The following is one of those hiding in plain sight stories that pops up every now and then, the fugitive who got away and hid in plain sight for years:

'CARMEL VALLEY – With an executive for a husband, three grown daughters and spacious home in a community of million-dollar houses, Marie Walsh has a lot in common with her Carmel Valley neighbors.

It's one of the reasons so many people are on her side, in spite of the fugitive's recent arrest.

Walsh is a woman with a past – a big one – and it finally caught up with her last week. The U.S. Marshal's Service busted her 32 years after she walked away from a Michigan prison, where Walsh served one year of a 10-to-20-year sentence for selling heroin in 1974.

Her arrest and pending extradition is stirring searing online debates. But more than that, it has awakened eternal questions about crime and punishment.

“This raises a much larger issue for a lot of us – the issue of redemption, and how do we achieve that?” said Larry Hinman, a University of San Diego philosophy professor and renowned ethicist.

Walsh is really Susan Marie LeFevre.

“I really wanted to keep this secret. I can't believe everyone knows this now,” LeFevre said yesterday during a phone interview from Las Colinas jail. “I have a very happy life here. I have a wonderful family, and I miss them very much.”'

Susan did pretty good for herself in her years on the lam, but in the eyes of the law, a heroin dealer is a heroin dealer, and apparently, the folks in Michigan are serious about making an example out of her:

"Lefevre is in the women's jail in Santee awaiting an extradition hearing. In a jailhouse interview with San Diego television station KGTV, she said she was treated unfairly by Michigan prosecutors, who had promised her probation if she pleaded guilty in 1975. Her family helped her escape after she had served a year, she said.

Lefevre said she never thought that Michigan authorities would find her.

"I was a teenager with a small drug thing," she said. "I felt the state had better things."

In addition to the unfinished portion of the 1975 sentence, Lefevre also may face an escape charge, Jurman said. Michigan law carries a maximum five-year sentence for a prison escape.

On the day she escaped, Lefevre had been given a pass to go to a health clinic at the sprawling Detroit House of Corrections, just outside Detroit.

"I just hopped a fence," she said.

A spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections disputed Lefevre's version of her arrest and conviction.

Spokesman Russ Marlan said records show that she was acquainted with several large-scale drug dealers, had drug paraphernalia in her home in Saginaw and was making money as a dealer.

She probably will have to serve five to nine years in prison before being eligible for parole, Marlan said.

Meanwhile, Michigan officials will investigate to see if she has broken any other laws in her three decades as a fugitive, he said. A fugitive warrant lists several aliases she allegedly used.

Marlan said that security at Michigan prisons has been greatly tightened since the mid-1970s."

I seriously doubt that Susan was the white, 19-year old verison of Tony Montana that the Michigan Department of Corrections is making her to have been. And it's nice to know that they've tightened up prison security up there over the last couple of decades, because while it's bad enough to have evil heroin dealers getting away, I would hate to think that homicidal maniacs were just pole vaulting out of the prison yard. I mean really, this chick didn't even have to crawl through 500 yards of sewer pipe, she just looked left, looked right and then climbed over the fence. Captain Hadley must have been off that day.

This whole affair is obviously more complicated than just an escaped prisoner being caught and thrown back in the pokey. Can an escaped prisoner be given a free pass after years of living the right kind of life? That sort of flies in the face of the whole crime and punishment thing, and would really suck for the legion of heroin dealers who rotted away in jail for the duration of their entire sentences.

But do the citizens of the state of Michigan really benefit from having Susan LeFevre brought back to finish out her sentence? It costs a lot of money to house, feed and guard a prisoner, and when the prisoner in question happens to be a 53-year old housewife of privilege whose actual crime was committed 32 years ago (think about that...Seals and Croft, the Ohio Players and Peter Frampton were still getting heavy airplay in 1976), it starts to seem like a monumental waste of cash.

The case of Susan LeFevre will serve to fuel the debate over whether or not the drug laws on this country are unjust. For the record, I have never experimented with a single drug, much to the shock of some people who know me. I always figured my windshield to reality was already fogged up enough, I didn't need to take anything to add to that. But on the flip side, I don't get all McGruff about the subject, I have the laissez faire attitude that people can do drugs if that's what gets them through the night. But honestly, people who smoke weed multiple times a day each and every day? Really, get over yourself, you've turned recreation and release into a dependency that really does make you lethargic and dopey, and yes, you really are lethargic and dopey, I wouldn't lie to you as cling to your skull bong.

So as a person with that somewhat unique perspective, I gotta say that the drug policies in this country are incredibly goofy. Take this recent article from the New York Times:

"Among those washed into Manhattan Criminal Court by the Tuesday morning tides was a 25-year-old man who works in technology support for a large company.

He had been caught with $30 worth of marijuana after his car was stopped on Riverside Drive, an offense against Section 221.10 of the New York State penal code. His case involved surveillance by an unmarked car and two officers who then stayed late into the night processing their prisoner, fingerprinting him, writing a complaint and taking his mug shot.

The court proceeding lasted about 45 seconds. The charges would be permanently dismissed if he stayed out of trouble for a year, which did not appear to be a big challenge, since he had never been arrested before.

If the case seemed like much ado about hardly anything, the laws of the State of New York agree. The city’s Police Department and the mayor, however, have other ideas.

A study released Tuesday reported that between 1998 and 2007, the police arrested 374,900 people whose most serious crime was the lowest-level misdemeanor marijuana offense.

That is more than eight times the number of arrests on those same charges between 1988 and 1997, when 45,300 people were picked up for having a small amount of pot."

This isn't just limited to a proliferation of unfair arrests. A recent AP article outlined the case of Timothy Garon, a Seattle musician whose liver is ravaged by hepatitis C, and as a result, he was driven to using medical marijuana for the pain. Because of his marijuana use, doctors told him he was no longer eligible for the liver transplant he desperately needs. To persecute a dying man for having found a release from pain is just more evidence that our healthcare system is completely broken, but that is fodder for another debate. On the educational front, a college student found guilty of a low-level misdemeanor related to marijuana possession can be stripped of his or her Federal financial aid. Absolutely ridiculous.

Which brings us back to Susan LeFevre. Should she be thrown back into prison? Oh, definitely for a few months, because after all, she's an escaped convict. But after that, she should be put on probation for life and sentenced to about 10,000 hours of community service. And I'm not kidding about that, she should wear an orange prison jumpsuit more often than anything else in her giant walk-in closet. Because honestly, wouldn't she be doing more for society by cleaning up trash from exit ramps on I-5 than sitting in some Michigan jail?

What goes into making a good cover song? I started to ponder this the other night after hearing Dinosaur Jr.'s shaky cover of the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" on Sirius. Not everyone will agree with me, but "Just Like Heaven" is one of the better songs in the Cure catalog, and yes, I celebrate their entire catalog ($1 to the Bobs). So a half-assed cover of a tune I like tends to be pretty grating.

How come Dinosaur Jr. missed the mark so badly? And how do other acts manage to succeed where others fail so miserably? After some thought, I've come to the conclusion that a cover tune must fit a few very important criteria, the first one being:

It can't sound too much like the original

As obvious as this is for listeners, this isn't always obvious to many artists. Honestly, why bother listening to a cover that sounds just like the original? For example, I dig 60's R&B, mainly because R&B pretty much doesn't exist anymore, gangsta rap killed it dead. One of the better songs from that era was J.J. Jackson's "But It's Alright," which is actually pretty catchy. But then crapmeisters Huey Lewis and the News provided us a cover back in the 80's which sounded, well, pretty much the same as the original. What's the use in that?

Dinosaur Jr. didn't pull a Huey and make an exact cover of "Just Like Heaven," but it misses the mark nonetheless. When tackling a song like that, you might as well take the Katie Melua approach of slowing down the tempo and creating a totally new experience. Her cover of the same song isn't necessarily great, but it doesn't tear down the original. Therefore, the second criteria is:

Interpretation is everything

Reintepretation is a tricky business when covering a tune. There's a fine line between paying homage to the original while putting just enough of a new spin on it to make it your own. One way to achieve this is by taking the song to another genre, and reggae acts are particuarly adept at pulling this off. Chaka Demus and Pliers took "Twist and Shout" and made it their own, while Frankie Paul actually came up with a more listenable version of Starship's crapfest "Sara." So shipping a tune to a new genre can work if done correctly. A lot of folks will disagree, but I thought the end result of the Pet Shop Boys putting U2's "Where The Streets Have No Name" through a techno filter was pretty good.

As I mentioned earlier, slowing down the tempo is always a good way to put a new spin on an old favorite. The Last Town Chorus succeeded on this front with a slower, more somber version of David Bowie's "Modern Love." The New York Dolls did the same with a fantastic cover of Archie Bell's "There's Gonna Be a Showdown ," which to me stands as one of the better rock tunes of the 70's. I actually prefer the Dolls' version, which leads me to the final critera:

You gotta like the cover better than you liked the original

This is probably the most important criteria. Al Green took Kris Kristofferson's "For the Good Times" and made a far superior record. Then again, Janis Joplin (and even the Statler Brothers) did the same to Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee." But what if you really dig the original? That's setting the bar pretty high for any cover artist. That's why in the end, the greatest cover song of all time is...Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Dear Prudence."

The tune takes a different approach to a Beatles' song which I really dig, and the reinterpretation creates a totally new experience which, to me, exceeds the original. I was never president of the Siouxsie and Banshees Fan Club or anything, but in terms of making the perfect cover tune, they nailed it.