Sometimes the only rational response to modern criminal justice policy is disbelief.
According to RedState, that disbelief turns to outrage when one considers the brutal murder of young Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina, allegedly at the hands of a man with at least 14 prior arrests, and then compares it to what is unfolding in Gavin Newsoms California.
The pattern is depressingly familiar in blue jurisdictions: a justice system that bends over backward for offenders while leaving law-abiding citizens and vulnerable victims exposed to preventable violence.
The latest example comes from Californias parole bureaucracy, where a decision under the states so-called Elderly Parole Program has stunned even seasoned law enforcement officials. A California child molester once described by a judge as "the monster parents fear the most" has been cleared for release under the states elderly parole program, a decision local law enforcement says puts communities at risk and prosecutors are now scrambling to stop.
The offender, 64-year-old David Allen Funston, was convicted in 1999 after a Sacramento County jury found him guilty of 16 felony counts tied to a series of abductions involving children younger than seven. Funston received more than 20 years in prison plus three consecutive terms of 25 years to life, a sentence that in any sane system would have effectively guaranteed he would never again walk free among potential victims.
Yet after serving just over two decades, Funston became eligible for review under Californias Elderly Parole Program, a policy that treats age as a mitigating factor even for the most predatory criminals. What kind of parole program would allow this man to ever see the light of freedom again, given the nature and scope of his crimes. A progressive program, naturally, one that prioritizes abstract notions of compassion over the concrete safety of children.
The Sacramento County Sheriffs Department, in a blistering social media statement, laid out the horror of Funstons record in stark terms. "The California Parole Board has granted parole to David Allen Funston, a serial child molester who used candy and toys to lure children seven years old and younger."
The department continued by reminding the public of the scale of his predation. "He was convicted of 16 counts of kidnapping and child molestation. Multiple young children were victimized, some as young as four years old. He was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison, along with three additional consecutive sentences of 25 years to life. A judge described him as the monster parents fear the most."
Under Californias Elderly Parole Program, inmates over 50 are eligible for parole consideration, and Funston, at 64, now qualifies as an elderly inmate. The implication from the programs architects is that age alone somehow neutralizes the deviant impulses that drove his crimes, as though a predator who targeted children with candy and toys simply ages out of danger like a retired office worker. Anyone with common senseand especially any older man who understands that age does not magically erase characterknows this is a fantasy that borders on the delusional.
This is the "compassion" so often touted by Newsom-style progressives, a compassion that seems to flow almost exclusively toward criminals rather than their victims. One commentator captured the publics disgust in a viral post: "?? Good God. Prepare to be outraged like *never* before. California is giving a serial child sexual predator 'elderly parole' even though David Allen Funston is only 64. His rape victims were age 7 and under. Even liberal prosecutors are shocked."
From a conservative perspective, this is precisely what happens when ideology replaces prudence and when the states first dutyprotecting its citizensis subordinated to fashionable theories about restorative justice. President Trump has repeatedly argued that the era of lawlessness in left-wing strongholds must end, and cases like Funstons illustrate why that message resonates with parents and taxpayers who are tired of watching their communities turned into laboratories for radical experiments. The public must remember Iryna Zarutska and the countless unnamed victims of predators like Funston and start holding accountable the woke politicians and bureaucrats who design and defend these reckless policies.
Nor is Funstons case an isolated aberration; it is part of a broader pattern in Newsoms California. A California parole board just granted elder parole to a 62 yr old child rapist from my county. In 2000, a jury convicted him of over 20 counts of forcible rape and other crimes against a little girl, his step daughter. He impregnated her as well and violently tried to
The account of that case is almost too sickening to read, yet it is essential to understanding the stakes. "He impregnated her as well and violently tried to induce miscarriage by pushing her out of a car. He pointed a gun at her too and pulled the trigger. It misfired."
These are not marginal offenders or ambiguous cases where rehabilitation might reasonably be debated; they are serial predators whose crimes display a level of cruelty and calculation that should permanently disqualify them from release. When a state chooses to gamble with the safety of children in order to satisfy ideological commitments to decarceration and second chances, it is not compassion but negligence masquerading as virtue. The voters must make them pay for this mightily at the ballot box, because only political consequences will force a course correction.
There are faint signs that Californians are beginning to wake up to the costs of progressive criminal justice experiments, from rising crime to high-profile tragedies that could have been prevented. Yet until citizens rise up in large numbers to reject policies like Elderly Parole for violent predators, the state will continue to produce decisions that leave families terrified and law enforcement demoralized.
For parents who read the details of these cases, the reaction is visceral and deeply personal, not abstract or partisan. It makes my blood boil.
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