The AP reported that a long-time drug offender, who continually violated parole, is the primary suspect in the murder of a young girl.

Police said Joseph P. Smith told a witness that he had kidnapped and killed Carlie Brucia, and authorities used that information to find the sixth-grader's body in a church parking lot a few miles from the carwash.

Smith has been arrested at least 13 times in Florida since 1993.

He served 17 months in prison in 2001 and 2002 for heroin possession and prescription drug fraud. Eight days after he got out, he was arrested for cocaine possession and placed on probation for three years. He also got probation for aggravated battery in 1993 and heroin charges in 1999.

A state correction official, Joe Papy, said that a probation officer had asked a judge on Dec. 30 to declare Smith in violation of his probation because he had not paid all his fines and court costs.

Papy said Circuit Judge Harry Rapkin declined to find Smith in violation, which could have returned him to jail. The judge defended his decision Friday, saying the probation officer never sent him the evidence he requested that Smith had willfully refused to pay.

I do not really care if the Judge or the probation officer was at fault in this one incident. I am outraged at a system that continually treats drug offenders more lightly than other offenders simply because "If everybody that has bad urine was arrested, we would need a thousand jails. What we try to do is get people with drug problems as much help as possible." I support putting criminals in drug treatment programs. But they should also remain in prison until their problem is solved. Allowing hardcore drug users to roam free is foolhardy.

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