With the death of Carlie Brucia it is clear, there are monsters among us. Carlie, an 11-year old from Sarasota, Florida, was abducted and murdered by a man with an extensive criminal record, a man who by all rights should have been in the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections. Joseph Smith is the murderer but the system that afforded him the opportunity to murder is the monster.

This young girl, a "shining light that will not be lost”, as her school principal put it, was simply walking home from a friend’s house after a slumber party. Her only mistake, as if walking without fear in our free and civil society should be categorized as a mistake, was taking a short-cut from her friend’s house to her own. It was along the path of this short-cut that she met the murderer who would cut her life short.

Joseph Smith is no stranger to the criminal justice system. In 1993 he was convicted of aggravated battery and sentenced to probation. In 1997 he was arrested and charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment. Prior to that he was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon. Smith faced a myriad of drug charges, and in 2001 was convicted of heroin possession, possession of controlled substances, and attempting to obtain controlled substances by fraudulent means. He was convicted and sentenced to prison but served little more than a year and was on probation when Carlie was abducted and killed. If there is anyone on the face of the planet that doesn’t see something wrong with this then we have found a person living without an ability to reason, without common sense and evidently without a soul; most likely a product of our permissive, "it’s not my fault”, "progressive” society.

To be certain, Joseph Smith is an ominous figure. But an even more disturbing element in this case is the fact someone with such a tainted and alarming past would be free to walk at will throughout our neighborhoods, calculating, even stalking, until an innocent 11-year old girl made the mistake of taking a short-cut home from a friend’s house.

On December 30th Smith’s probation officer made a petition in a Florida court to have Smith’s probation revoked for drug related parole violations. The Florida judge who heard the petition refused the request, why he would do such a thing is unknown. In light of this only one conclusion can be made, if the judge who ruled on the probation officer’s petition would have enforced the law Carlie would be alive today. There is no other way to look at this but to say that the system failed Carlie, her family and the people of this country. This fact is nauseating.

There are many elements to the failure of our judicial system and the level of tolerance for criminal offenders in our society today. Activist and liberally biased judges need to take their portion of the blame for the tolerance in sentencing they afford violent criminals. While it may be acceptable for those who perpetrate non-violent crimes to receive discretionary sentencing those who perpetrate violent crimes, such as Joseph Smith, should be dealt with harshly. Had Smith received appropriate sentencing in the first place, had his probation violation been addressed, Carlie would be alive today.

Then we have the liberal activists that protest the death penalty as being cruel and unusual punishment, that contend rehabilitation works, that maintain these beliefs without concern for the barbarous acts committed. Evidently the rehabilitation of Joseph Smith didn’t work. We all found that out with the discovery of Carlie’s body. While celebrities like Jeanine Garofalo and Sean Penn sit hand-in-hand with convicted murderers the likes of Kevin Cooper, a man convicted in 1983 of using a buck knife and hatchet to murder a California couple, their 10-year-old daughter and their daughter’s 11-year-old friend, Carlie Brucia’s family is selecting the clothes in which the 11-year old girl will be buried.

These celebrity advocates of "offender’s rights” apparently haven’t the wherewithal to grasp the insanity of the argument they advocate. They sit with people who have kidnapped and butchered, protesting the punishment, punishment the offenders have brought upon themselves, while the victim’s families live on, robbed of their loved ones, existing with no hope of their return, deprived of any memories the future held for them with their loved ones, all because these murderous pieces of refuse acted out in violence, the pinnacle of their contribution to society.

What is the proper punishment for someone who abducts an 11-year old girl and kills her? What is the proper punishment for someone who abducts a teenaged girl from where she works, kills her and refuses to allow her parents closure by revealing where he "disposed” of the body?

How is it that our society, at least the liberal element of it, has gone so far astray from approaching individual actions with an iota of common sense? How is it that we as a society, at least the liberal element of it, have become more concerned with the rights of offenders who have been convicted by a jury of their peers then the rights of those who abide by the law? How has it come to the point that we shake our heads at the abduction and slaughter of our countries youth by repeat offenders and instead of doing something about it simply chalk it up to the "cracks” in the system? Where is the blind justice? Where is the outrage?

President Bush needs to articulate the fact he and his administration stand for all the elements of national security including protecting law-abiding citizens from the inaction of our own judicial system. The rampant epidemic of judicial and liberal activism has become a danger to our society and the right thing must be done to correct the misguided direction these factions have chosen. The memory of Carlie Brucia screams out from beyond the grave for justice. Who are we not to listen?

Frank Salvato is a political media consultant and the managing editor for The New Media Journal.us. He is a contributing writer for The Washington Dispatch, GOPUSA, OpinionEditorials, Men’s News Daily, Canada Free Press & AmericanDaily. His pieces are regularly featured in Townhall.com. He has appeared as a guest on The O’Reilly Factor, The Kevin Matthews Radio Show (Chicago) and The Brad Messer Radio Show (San Antonio). His pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention and are occasionally featured in The Washington Times and The London Morning Paper as well as other national and international publications.