Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Wednesday, August 05, 2026

"He said, Sissy, I didn't do this, but men don't beat rape charges. I'm going to die in jail,'" said Elizabeth Self, whose brother, Christopher Lee Franklin, 40, was awaiting an Aug. 19 jury trial on charges related to the alleged Jan. 17 rape of an ex-girlfriend in Stafford County, VA.

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For Franklin, who had no prior criminal history, and a documented history of mental health struggles -- the U.S. Marine veteran suffered from depression, PTSD and anxiety -- his time in jail leading up to his hearing was made infinitely more difficult by the jail staff's lack of attention to basic details regarding his mental well-being.

Self said her brother was not given medications for treatment of his mental health conditions, and was also denied medication that had been prescribed related to eye surgery from before his incarceration.

Compounding these issues, Franklin could not eat the food he was served, his sister said, because he did not have teeth.

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More: "The family, 10 hours away in Alabama, where Franklin grew up before joining the Marines, and later working in Northern Virginia as an FBI contractor with Top Secret clearance, was looking forward to next month's jury trial as a chance for their brother to clear his name.

But, this is where reality kicks in...."

#1 | Posted by Dbt2 at 2026-08-05 02:11 AM | Reply

The American penal system:


#2 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2026-08-05 03:22 AM | Reply

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