...why this guy was let out of prison in the first place...
Brian Keith Balentine said he had paid his debt to society.
But a Montgomery County jury thought otherwise on Thursday, sentencing the paroled murderer to life in prison for shoplifting five compact discs last year from a Wal-Mart in Conroe.
Jurors learned of Balentine's criminal past during the punishment phase of his robbery trial.
That past included murder — the shooting death 25 years ago of a man trying to protect his new wife — and for several subsequent counts of theft.
If you read on, you'll see the details of that shooting death, and what the then-teenager Mr. Balentine and his brother said they wanted to do to an innocent young woman who had just gotten married, just before they shot her husband to death as he was trying to protect her. Why was he let out? And why, again, do anti-gunners not only not have a problem with this but also want to make it more difficult for good people to protect themselves against such trash? Paid his debt to society? No, sir, the only way that creature AND his brother could have even gotten close to doing that is taking a round of .45 to the back of the head. And it's a sad commentary on American justice that they didn't get that.
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