria. Look around the country. We have got elected officials who are putting violent felons. above crime victims. And it's going on across the country. We saw it in Washington, D.C. during the state of the union, they would, these folks had no respect for the mother whose daughter was killed in Charlotte. Right. I mean, look at where we are in this country, unfortunately. Let me ask you, you're a lawyer. Is there an appellate process that can go against this parole board and take it to the courts and say, sorry, this time? Or is it already in stone in their whatever?

laws they've set up. It can't be appealed. Every state is different, but it sounds like in California that the parole board makes that decision, and then that's the make decision. Every state is different when it comes to that. Well, see, this is what happens when you're like Democrats that are loose on, you know, criminals, you know, and just forget about the victims. I mean, you're letting a predator back out on the streets. He's 64 years old. That's not that old. And secondly, Every psychiatrist, psychologist I've talked to says these types of guys, their brains are not rehabilitative. But we've got problems here in Alabama. We've got bureaucrats making decisions about whether to release and folks that should never be on the street. So it's not surprising that California has got this terrible criminal justice system. But people need to be talking to their elected officials right here in Alabama about the problems we have in our own system. Well, we've got a case right now in Dadeville. How many years ago was this? Two or three years ago, I think. Four people were shot, and now they're cutting a deal with these criminals to, I guess, serve possibly only five years for killing four people. What are we doing here in the state of Alabama? Why is that even being considered? Is there any chance that Steve Marshall might be able to jump into this and say, hold on, time out, everybody, and take over the case? I don't know how you prevent this from going forward, but it sounds like it's going to be another one of those cases where... These people need to spend more time in jail. And I get plea bargains all the time to get some conviction. But these guys are clearly... you know, looking at major jail time, why would you give into something like this? As your listeners recall, this was that mass shooting in Dadeville, happened at a party. There were four people killed, 28 injured. There were a number of shooters. Some of them, there was a couple that came under the youthful offender status, which means they could only serve three years. That's hopefully we get fixed this year with the bill in the legislature. But let me just tell you that the crime victims are really upset that some of these individuals could serve, you know, less than five years in prison when really... They were originally charged with murder and capital murder. So that's what some of the crime victims are saying, if the district attorney does not want to do this or move forward, they want Steve Marshall, their attorney general, to take over the prosecution of the case. Look, I agree you've got to give district attorneys some sort of leeway to make decisions on cases on a basis about some sort of discretion. But when you have something like this, the horrible crime like this where kids were murdered. you've got to move forward, no matter how difficult it is to say we've got to move forward with a prosecution to put these individuals in jail. Well, I think the country was asleep as far as being serious about fighting crime and getting on people with the Joe Biden administration. We're just like, okay, it can't be that bad, can it? And sure enough, yeah, it can't be that bad. And it is, I feel the wave on all this is starting to sweep the nation back to where it needs to be. And hopefully it's going to happen here with our legislation now, too. Yeah, and we've got some of the lowest crime rights now because of what the president has done around the country. All right, we're going to take a break. We'll do the bottom of the hour update with Fox News and Leah Brandon. Check traffic and weather together. Don't go away, Paul. It's time for the secret sound game on the other side of that. Kids are waiting. All right, stay here.