Comments about ‘Fugitive mother of 3 kept secret from husband for 23 years’

I am a Federal law enforcement officer. I know there has to be punishment. I do hope the judge will review the initial sentence and decide if it was appropriate. Many times when a person faces a judge they promise to change their life. I think in this instance it is clear that she did change which in my mind should weight heavy in her favor.

Why incarcerate someone who has turned her life around? Seems like something out of Les Miserables.

I hope they're lenient on this lady. Sure, she's got to face the consequences, but probation is reasonable. Afterall, she's been been clean for 30+ years. I highly doubt sending her to prison for 20 years would have turned her out better.

She has a longer track record (23 yrs) as a respectable wife and mother than she had as a drug-taking teenager (a year or two at age 19). She did something desperate by escaping, too young and too scared to think through her options for appeal, such as getting an attorney and filing for appeal based on parental coercion. Before a different judge, who might have considered her despondency from losing her high school sweetheart in a war, it is likely she would have only got probation as a first time offender. It is interesting to note how much our legal system has changed since her arrest in a sting operation. Under current law, a first time teen drug offender would NEVER get 10-20 years solely for possession or narcotics use. But she was 19 and couldn't think through her options. She has a magnificent case for appeal, more so because her illegal use of an SSN and falsification of documents was the direct result of an inappropriate sentence for the offense committed. Today's judges will correct this and she will likely be put on probation as she should have been decades ago. What a story!

geez louise, doesn't our law enforcement have better things to do.

Yes, she escaped. Yes, she committed a crime. But, is their no compassion for someone who has lived a good life and raised a family and been a good citizen? Isn't it a goal of "corrections" to make criminals into the type of person she became? I hear many of you saying you want your pound of flesh....sadly. How many chances to we give drug dealers and career criminals now? It is impossible to even hope for a good outcome for this poor lady at this point but let us live what we preach and extend love and understanding and compassion and, yes, even hope, to her and her family. Please don't put her in a place where she'll be victimized by the dregs of society.

If she's led a good life for 32 year we ought to realize that is the goal for our penal system. She needs to have some consequence for escape-- but minimal. The problem with the Federal system is that it is too rigid. She'll get the same time no matter the circumstances. We'll tear apart a functioning family to be tough on crime and in the process create new problems. We need to allow for compassion even in the criminal justice system.

A person of integrity? No way. A survivor? For sure. She might have been a kid at the time, but what's been her excuse for not coming forward as an adult? You can run, but you can't hide. Now five lives are messed up thanks to her "integrity".

Sometimes our justice system isn't just. You could be drunk in your car and kill someone and be playing football for the Kansas City Chiefs a year later but do some herion and a 19 yo gets 10-20??????

Free the poor woman. What a waist of tax payers money. She obviously learned her lesson and is not a current threat to society

If Obamas friend, Ayers, can be a professor,
after bombing the Pentagon, this woman should be
set free. Good grief, 10-20 years for a one time
drug use, get a grip America,I have seen people
get less for murder.

If she has lived her life as a model citizen, good wife and mother, she should be let off. She made a mistake as a kid - who doesn't? I hope the judge has a heart.

hopefully the Michigan governor will pardon her and let her get on with her life. this is a perfect example of the 3 strikes you're out (in this case one strike) is useless. there are other ways to rehabilitate drug users. in this case she did it on her own. Let my people go! as the saying goes.

Goes to show that sometimes the system does not work for the best. She has not been in trouble with the law since the drug incident, she is obviously reformed, yet the judge was going to give her the maximum sentence when just the scare appears to have been enough.

Cool story! Dont do drugs!

This is so sorrowful. Of course she had to be punished for her crime, but she obviously has redeemed herself and has not gone on to a life of crime. What possible good can come from sending this woman back to jail for the remainder of her sentence? I believe strongly in the justice system, and hope that a second trial and a plea could give some help and peace to this woman that she could never find before. And my prayers will be for her family and her poor children, who have been dragged into this- I'm sure she's horrified about her past actions influencing her now-children. What a terrible life it must have been to think that this would someday happen... it's probably a terrible relief as well as a sorrow, to not be living in hiding any longer. I don't know how she stood it...

If the whole point of prison is reform, well then her short time is prison worked. It looks to me like it scared her enough that she lived a clean life. I see that is pretty good reform. Much better then 98% of the prison population who have become used to prison life, and have spread it to the streets.

I too am in favor of letting this woman off very, very lightly. The original sentence was too strong. She has spent all these years living in constant fear of being discovered, I'm sure she has paid her dues. I just wonder who the tipster was. Seems they need to have their head examined. In the end, I hope that good order is restored and this woman can live a life free from the fear of her past.

Let her go home. She is not the same person. She was a young, dumb kid.

Let her go. Where is Jerry Ford when we really need him? Pardon please!