Friday, December 27, 2013

Crime Reporters Pick Their Favorite Crime Stories of 2013

From Slate, a collection of 2013's best crime stories, including...

1. Baltimore Sun: “Faces of Summer Violence.” Justin Fenton and I tried to capture the toll a violent summer left on Baltimore by looking for anecdotes that reached across all spectrums of the population so everyone could feel the magnitude of lives lost. I think it turned out better than we hoped.

2. Baltimore Sun: “Stick-up boys.” My colleague Justin Fenton delves deep into a murder mystery that exposes a small, deadly niche of Baltimore's chaotic and thriving drug trade.

...and more! Find the full list here.


Monday, December 23, 2013

JFK single-bullet theory probed using latest forensics tech

CBS News - Father-and-son team Luke and Michael Haag have used the latest technology to re-examine the idea that one bullet hit President John F. Kennedy and Texas Gov. John Connally. The duo is featured on the PBS series "Nova" in a documentary called "Cold Case JFK."
 
Using 3D laser scanners -- a technology that's come into play in forensics in recent years -- the Haags documented the crime scene of Kennedy's assassination and their proposed trajectory of the single bullet in an effort to debunk popular conspiracy theories, such as the Grassy Knoll shooter theory, that have persisted in the case.

"(We can envision) crime scenes more thoroughly, more completely than we ever have had the capability to do. So we walk away from the crime scene with more information and we can then examine the crime scene over and over again later on, on a computer. So as we get new hypotheses, things about -- people talking about where a shooter might have been at a new revelatory type place, we can go in to that software, take some calculations, take measurements, angles, and it's all right there," Michael Haag said.

Read more here.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

When Crime Scene Evidence Crawls Away

From WIRED Magazine

Regular watchers of CSI and other forensic shows might be surprised to learn that forensic entomology is actually a branch of applied ecology. Decomposition is a critical ecosystem service that humans get for free and often take for granted.

Necrophagous animals are critical to the Earth’s healthy functioning. Because of necrophages’ hard work, we aren’t clambering over dead dinosaurs and spelunking past deceased relatives in a world covered with layer after layer of corpses.  A carcass is an empty bit of habitat waiting to be colonized.

Adult blowflies have an astonishing sense of smell for putrescine and cadaverine, molecules¹ that signal a delicious bucket-kicking has occurred. A dead body is conveniently pre-packaged baby food for fly eggs. Flies arrive in large numbers within minutes after someone begins their dirt nap. It’s rather like when a pizza delivery is made to a dorm; undergraduates magically appear out of thin air, summoned by the yummy aroma.

Read more here.

Monday, December 2, 2013

A day in the life of a clinical director of forensic psychiatry

An interview with Mark Earthrowl, from the guardian's 'Day in the Life of' series:

My day begins with a 6.30am rise, when the chaos of a typical morning sets in thanks to our three young boys and hyperactive dog. I wake up to Radio 4 – it's always enjoyable to hear someone getting a roasting from John Humphrys. My commute to work is only a short trip through rural Norfolk; the scenery on my journey contrasts with that of New Zealand, where I recently worked for several years, navigating the aftermath of an earthquake and the tension caused by daily earth tremors.

I normally reach my desk by 8.30am and, as with many roles in the health sector, each day is different. I have an early meeting with the team to go over the previous day's events. As a team, we formally review patients' care plans on a weekly basis, but mornings see me touring the wards, engaging with patients and making assessments.

Lunch is generally snatched at my desk, or not at all: an unhealthy habit but a time-saving one. By that point, if I've caught up on my clinical duties, I will address the managerial aspects of my role which include the strategic development of the service, quality control, governance and liaison with stakeholders including our regulators and commissioners, the patients' local services and their families.

Read the rest of Mark's interview here.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Proposal to boost forensic regulator

BBC News -The government has launched a consultation over plans to strengthen the powers of the forensic regulator's office in England and Wales.

Currently, the regulator sets standards for forensic science services, but has no statutory, or legislative, powers.

Under the proposals, the regulator's office would be placed on a statutory basis and be handed the authority to investigate breaches in quality.

The government plan is outlined in its response to a recent Commons inquiry.

Read more here.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Forensic team identifies Tacloban dead

Over 100 recently found bodies lay in bags along the roadside beside a trench that already held over 700 bodies.

A group of three forensic pathologists from Manila's University of the Philippines worked with three morticians to identify dozens of bodies.

Ten days after the typhoon, forensic pathologists struggled to identify bloated and rotting corpses, taking photographs and noting remaining features, sizes and other details like clothes, jewelry and mobile phones.


Read more here.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Jimmy Carter calls for fresh moratorium on death penalty

THE GUARDIAN - Former US president Jimmy Carter has called for a new nationwide moratorium on the death penalty, arguing that it is applied so unfairly across the 32 states that still have the death sentence that it amounts to a form of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited under the US constitution.

In an interview with the Guardian, Carter calls on the US supreme court to reintroduce the ban on capital punishment that it imposed between 1972 and 1976. The death penalty today, he said, was every bit as arbitrary as it was when the nine justices suspended it on grounds of inconsistency in the case of Furman v Georgia 41 years ago.

“It’s time for the supreme court to look at the totality of the death penalty once again,” Carter said. “My preference would be for the court to rule that it is cruel and unusual punishment, which would make it prohibitive under the US constitution.”

Read more about Carter's appeal here.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Review faults NYC on solitary for mentally ill

NEW YORK — Mentally ill inmates in New York City's most notorious jail are too often placed in solitary confinement — in some cases for thousands of days at a time — a practice that coincides with an increased rate of violence inside the jail, an independent review of mental health standards at Rikers Island found.
The wide-ranging review, obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information request, is critical of the city's use of solitary as punishment for inmates who by the very nature of their mental illnesses are more prone to breaking jailhouse rules.
About 40 percent of Rikers' 12,200 inmates have some kind of mental health diagnosis, and about a third of those have so-called serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Of the roughly 800 inmates in solitary at any given time, just over half of them are mentally ill.
The report recommends eliminating the use of solitary for mentally ill inmates as a punishment and instead partnering with a teaching hospital to provide intensive therapeutic services. The study was commissioned by the New York City Board of Correction, which has a watchdog role over the city's Department of Correction.
Read more here.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Popular sports supplements contain meth-like compound

USA TODAY - A popular and controversial sports supplement widely sold in the USA and other countries is secretly spiked with a chemical similar to methamphetamine that appears to have its origins as an illicit designer recreational drug, according to new tests by scientists in the USA and South Korea.

The test results on samples of Craze, a pre-workout powder made by New York-based Driven Sports and marketed as containing only natural ingredients, raise significant health and regulatory concerns, the researchers said.

The U.S. researchers also said they found the same methamphetamine-like chemical in another supplement, Detonate, which is sold as an all-natural weight loss pill by another company: Gaspari Nutrition.

"These are basically brand-new drugs that are being designed in clandestine laboratories where there's absolutely no guarantee of quality control," said Pieter Cohen, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and a co-author of the analysis of Craze samples being published today in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Drug Testing and Analysis.

Read more on the investigation as it unfolds here.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Defendants in criminal trials forced to pay to see key forensic evidence

Defendants in criminal trials are facing charges of hundreds of pounds before being allowed to see key forensic evidence that may prove their innocence.

Guidance from the Home Office's forensic science regulator, Andrew Rennison, is being exploited by private firms to generate lucrative sources of income.

The costs are likely to fall ultimately on the government's Legal Aid Agency, which pays for representation of many defendants who appear in criminal courts.

Concern about a shift in charging practices has been raised by independent forensic scientists, who are increasingly being confronted by demands for payment before being allowed to examine DNA, firearms and other material pivotal to the outcome of criminal cases.

Read more here.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Criminal compensation reforms would shift burden of proof on to victims

Victims of miscarriages of justice will have to prove their innocence in future or endure damaged reputations, human rights groups and Labour's parliamentary frontbench are warning.

None of the Birmingham Six or Guildford Four, who spent more than 10 years in jail having been wrongfully convicted of pub bombings in the 1970s, would be entitled to payments under government reforms that will narrow the test for compensation, according to opponents.

Proposed changes attached to the antisocial behaviour, crime and policing bill governing compensation – due to come before the Commons on Monday – could be ruled illegal by the courts, it is also claimed.

The government's amendment to section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 would redefine the compensation test for a miscarriage of justice, limiting it to 'if and only if the new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that the person was innocent of the offence'.

Read more here.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Criminals Today Are Taking It To the Tweets

Crime has a new face: Twitter. Political extremists, criminals and gang members are advertising their wares, flaunting their exploits and recruiting new members in 140 characters or less, according to police, criminologists and security experts.

The most shocking example occurred a week ago when the extremist group al-Shabab live-tweeted about the mall siege in Kenya, defending the mass killing, threatening more violence and taunting the military.
But the list is long -- and growing -- of those using Twitter and other social media venues for nefarious purposes.

Extremists spread their propaganda via video. Gangs post their colors, signs and rap songs to showcase their criminal enterprises. Prostitutes and drug dealers troll for new customers. Teens trash a former NFL player's house and brag about it with photos on Twitter.

But Twitter can be a double-edged sword: Public boasting about illegal deeds can serve as a road map for police and lead to arrests.

Read more here.

Monday, September 23, 2013

A Tie to Mental Illness in the Violence Behind Bars

AMARILLO — The most violent prisons in the Texas state system share a common factor: they house a high proportion of mentally ill inmates.

The Texas Tribune analyzed data from violent-incident reports from 99 state prisons filed from 2006 to 2012, and found far more reports of violence at facilities housing high numbers of mentally ill, violent offenders than at other prisons. 

It is not surprising that prisons with a greater proportion of mentally ill inmates would have more violence than others, said Michele Deitch, a prison conditions expert at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. But the volume of violent incident reports raises questions about the staff’s ability to manage inmates and keep prisoners and officers safe, Ms. Deitch said. 

“You can’t ignore those numbers,” she said. 

Read more here & to join the conversation about this article, go to texastribune.org.

Monday, September 16, 2013

12 killed in Navy Yard shooting rampage

Washington (CNN) -- [Breaking news update at 2:09 p.m.]
At least 12 people have been killed in the Washington Navy Yard shooting, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said.

Multiple people were killed Monday after a shooter opened fire in a rampage at a Navy yard in the nation's capital, putting government buildings on lockdown and sending police SWAT teams rushing to the scene.

One suspect is dead, but two others may be on the loose, Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier said.

"The big concern for us right now is that we potentially have two other shooters that we have not located at this point," Lanier told reporters hours after the shooting.

Authorities are looking for a white man and a black man in military-style clothing who could be connected to the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, she said.

Click here to stay up to date on this story as it progresses.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Man indicted on homicide charge after DUI video confession

(CNN) - A driver who confessed in an online video that his drunken driving killed a man now faces a homicide charge.
A grand jury in Franklin County, Ohio, indicted Matthew Cordle on Monday on charges of aggravated vehicular homicide and operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol, more than two months after the deadly wrong-way collision.
The 22-year-old's online admission that he was to blame has been watched more than a million times on YouTube.
Now, Ohio's legal system must decide what punishment fits his crime. He is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of eight and a half years in prison, prosecutor Ron O'Brien said.

Read more and watch the video here.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Crime and the Punished: An essential introduction to how sociologists think about and research crime and punishment.

Attention IACFP members: I came across this forthcoming title from W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. and The Society Pages, edited by former Contexts editors Douglas Hartmann (Editor, University of Minnesota), and Christopher Uggen (Editor, University of Minnesota). I picked up a copy at the recent ASA meeting, and I think this will be of real interest to many of you.

From the Norton Website:

"The second volume in this series tackles crime and punishment. As in the first volume, the chapters are organized into three main sections. “Core Contributions” exemplifies how sociologists and other social scientists think about otherwise familiar phenomena like crime, incarceration, and suicide. Chapters in the “Cultural Contexts” section engage crime in cultural realms—from politics to families to international crime and justice—that are often ignored or taken for granted among laypeople or in other social science disciplines. Finally, the “Critical Takes” chapters provide sociological commentary, perspective, and reflections on crime and its control."

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Changing Lenses: We Are the 1 in 100, by Christopher Uggen

Part 1: Core Contributions
    1. Six Social Sources of the U.S. Crime Drop, by Christopher Uggen and Suzy McElrath
    2. Climate Change and Crime with Robert Agnew, by Sarah Shannon
    3. Social Fact: The Great Depressions? by Deborah Carr and Julie A. Phillips
    4. Visualizing Punishment, by Sarah Shannon and Christopher Uggen

Part 2: Cultural Contexts
    5. Why Punishment Is Purple, by Joshua Page
    6. The Color Purple, by Jonathan Simon
    7. Repercussions of Incarceration on Close Relationships, by Megan Comfort
    8. International Criminal Justice, with Susanne Karstedt, Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Wenona Rymond-Richmond, and Kathryn Sikkink, by Shannon Golden and Hollie Nyseth Brehm
    9. The Crime of Genocide, by Hollie Nyseth Brehm

Part 3: Critical Takes 
    10. Correcting American Corrections, with Francis Cullen, David Garland, David Jacobs, and Jeremy Travis, by Sarah Lageson
    11. A Social Welfare Critique of Contemporary Crime Control, by Richard Rosenfeld and Steven F. Messner
    12. Juvenile Lifers, Learning to Lead, by Michelle Inderbitzin, Trevor Walraven, and Joshua Cain
    13. Discovering Desistance, with Shadd Maruna and Fergus McNeill, by Sarah Shannon and Sarah Lageson

Monday, August 26, 2013

High-profile Aaron Hernandez case brings extra pressure, DA says 'we welcome it'

(CNN) -- For District Attorney Sam Sutter, prosecuting fallen NFL football star Aaron Hernandez carries a kind of pressure unprecedented in his six years of service.

"Probably my career ... will be defined more by this case than all of the other things we've done," the top law enforcer in Bristol County, Massachusetts, told CNN.

"To that extent, there is added pressure. I can't say in any way that we shirk from it. We welcome it."

A crush of cameras and journalists follows Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end, each time he appears in court, including Thursday, when a grand jury indicted him on a first-degree murder charge in the execution-style shooting death of friend Odin Lloyd.

Hernandez, who is being held without bail, has pleaded not guilty.

Read more here.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Criminologists identify family killer characteristics

BBC News reports: Men who kill their families can be separated into four distinct types.

British criminologists have made the assessment after studying newspaper records of "family annihilator" events over the period from 1980 to 2012.

A family break-up was the most common trigger, followed by financial difficulties and honour killings.
Writing in the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, the team lists the four types as self-righteous, anomic, disappointed, and paranoid.

Each category has slightly different motivations and many cases also have a hidden history of domestic abuse. In four out of five cases the murderers went on to kill themselves or attempted to do so.

The research revealed the most frequent month for the crime was in August, when fathers were likely to be with their children more often because of school holidays.

Read more here to uncover the four types of family killer.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Holder Proposes Major Changes in Criminal Justice System

Associated Press reports with the U.S. facing massive overcrowding in its prisons, Attorney General Eric Holder called Monday for major changes to the nation’s criminal justice system that would scale back the use of harsh sentences for certain drug-related crimes.

In remarks to the American Bar Association in San Francisco, Holder said he also favors diverting people convicted of low-level offenses to drug treatment and community service programs and expanding a prison program to allow for release of some elderly, non-violent offenders.

“We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter and rehabilitate — not merely to convict, warehouse and forget,” Holder said.

Read more here.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

FBI allowed informants to commit 5,600 crimes

WASHINGTON — The FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times in a single year, according to newly disclosed documents that show just how often the nation's top law enforcement agency enlists criminals to help it battle crime.

The U.S. Justice Department ordered the FBI to begin tracking crimes by its informants more than a decade ago, after the agency admitted that its agents had allowed Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger to operate a brutal crime ring in exchange for information about the Mafia. The FBI submits that tally to top Justice Department officials each year, but has never before made it public.

Agents authorized 15 crimes a day, on average, including everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies. FBI officials have said in the past that permitting their informants — who are often criminals themselves — to break the law is an indispensable, if sometimes distasteful, part of investigating criminal organizations.

Read more here.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Military death row: More than 50 years and no executions

Ronald Gray raped and battered at least seven women. He killed four, and left the others for dead -- the bodies dumped around Fort Bragg and the neighboring city of Fayetteville, North Carolina, between 1986 and 1987.

He was caught and, just as in the civilian system, he was tried.

He was found guilty by a jury of his peers, just as in the civilian system.

And a death sentence was passed, just as would have been possible in a civilian court for such a heinous crime.

But when it comes to staying alive, history is on Gray's side. The U.S. military has not executed one of its own since 1961.

The former soldier came close to being put to death in 2008, when then President George W. Bush signed a warrant authorizing Gray's execution -- a requirement for capital punishment in the military.

A federal court gave Gray a last-minute temporary stay, and today he -- along with four other former servicemen -- remains on the military's death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Read more here.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Manhunt for hundreds of Indonesian prison escapees

Indonesian police are searching for potentially hundreds of escaped inmates following a deadly prison riot in Medan, the capital of the province of North Sumatra. At least five people died, including two guards and three prisoners.


More than 200 inmates, some of whom were jailed on terrorism charges, broke free from the maximum-security facility Thursday when the "water supply was cut off because of a power outage," said Ronny Sompie, the National Police Spokesman Brigadier General.

Angry prisoners, unable to bathe or use the bathroom, burned the door to the prison offices, stole guns and took guards hostage.

"The situation is under control and the fire at the prison has been extinguished," said Sompie.

Last suspect in Bali bombings sentenced At least 55 prisoners have been recaptured. Some 800 police and military officials are now searching the surrounding area for escapees.

Read more here.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Confessed Boston Strangler exhumed in pursuit of cold case

The remains of a man who confessed to being the Boston Strangler were exhumed by authorities working to connect him to the January 1964 killing of Mary Sullivan, the last of 11 women believed killed by the serial killer.

New DNA tests on a secret sample collected from a relative of suspect Albert DeSalvo triggered the exhumation after authorities said there was a "a familial match" with genetic material preserved in the killing of 19-year-old Sullivan, Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley said Thursday.

Authorities made the match through DNA taken from a water bottle thrown away by DeSalvo's nephew, he said.

DeSalvo's remains were removed from Puritan Lawn Memorial Park in Peabody, north of Boston, to the state medical examiner's office, where DNA tests will be performed.

Authorities said they believe the results will come back quickly, perhaps in a few days.

Read more here.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Miami police exhibited pattern of excessive force, Justice Dept. says

Miami police have engaged in a pattern of excessive use of force through officer-involved shootings, the Justice Department said on Tuesday.
The Justice Department conducted a comprehensive investigation and found that officers intentionally shot at people on 33 separate occasions from 2008 until 2011 and the police department concluded three of those instances were unjustified. The Justice Department said a number of additional shootings were "questionable at best."
The findings also noted that seven officers participated in more than a third of the shootings in question.
The Justice Department also concluded the police department did not conduct timely investigations of such shootings. In addition, the findings said the police had "deficient tactics" and that improper actions had been taken by specialized police units.

Read more here.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Young: Criminal justice is still more lenient with women

Two sensational murder cases involving young female defendants have been grabbing headlines. Jurors are deliberating in the case of Jodi Arias, a 32-year-old Arizona woman who claims self-defense in the killing of her on-and-off lover Travis Alexander. Meanwhile, Amanda Knox, the 25-year-old American facing retrial in Italy in the 2009 slaying of her British roommate Meredith Kercher, has published a memoir and told her story on television.

Both stories feature salacious details of the women's sex lives, leading to charges of sexist double standards. But the inconvenient truth is that when it comes to criminal justice, the double standards often favor women.

According to New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, Knox and Arias have been treated as "minxes" with "scarlet letters emblazoned on their chests."

Read more here.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Police eyes go online to catch crooks

Victoria Police rolled out an expanded social media presence on the site on Wednesday after a pilot project in which a handful of crimes were quickly solved by connecting directly with its users.

The force's "Eyewatch" Facebook pages are now run in 17 police districts across the state, allowing thousands of residents to connect directly with their local inspector and officers.

Similarly, police can use the site to publish details on local crimes, help solve missing persons cases, or catch and identify wanted criminals by posting appeals directly on each community page.

Acting Deputy Commissioner Steve Fontana says he's excited about the possibilities after seeing more than 30,000 people share a recent police appeal on Facebook to identity a man wanted in Geelong over an attempted sexual assault.

"It's a really effective, efficient forum for us to communicate with the community," Mr Fontana said.

Read more here.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Prosecutor speaks as victim of violence

An assistant U.S. Attorney, who’s devoted his life to fighting crime, is speaking out about being a victim of violence himself.

As part of National Crime Victims Rights Week, Joe Marquez talked publicly for the first time about being on the other end of the criminal justice system. Marquez says he’s developed a greater appreciation for victims’ rights.

“I’m just a normal guy who lost his wife and now I have to face all of these things,” Marquez said. “All these trials and tribulations like everyone else.”

In July 2008, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Marquez was attacked in his Grain Valley, Mo., home, his wife murdered by a friend of his stepson. Police captured Taylor Marquez, 16, and a friend, Eddie George, in Colorado. The two were convicted of stabbing to death 39-year-old Pamela Marquez.

Although the seasoned prosecutor recovered from his physical injuries in the crime, he says being a victim has made him more sensitive to the needs of crime survivors.

“No one understands,” Marquez said. “Why does stuff like this happen? Why Taylor? Why his friend Eddie? What was going on in these kids’ minds? You don’t really know and it’s hard to understand. So, our victim advocate was very helpful in explaining things to me.”

Read more here.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Remembering Victims of Crime This Week

At the core of the vast majority criminal cases, there is a victim--sometimes more than one. Sometimes the victim is society as a whole. But every criminal act, large or small, leaves a victim in its wake.

Our criminal justice system works to protect society, hold offenders accountable, and seek justice. But it must also work to make victims as whole as possible following a criminal act. Victims must always have a place at the table and be central to the administration of fair and equitable justice.

As we enter Crime Victims' Rights Week (April 21-27th), we should remember that primary among those rights is the right to a criminal justice process that fully includes the victim and gives full weight to victim concerns.

There are very good reasons that the state, not the victim personally, is responsible for prosecuting crimes. Our system is intended to put the full weight of the state on the side of seeing that justice is done, and to avoid a revenge-based system that could lead to unfair results. But it is easy, in a system focused on respecting the rights of both victims and defendants, when penalties are imposed only for failing to ensure the rights of the latter, to give short shrift to the priorities of victims.

Read more here.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Surveillance cameras cutting crime in some areas

From banks to bagel shops, surveillance cameras are watching in St. Louis and many U.S. cities. In Boston, surveillance video was crucial in quickly identifying the marathon bombers.  "But that's not an argument for more security cameras," said Washington University law professor Neil Richards, an expert on privacy. "That's an argument that maybe Boston has enough. I think the wrong lesson to draw from this is that everyone needs to have more security cameras everywhere all the time."

As high definition cameras and software evolve, Richards says we should ask ourselves how many cameras are too many, and who's watching the watchers to avoid abuse. "It's not just whether we have cameras, it's whether the locations of the cameras are disclosed to the public so they know how the money is being spent, and we know when we're being watched by the police, and also whether there are meaningful guarantees that they're only going to be used for law enforcement," he said.

"When you live in an area that's been plagued by violence, you see the situation a little differently," said 21st Ward Alderman Antonio French. In the 21st Ward, Alderman French says more cameras mean less crime. In 2010, the 21st Ward led the city with 14 homicides. Desperate to cut down on crime, French installed 18 surveillance cameras, with more on the way.

Read more here.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The dark side of social media: A new way to rape

Fifteen-year-old Audrie Pott got drunk at a party and passed out. What happened next, according to her family, was that she was sexually assaulted by multiple young men, who took photos and circulated them in their high school of more than 1,000 students. Not long afterward, Audrie, devastated and hopeless, committed suicide.

In Canada, Rehtaeh Parsons, then 15, was sexually assaulted by multiple perpetrators, according to her family, and photographs were also posted online for the world to see. She was tormented and bullied for more than a year with no legal action taken by the authorities, who stated there was "insufficient evidence" to file charges. Rehtaeh also committed suicide.

Why did these tragedies happen?

Keep Reading Here.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Inmates' phone calls concern authorities

Wood County officials are looking for a way to stop jail inmates from making phone calls to their victims.

Most of the phone call problems have involved domestic abuse cases, Wood County District Attorney Craig Lambert said during a meeting of the Wood County Criminal Justice Task Force Wednesday.

In a domestic abuse case, just the fact that an abuser is trying to call can intimidate the victim, said Trish Anderson, Wood County victim/witness coordinator.

“I’ve had more than one victim say to me, ‘If you can’t protect me when he’s in jail, how can you protect me when he’s out?’” Anderson said.

Read more here.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Domestic Abuse: The Crime That Crosses Class and Color Lines

Now former WCBS anchorman Rob Morrison is finally out of his marital home this week, and his wife, Ashley, may be one of those women who is lucky to be alive. He allegedly had a long-term pattern of physically abusing his wife, who is a beautiful and intelligent television journalist. Merely a month before this incident, the police were called when he is said to have choked her until she almost passed out. However, she then decided to drop the January complaint, saying that she had exaggerated her accusations.

I certainly hope that Ashley, with support from family, friends, and counselors keeps Rob out of the house for good. Yet, I won’t be surprised if she, like so many other women, lets him back into her life.

Last month, Rihanna went to court, reunited with her battering boyfriend, Chris Brown, to support his claim that he completed his community service—which was put in place precisely because of the vicious beating he gave her on the night before the Grammys a few years ago. They are back together and smiling at the cameras again.

We remember Nicole Brown Simpson, who was beaten over and over again, before she was murdered. She left photographs and a diary as evidence and spoke as a voice from the grave.

Read more here.
 

Monday, April 8, 2013

Mentally Ill, but Insanity Plea Is Long Shot

Slouched over in the striped gray shirt that he has worn for much of his murder trial, his piercing stare disconcertingly fixed at the courtroom walls at times, David Tarloff can appear like one of the few killers whose claim to an insanity defense might be deserved.

In the last three weeks, jurors have heard a long recitation of Mr. Tarloff’s psychiatric problems. Throughout his adult life, Mr. Tarloff, 45, has been prescribed antipsychotic medication to alleviate delusions and hallucinations. He has received a diagnosis of schizophrenia and been hospitalized against his will numerous times. And three months after one such commitment, Mr. Tarloff entered an Upper East Side medical office on Feb. 12, 2008, and killed Kathryn Faughey, a psychologist, with a mallet and a knife.

Yet a lifetime of mental illness hardly makes an insanity defense a sure thing. Mr. Tarloff’s lawyers must convince jurors, who began deliberations Wednesday, that he was so sick that day that he did not understand the consequences of his actions: that pounding and stabbing Dr. Faughey could kill her, or that the attack was wrong.

Read more here

Friday, April 5, 2013

Expert: Aryan Brotherhood of Texas are "Dumb Ol' White Boys" Who Wouldn't Kill a D.A.

When I spoke to Terry Pelz late yesterday afternoon, he sounded hoarse and exhausted. "I'm just about talked out," he said.

Pelz is a former prison warden at the Darrington Unit who now runs a criminal justice consulting firm in Missouri City, about 20 miles southwest of Houston. He's been in high demand the past couple days, as an expert on the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. The ABT are being eyed as possible suspects in the killing of Kaufman County DA Mike McLelland, his wife Cynthia and assistant DA Mark Hasse. The group is, as we outlined yesterday, a violent and growing criminal enterprise throughout the state and especially in north Texas.

Pelz has plenty of direct experience with the ABT. Over his 21 years in the TDCJ system, he says, "I was witnessing their growth. I had a lot of them locked up in Darrington. They knew me."

Being known by the ABT apparently means being threatened frequently by them, as Pelz discovered. He received a number of verbal and written threats over the years.

Read more here.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Schizophrenic inmate tells court about jail violence

Day Three of a weeklong hearing to determine the city’s responsibilities for reforming the Orleans Parish prison complex under a proposed federal consent decree featured testimony from mental health experts, mentally ill inmates, and Deputy Mayor Andy Kopplin.

The city has been trying to avoid legal exposure to the decree, saying the cost is prohibitive and that Sheriff Marlin Gusman, the parish jailer, is incapable of managing the turnaround effectively.

Presented this week in U.S. District Court Judge Lance Africk’s courtroom, the case so far has drawn testimony primarily from two groups of witnesses: experts in criminology, and inmates who have experienced the allegedly unconstitutional conditions at the jail.

Read more here.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Cops: Career Criminal Keeps Eluding Justice

A serial criminal who police say should never have bonded out jail did so, and he now stands accused of stealing a van with three little boys inside. In the past few years police say Sandy Ely, nicknamed Rump Rump, has managed to bond out on not one but eight charges ranging from residential burglary to robbery in Cook County, Ill., and Lake County, Ind.

"I think it’s horrendous. I think it’s a tremendous black eye to the criminal justice system," said Capt. Deborah Simental of the Illinois State Police.

Mike Kickert said his home installed security cameras caught Ely in the home of his mother-in-law back in June 2011. Police say Ely and an accomplice posed as power company workers. The video showed the men rifling through a strong box, a purse, a jewelry container and wiping finger prints on the way out the front door.

Read more here.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Criminal justice, mental health systems working for offenders, but not victims of crime

It was 4 o’clock in the morning. There was a tremendous noise coming from our front door. I jumped out of bed and saw a dark shadowed figure smashing my stained glass front door with a two-by-four from the wooden post of my neighbor’s mailbox.

I immediately told my wife to call 911, and I took a flashlight and my legally owned pistol and cautiously approached this wild individual. I shined the flashlight in his face and shouted, “You better get out of here or I’ll kill you.” Upon having that and seeing my pistol, he dropped the two-by-four and ran away.

I believe if I was not armed my wife and I would have been seriously injured or killed. The pistol saving us is the positive part of the story. The tragic part of this story is the criminal justice and mental system breakdown.

The police, upon arriving at my house, had this individual in the back of their cruiser. They had picked up this individual in our gated community. My wife was so devastated it took more than a year of special counseling to return to what may be called normal. The story does not end here.

Read more here.

Friday, February 22, 2013

New victim advocate has at least one virtue

How typical that the opposition to Governor Malloy’s nominee to become state government’s victim advocate was based on what may have been his greatest qualification. That is, the nominee, Garvin Ambrose, an assistant prosecutor and legislative liaison for the state’s attorney’s office in Cook County, Illinois, represented that office before the Illinois legislature in opposing a “victims’ rights” amendment to the Illinois Constitution. Ambrose was approved last week by the General Assembly’s Legislative Nominations Committee but four members of the Republican minority voted against him in part because of the amendment issue.

A “victims’ rights” amendment was added to Connecticut’ Constitution in 1996 but it was just phony posturing. The amendment leaves “victim” to be defined by the legislature, perhaps because in the context of criminal justice the term is a misnomer to begin with. For in court nobody is a victim until a judgment is rendered; there are not victims but accusers. To designate a victim prior to a judgment is prejudicial and unconstitutional.

Read more here.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Andre Thomas: Mental Health, Criminal Justice Collide

WARNING: This article contains violent and graphic descriptions.

Andre Thomas was the type of kid who could memorize entire Bible stories, who would shoot his eager hand in the air before his Sunday school teacher could even finish her question. He wanted to know how everything worked -- a "tinkerer," his dad called him -- constantly taking things apart just to figure them out.

The fourth of six brothers born to Rochelle Thomas in abject poverty in Sherman, Thomas performed well in school as a young boy despite a difficult home life. Neither Rochelle Thomas, nor his father, Danny Thomas, was around much, so he and his brothers often fended for themselves, spending much of their free time at the Harmony Baptist Church just down the street from their unkempt home, which often lacked electricity.

By the time he was in high school, Thomas was a talented artist, sketching intricate drawings of the cars he planned to design one day. "We definitely saw him doing great things," said Rachel Kallas, Thomas' sister-in-law, "but he definitely didn't go down that road."

Thomas, now 29, veered sharply down a different path, committing a brutal triple murder in 2004 that shook the quiet North Texas city of Sherman to its core and sent him to death row.

Read more here.

Friday, February 15, 2013

School plot involving boys 10 and 11 vexes officials

The effort to prosecute two boys, ages 10 and 11, for allegedly bringing weapons to a Colville school in a plot to kill a classmate is posing legal challenges because the suspects are so young. The state's criminal justice system presumes that children below the age of 12 do not have the capacity to understand they are planning to commit crimes, Stevens County Prosecutor Tim Rasmussen said Thursday.

A judge can allow prosecutors to pursue criminal charges in juvenile court for children between the ages of 8 and 12, but only if prosecutors can show the youths understood the difference between right and wrong.

"Is it the kind of thing everyone would know is wrong?" Rasmussen said of the legal burden.

Read more here.
 

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Rough justice: Victims had a bigger trial to face with Henderson


The right of a criminal to confront his accusers is fundamental in our criminal justice system. It's never easy on the victims, but the nature of such courtroom confrontations is rarely as harrowing as it was during the recent trial of Arthur Henderson.

The 39-year-old man was convicted Feb. 11 of raping three women in a three-day period in January 2012; two attacks occurred in Ross and one in Hopewell.

Rape cases can be particularly traumatic for victims, who must sit just a few feet from their attacker in a courtroom, repeat details of sexual violence in a public forum and, as often occurs, answer very personal questions intended to undermine their credibility and make them look bad.

Read more here.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Bills aimed at lowering criminal penalties

FORT WORTH -- State lawmakers are being asked to reclassify criminal offenses, including marijuana possession and prostitution, in an attempt to reduce the state's prison population and cut costs of appointed attorneys for poor criminal defendants.

The American Bar Association, the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union say prison time should be removed as a punishment for some crimes, while others believe that an overhaul of the entire Texas Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure is long overdue.

Besides saving the cost of paying for someone to be held in prison, reclassification could save taxpayers money because county officials would not have to appoint attorneys for indigent residents charged with crimes because being held behind bars is not a punishment alternative.

"Throughout the 90s the whole philosophical bent was to put people in prison and throw away the key," said state Rep. Lon Burnam, D- Fort Worth. "We have far too many people serving prison terms for nonviolent offenses instead of trying to become productive people in society. We can no longer afford to do this."

Read more here

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Mental Illness Soars In Prisons, Jails While Inmates Suffer

Armando Cruz tied a noose around his neck and hanged himself from the ceiling of his prison cell. He left a note that ended in two chilling words.

“Remember me.”

His mother Yolanda, who was shown the note after her son's death, wants to make sure no one forgets.

“They took away my only son,” she says, her voice breaking.

Cruz killed himself on Sept. 20, 2011, during his incarceration at California State Prison in Sacramento, after a long history of mental illness. His story, first reported by the blog Solitary Watch, is an example of how the criminal justice system is ill-equipped to handle people with mental health issues. Cruz spent years in solitary confinement and died while locked in a tiny solitary cell. The rates of suicide in solitary confinement tend to be higher than in the general prison population.

Read more here.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Promoting your work on LinkedIn

In the last few years, LinkedIn has developed from what was essentially a job board into something truly useful in the academic world: an active community of practitioners, students and professors all either searching for and sharing content or promoting themselves and their work.

About LinkedIn: For those of you new to LinkedIn, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 175 million members. LinkedIn connects users through invited contacts, allowing for the sharing of knowledge, ideas, research within a network other academics and professionals. The mission of LinkedIn is “to help you be more effective in your daily work and open doors to opportunities using the professional relationships you already have.”

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Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?

At 2:15 in the afternoon on March 28, 2010, Conor McBride, a tall, sandy-haired 19-year-old wearing jeans, a T-shirt and New Balance sneakers, walked into the Tallahassee Police Department and approached the desk in the main lobby. Gina Maddox, the officer on duty, noticed that he looked upset and asked him how she could help. “You need to arrest me,” McBride answered. “I just shot my fiancĂ©e in the head.” When Maddox, taken aback, didn’t respond right away, McBride added, “This is not a joke.”

Maddox called Lt. Jim Montgomery, the watch commander, to her desk and told him what she had just heard. He asked McBride to sit in his office, where the young man began to weep.

About an hour earlier, at his parents’ house, McBride shot Ann Margaret Grosmaire, his girlfriend of three years. Ann was a tall 19-year-old with long blond hair and, like McBride, a student at Tallahassee Community College. The couple had been fighting for 38 hours in person, by text message and over the phone. They fought about the mundane things that many couples might fight about, but instead of resolving their differences or shaking them off, they kept it up for two nights and two mornings, culminating in the moment that McBride shot Grosmaire, who was on her knees, in the face. Her last words were, “No, don’t!”

Read more here.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Justice delayed -- and delayed and delayed

All of us go to court at some point, if only to fight a traffic ticket or do jury duty. In court, you can see an attorney eloquently pressing a point, a judge wisely guiding the judicial process, and “the people” rendering carefully considered justice.

That’s in the ideal world, the world of “Law & Order” and “Perry Mason.” Courthouses can also be dispiriting sinkholes where day after day lawyers, clerks, police, judges, parole officers, and social workers try to keep their heads up amid the wreckage wrought by violence, drugs, selfishness, and chronically bad choices. In a courthouse, humanity can too easily be reduced to perpetrators and victims. You can feel guilty just being there.

That’s why it is all the more tragic when someone innocent is sucked into “the system” and becomes its victim.

Read more here.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Advance legal columnist: Whom does the criminal justice system favor?

Some view America's criminal justice system as favoring defendants, allowing them to exploit legal technicalities and generous plea-bargains to avoid being duly punished for their crimes. Others see a system that is stacked against defendants, one in which people, particularly the poor and underprivileged, are victimized by police misconduct, overzealous prosecutions, inadequate legal representation, and biased juries.

Though both are gross oversimplifications, each does have some merit.

For example, the United States is the only nation in the world that employs the so-called "exclusionary rule," a principle whereby most evidence improperly obtained by law enforcement is inadmissible against a defendant at trial. Such an instance occurred last Tuesday when, in People v. Gavazzi, the New York Court of Appeals suppressed evidence of child pornography obtained from the defendant's home because of a clerical error in the search warrant. Judge Robert S. Smith dissented, lamenting that the defendant would go free "because the constable has blundered."

Read more here.