{"id":26793,"date":"2023-07-24T12:05:12","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T17:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=26793"},"modified":"2023-07-24T12:05:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T17:05:12","slug":"obit-watch-july-24-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=26793","title":{"rendered":"Obit watch: July 24, 2023."},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Barancik<\/a> has passed away at 98.<\/p>\n

The Monuments Men and Women were composed of about 350 people \u2014 among them museum directors, curators, scholars, historians and artists \u2014 whose missions included steering Allied bombers away from cultural targets in Europe; overseeing repairs when damages occurred; and tracking down millions of objects plundered by the Nazis and returning them to the institutions, and the countries, they came from.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr. Barancik was the last surviving member of this group.<\/p>\n

Mr. Barancik (pronounced ba-RAN-sick) was one of four members of what was formally called the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section to receive the Congressional Gold Medal in 2015 in Washington for their \u201cheroic role in the preservation, protection, restitution of monuments, works of art and artifacts of cultural importance.\u201d<\/a>
\nOn the day of the ceremony, Mr. Barancik told The Los Angeles Times: \u201cThe Americans cared about the cultural traditions of Europe. We did everything we could to salvage what the Nazis had done. It\u2019s the best we could do.\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mike Reynolds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At first, the murder of Mr. Reynolds\u2019s daughter, Kimber, seemed like just one more statistic. An 18-year-old college student home in Fresno on summer break, she was attacked one night in June 1992 by two men on motorcycles who tried to grab her purse.<\/a>
\nWhen she resisted, one of the men, Joseph Michael Davis, shot her in the head, in front of dozens of witnesses. She was rushed to a hospital and died 26 hours later.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of the murderers was killed in a shootout with police.<\/p>\n

His accomplice, Douglas Walker, was arrested and reached a plea deal for a nine-year sentence with parole after four and a half, despite having a previous felony conviction. Mr. Reynolds decided that there should be a law to keep people like him locked up.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His efforts stalled out at first. Then Polly Klass was murdered.<\/p>\n

Almost overnight, public outrage over Polly\u2019s murder turned into support for Mr. Reynolds\u2019s campaign. Calls came in to his Fresno headquarters in such volume that they overloaded the city\u2019s 1-800 system. Within weeks, he had the signatures he needed.<\/a>
\nThe bill also found a new life in the Legislature, as state and national politicians, facing election in the fall of 1994, raced to appear tough on crime. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and her Republican opponent that year, Representative Michael Huffington, both endorsed the bill.<\/a>
\nThis time it sailed through both chambers of the Legislature, and Governor Wilson signed it into law in March. That fall, the accompanying ballot initiative passed with overwhelming support. In the years that followed, two dozen states, inspired by California, enacted their own three-strikes laws.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tiny violin watch:<\/p>\n

The law had, and continues to have, its detractors. Critics claimed it would overcrowd the prisons, drive up the cost of incarceration and clog the courts, as criminals facing life in prison would be less likely to reach a plea agreement.<\/a>
\nIt was also derided as unfair: Even a felony as minor as stealing a slice of pizza could result in a 25-year sentence, a situation that befell one man, Jerry Dewayne Williams. Though a judge later reduced Mr. Williams\u2019s sentence, critics used his case as an example of the law\u2019s unfairness.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More about Jerry DeWayne Williams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An initiative to soften the three-strikes law failed in 2004, but a nearly identical initiative in 2012 succeeded. Both proposals mitigated the sentencing rules if the third felony was a nonviolent one. Mr. Reynolds strongly opposed them.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Barancik has passed away at 98. The Monuments Men and Women were composed of about 350 people \u2014 among them museum directors, curators, scholars, historians and artists \u2014 whose missions included steering Allied bombers away from cultural targets in Europe; overseeing repairs when damages occurred; and tracking down millions of objects plundered by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,97,23,16,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-california-uber-alles","category-history","category-law","category-obits","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26793"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26795,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26793\/revisions\/26795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}