Jennifer Wilbank, up until she lied, committed no crime. It is not illegal for someone to get on a bus and go to Las Vegas without telling her family and friends and fiance. There were no televisions on the busses, and she probably didn’t even know there was a hysterical media-driven man-hunt for her.
However, Wendy Murphy, appearing now on CNN, suggested that in her viewpoint, Wilbank should be prosecuted for lying to the police and then forced to repay all of the costs associated with the search for her.
When it was pointed out by, of all people, Bay Buchanan, that the crime was the false report, and any search prior to that was not on the part of any criminal wrongdoing, and thus Wilbank could not be forced to repay the costs, Wendy said she should be charged and put on probation and forced to repay the search costs anyway.
So, in the weird world of Wendy Murphy, if you run from an abusive husband and go in hiding for a few days, if the police look for you, you should be charged with a crime and forced to repay the police.
If you are a college student, and you go camping for four days, and forget to parents, get ready to go to jail when you get back home
Wendy Murphy and Nancy Grace and these law and order Nazi’s have got to be stopped.
Whatever happened to the sensible and pretty damned good looking Lis Wiehl? I don’t always agree with her politics, but she had a degree of common sense that is missing from the loudmouths like Grace and Murphy.
*** Update ***
Listen up, Mrs. Murphy. Adults are speaking.
ppgaz
I agree that outrage at these bubblehead pundits is in order.
I don’t agree with the analysis that leads to a “law and order” conclusion.
What these people are essentially saying is that Ms. Wilbank broke the rules of Wall to Wall Coverage.
Let me put it this way: If nobody had covered this story, nobody would be talking about the “cost of searching for her.” Fruitless searches and searches for people who are just out of touch with relatives, either deliberately or inadvertently, happen EVERY DAY. Every hour. That’s just the way it is.
Ms. Wilbank may have stuck a finger in the eye of her fiancee and some of the 600 people who were going to go to a wedding, but there is no law against that. Some would applaud her.
The CNN idiots, the FOX idiots and the MSNBC idiots are outraged because she made THEM LOOK FOOLISH. That is the entire basis for their vile rants.
As I said during the Schiavo fiasco, all of this is none of our business. What Ms. Wilbank did is not really our business, although one could wish that she had not lied about the thing when she appeared. However, what damage was done by that lie? Was a manhunt undertaken? Roadblocks set up? In fact, nothing happened, because the authorities are not stupid enough to launch a search for kidnappers without some verification of her story. No damage was done, except to egos.
This story was never anyone’s business. The fact that CNN and FOX and MSNBC desperately want it to be, notwithstanding. It was always just a private matter, and not a very interesting one at that.
If anyone doubts that these “news” purveyors are entirely self-referential and entirely self-absorbed, the Schiavo and Wilbanks cases should be all the proof you’d ever need.
Fuck all of them and the horses they rode in on.
Stormy70
I think Lis Wiehl does Bill O’Reilly’s radio program. Cable news has become farce. I can only handle Brit Hume, since he mostly focuses on foreign policy and the nuts and bolts of politics.
Anderson
To help feed your Nancy Grace fetish, check out this post at the Volokh Conspiracy. The 11th Circuit is not happy with a certain ex-prosecutor, it seems.
TalkLeft
I just finished debating Wendy Murphy on the case on a radio show. It will take another half hour for my blood pressure to return to normal.
Wendy is a much better debater than Nancy, and smarter, but they both use emotion to make their points and resort to rank speculation. Wendy now thinks the groom is hiding something.
scs2005
The obvious answer is you cannot lie to the police and file false reports, as Wilbanks did.
Yes, she only filed the report from New Mexico and confessed a few hours later. But so what? If someone kidnaps you and then lets you go a few hours later, is it not a crime? If a policeman arrests you under false pretenses and lets you go even a few minutes later, he can still be charged for false arrest. The point is, she did the deed, and it doesn’t matter how long later she confessed.
She gave specific details of a hispanic man to police in N.M. and Georgia. They were obviously alerted to look for a similar man and could have mistakenly arrested such a man, maybe even in dangerous circumstances.
This is a no – brainer. The girl should be charged.
John Cole
SCS- I have no problem with them charging her with a misdemeanor for filing a false report in NM. That is not what Murphy is saying.
Murphy is saying that she should be charged for all the costs in the absurd media-driven man-hunt for her PRIOR to her filing a false report. She did nothing wrong in GA- there should be no law and is no law that demands that people know where you are all the time. So the police wasted some resources because CNN and crew whipped them into a frenzy. That is why we pay taxes- so we can have police.
Kimmitt
Yeah, I agree with the misdemeanor charge for filing a false report; that’s pretty straightforward.
Really, CNN should be paying for the search costs, since they benefitted most from them.
And Justice For All
Lis Wiehl is a dog. Try waking up next to this:
http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=4151318&a=30878266&p=65624277
Her make up artist deserves an Emmy award.
EqualRights4Men
The suggestion that this woman should be applauded is absurd. This case is a classic example of the double standard between men and women. If this had been the groom that took off, no one would have looked for “kidnappers”, but rather for the “slut” he had ran off with. He would have been crucified in the press for being uncaring, selfish, and abusive. Women groups would have demanded his incarceration/castration. Men, stand up and demand equal treatment!
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