Fox News reports on the arrest of a man suspected of killing a woman just hours after being released from state prison. David Bohart, 34, had been released from the Tucson state prison complex after serving a three-year stint for possession or use of dangerous drugs, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections. He had served two previous terms in prison on convictions for forgery and possession or use of dangerous drugs.
The murder victim is Marika Jones, 49, who was stabbed to death at home. Authorities say it’s not clear what connection Bohart had to Jones. However, they found a file of prison records regarding Bohart at the crime scene.
Note that Bohart was only in prison for possession or use of dangerous drugs. The federal felons for whom President Trump and other misguided conservatives seek early release are traffickers. As a group, they are more dangerous than mere users.
Bohart was a non-violent offender. His crimes were drug possession/use and forgery. Yet, it appears that he committed the most violent of crimes immediately upon release. This illustrates the foolhardiness of supposing that non-violent offenders pose very little risk of violence upon release from prison — a central assumption of the jailbreak legislation Trump supports.
The assumption did not hold true for Bohart, a genuine non-violent offender. It certainly does not hold true for drug traffickers — a class of criminal that arguably shouldn’t be considered non-violent in the first place.
Without more information, I’ll assume that Arizona could not have kept Bohart in jail any longer than it did. But that won’t be true of the beneficiaries of jailbreak legislation, if it’s enacted. If that happens, some of those released from prison early — and eventually some of those who receive shorter sentences at the front end — will commit heinous crimes when, absent such legislation, they would have been in jail.
Supporters of the jailbreak bill will have to be held accountable.
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