President Bush pardoned seven minor criminals as 2002 closed. One of those pardoned was Tennessean Kenneth Copley.

Forty years ago he worked deep in the Hickman County woods, where in less than three hours he could turn grain into a clear liquid that would make its way into the murky distribution channels that supplied the local taste for untaxed whiskey.

He'd been working his new trade for several months when one April day he had some unwelcome visitors.

After the lawmen arrested him, Copley got two years of probation.

In the intervening decades, he has raised a family and put a son through college. He works for the Tennessee Valley Authority as a truck operator on the utility's miles of electrical lines. He's set to retire next year.

In 1998 though, he applied to the state for a gun permit. That's when the old charge resurfaced.

''I knew I had a whiskey charge, but I didn't know it was what they called a felony, you know, until I tried for a gun permit in 1998. That's when I found it out, and that's when I started working on getting a pardon.''

President Bush came through for him. A pre-Christmas announcement from the White House wiped the docket clean for this 61-year-old Lyles man.

Click here to read the entire story in Nashville's daily, The Tennessean.

Here is yet another example of the sour irony that exists when law enforcement fails to protect citizens, yet opposes their right to protect themselves. What is made worse by this latest rapist is that he, like all criminals, ignores Ohio's laws, including the unconstitutional ban on carrying a concealed weapon.

"Detectives are frustrated by an alarming increase in serial rapists, even while the number of reported rapes fell 10 percent last year in the state capital.

Police have tentatively linked an unidentified man to five burglaries and three sexual assaults last month, which would make him the sixth serial rapist to hit the city last year, Sgt. Pat Foley said.

'One or two serial cases in a year would be a lot for us. We're all frustrated that we can't solve them,' he said."

Like other attackers, the man in the most recent incidents got into apartments through unlocked doors and windows. What makes him different is that he carried a black semiautomatic pistol and wore a mask or scarf, Foley said.

Another rapist struck six times near Ohio State University last year while a man has committed 19 rapes since 1992 on the city's east side. Those rapes have not been solved.

Three home-invasion rapes from August 2001 to June 2002 were linked to one man, who was never identified.

Click here to read the entire story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.