We have been following this awful story out of Houston for much of this month.
First, video surfaced of a psychopathic thug body-slamming a 44-year-old mother in the course of a robbery, paralyzing her from the waist down as he robbed her of over $4,000.
Thankfully, police found him after a relatively brief search.
Yet this week we learn that this depraved crook apparently won the sympathetic ear of Judge Kristin Guiney, who decided that it just wasn't right to keep such a lunatic behind bars while he awaits trial:
A Houston teen has been accused of slamming a mother of three into the ground during a "jugging" robbery that left the victim paralyzed — and he appeared this week in court, where he had his bond slashed in half to $100,000.
Getting a bond cut by 50% is pretty astonishing.
Getting it cut after you nearly killed a woman and consigned her to years of painful, difficult physical therapy for only a fighting shot at walking again — well, that's kind of, you know, unheard of.
What did he do, bake the judge cookies? Offer to mow her lawn?
But wait: It gets even more insane.
Prosecutors had asked for the $200,000 bond because he had just been released on a $100 bond on Jan. 26 on an unlawful carrying of a weapon charge.
But his court-appointed attorney argued Wednesday to have his bond reduced to $100,000, saying his family could not afford to spring him.
You're telling me this guy has already been sprung once on low bond, and they're doing it again?
This is the kind of thing that makes you question the very foundation of the U.S. legal system.
Or at least the one in Houston, anyway.
Oh but don't worry, even if he manages to get out of jail a second time after a serious criminal charge, the court has totally arranged for him to be kept on lockdown or something.
"It was confirmed that bond conditions are in place that would place Mr. Harrell on 24-hour house arrest and require him to wear a GPS monitor should family members be able to post sufficient bonds at some point in the future," his attorney, Catherine Evans, told Fox News.
Uh huh. Let me explain this to the court carefully:
- This man has been charged with aggravated robbery. That's a serious charge. Particularly in Texas. If he's convicted of this charge, he could be facing about 100 years in prison.
- A man who's depraved and unhinged enough to paralyze an innocent woman just to steal some money is also unbalanced enough to try and run for it if he's facing a century behind bars.
- When a crook like this makes a run for it, he very often ends up hurting other innocent people during his flight.
Do I have to keep going? Do I need to make the point any further?
