May 26, 2011

In a Sanctuary City, An Illegal Immigrant Gets the Death Penalty

By David Paulin
Areli Carbajal Escobar, a violent 32-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico, had a long rap sheet.  Over the years in the sanctuary city of Austin, Texas, police and prosecutors had many contacts with him. Yet Escobar was never deported. Now, immigration problems are the least of Escobar's worries.  Last week, a Travis County jury sentenced him to death for the brutal rape and murder of a high school honor student. Texas may lead the nation for executions, but most condemned murderers aren't from Austin, the capital, and surrounding Travis County -- for both are enclaves of liberal Democrats in an otherwise red state.  In Travis County, murderers aren't often sentenced to death. But an exception was made for Escobar -- given the brutality of his crime, lack of remorse, and long criminal history.  As a reader of the Austin American-Statesman observed in an online comment: "When a latte-sipping, Volvo-driving, NPR-listening Travis County...(Read Full Article)