Perjury, faulty eyewitness identification, and prosecutorial misconduct are the leading reasons for wrongful convictions, says the first national registry of exonerations compiled by university researchers. USA Today says the database, in a collaboration between the University of Michigan and Northwestern University, has identified 873 faulty convictions in the past 23 years that have been recognized by prosecutors, judges, or governors.
The registry's founders say the numbers, which do not include many cases in which innocent suspects plead guilty to avoid the risk of more serious punishments or cases that have been dismissed because of legal error without new evidence of innocence, represent only some fraction of the problem in the nation's criminal justice system. "What this shows is that the criminal justice system makes mistakes, and they are more common than people think," said University of Michigan law Prof. Samuel Gross, the registry's editor. "It is not the rule, but we won't learn to get better unless we pay attention to these cases." Despite the data, the registry concluded that the "overwhelming majority of convicted defendants are guilty."
Read full entry »
Police cameras reduce crime in dangerous areas, reports a new study.
Read full entry »A 45-second recording of a 911 call in Sanford, Fl., may be the key to the case against George Zimmerman for shooting Trayvon Martin, reports the Washington...
Read full entry »The billboards - reminders of lives cruelly cut short - should begin dotting the Boston skyline by mid-June, says the Boston Globe. Designed by surviving...
Read full entry »She wasn’t old enough to see a PG-13 movie on her own, but Lamiqua Nowell of Franklinton, Oh., owed utility companies thousands in unpaid bills, says...
Read full entry »Dozens of sex offenders in a federal prison in Butner, N.C., have served their time and now are being imprisoned not for what they did, but what they might...
Read full entry »The cellphone of one of two University of Southern California graduate students killed last month helped lead police to their alleged killers, the Los...
Read full entry »Civil rights and conservative groups have banded together to ask the Federal Communications Commission to end "exorbitant" fees that many prisons charge...
Read full entry »When Arlington, Tx., police officer Zhivonni McDonnell reported for a shift earlier this year, she was armed with one of the Police Department's newest tools: a smartphone equipped with Twitter. As she accompanied a Citizens on Patrol member that night, McDonnell, the department's social media specialist, tweeted updates on what they were seeing and doing, giving followers a taste of what the volunteer group does, says the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.
The key, said Chyng-Yang Jang of the University of Texas at Arlington's department of communication, is having personnel who are trained in social media use. "If you're going to use it to just post information, then I don't think it will be too effective," he said. "The real powerful thing is the two-way communication." Cleveland police used it during an Amber Alert in April and received a tip within a few hours that led to the children's rescue. In Pennsylvania, a police department made three arrests in one week off leads generated by social media. Recently, one of Denton's most-wanted misdemeanor fugitives saw his mug shot on the Police Department's Facebook page and turned himself in, hoping to keep his family and friends from finding out.
More than three years after Isaac Zamora went on a rampage in Washington state, killing six people, including a sheriff's deputy and a friend, prosecutors and defense attorneys are preparing for what may be the final legal battle, reports the Seattle Times. A bench trial next month will determine whether Zamora will remain a hospital patient or be transferred to prison to serve four life sentences.
The state Department of Social and Health Services wants the 31-year-old to be imprisoned, saying he poses a security risk and no longer requires hospital-based psychiatric treatment. The case is a test of a 2010 law that allows the state to request that mentally ill criminal offenders such as Zamora be imprisoned rather than treated indefinitely at a state mental hospital. Criminal defendants who are found not guilty by reason of insanity are sent to the forensic unit of a state hospital for treatment. So-called forensic patients, after treatment, can petition the courts for release if their mental health is stabilized to the point that they could re-enter society. A judge makes the decision, with input from the state's mental-health experts and attorneys.
Read full entry »Charlotte, N.C., Police Chief Rodney Monroe he faces his biggest test yet, says the Charlotte Observer. His job is to work with the U.S. Secret Service to keep Charlotte safe during the Democratic National Convention in September, requiring an extraordinary level of planning and coordination never before undertaken in the city. If something goes wrong – whether it’s an unprecedented terrorist attack or the mass arrests that tarnished St. Paul’s image in 2008 – Monroe will be judged.
“When you think of the number of eyes internationally that will be on Charlotte, that the president of the United States will be right here in this city, and when you think of all the security needed to ensure his safety and all the citizens of this community that need to be protected, there is no heavier weight than Chief Rodney Monroe will bear,” said Mayor Pro Tem Patrick Cannon. “He’s calm under pressure,” said Isaac Fulwood Jr., a former police colleague of Monroe in Washington, D.C., now chairman of the U.S. Parole Commission. “He communicates well. He’s not afraid to talk with people, listen and hear their advice.”
The two West Memphis, Ar., police officers who pulled over an old, white van two years ago today knew neither about the father and son occupants nor the sovereign citizen movement they espoused. FBI investigative files obtained by the Memphis Commercial Appeal under the Freedom of Information Act show the FBI had been tracking Ohio-born Jerry Kane since at least 2004. Agents suspected him of various financial fraud schemes in several states, but never charged him with a crime.
There's no hint in the massive record that agents knew Kane and his 16-year-old son, Joe, crisscrossed the country armed with an AK-47. Even after probes in Oklahoma, California, and Ohio, records show, nothing suggests the agency suspected Kane would turn violent against law enforcement officials. When Kane's son killed Sgt. Brandon Paudert and officer Bill Evans at exit 275, the FBI's investigation of a potential network of like-minded friends and potential co-conspirators quickly became an intensive national effort. In the two years since the shootings, the FBI has warned of sovereign citizens' growing threat to law enforcement. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that tracks hate groups, has documented a proliferation of its adherents nationwide. "West Memphis woke a lot of us up to how bad this situation really is," said the center's Mark Potok. "I think things are likely to get worse before they get better."
Read full entry »Maryland legislator Pat McDonough won't back down from a press release he issued alleging that 'black youth mobs terrorize" downtown Baltimore, says the Baltimore Sun. In a Saturday night radio show, he seemed to ratchet up the rhetoric ripping Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake while vowing to bring the issue of downtown public safety to the front burner of public consciousness with a "news conference" and other actions this week. He did not sound like a man about to apologize for what one of his legislative colleagues characterized as "race baiting."
The Sun's David Zurawik says that "McDonough's on-air efforts Saturday make this a media story that raises important questions about role media play in how a community talks about race -- and whether the media in Baltimore have been facilitating or failing in that crucial conversation. One minister has already called for McDonough to be pulled from the airwaves." On the radio, he said, "Either Baltimore city overcomes crime, or crime will overcome Baltimore city -- and the city will no longer be livable at all. And it's very close to that situation in a lot of ways. This is not just a black issue. Yes, the gangs down there, the mobs, are black. I know we have knuckleheads and criminals that are white, but I'm trying to focus on this issue"
Why does the U.S. lead the world in youth imprisonment? What should a truly effective juvenile justice system look like? How can the media stay ahead of the story?
On April 23-24, 2012, 30 journalists from around the nation joined some of the country's most prominent juvenile justice experts, practitioners and advocates to explore those questions at a special symposium at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, organized by John Jay's Center on Media, Crime and Justice with the support of the Tow Foundation and in cooperation with John Jay's Center for Research and Evaluation.
The 30 journalists, selected as Reporting Fellows, examined current sentencing and detention practices, the impact of race, treatment of mental health and substance abuse, and the role of police, courts, schools (and parents) in the so-called "school to prison pipeline." The year-long fellowship also includes the establishment of a "juvenile justice news network" for reporters to assist them in following trends in this area, and new research--with the aim of providing the tools that can help foster informed public debate at local and national levels in 2012 and beyond.
The symposium entitled Kids Behind Bars: Where's the Justice in America's Juvenile Justice System, Covering the Juvenile Justice Reform Debate in 2012 featured keynote speeches from Gail Garinger, The Child Advocate of the State of Massachusetts; attorney Bryan Stevenson who argued the Supreme Court case related to juvenile Life Without Parole; and Mike Bocian, Pollster & Founding Partner, GBA Strategies.
Panelists included: Vincent N. Schiraldi, Commissioner, New York City Department of Probation, James Bell, Founder and Executive Director, W. Haywood Burns Institute, C. Jama Adams, Professor and Chair of John Jay College's Africana Studies Department and Joseph Gaudett, Chief of Police, Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Proceedings of the conference, including podcasts, research materials provided by speakers, are covered below. For a full list of speakers, panelists and the agenda click here.
NOTE: this page will be updated regularly with articles by Fellows and other information as it becomes available.
Treating America's narcotics problem as a public health issue could held suppress crime, reports Reuters. An annual drug monitoring report, released by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, also showed a decline in the use of cocaine since 2003, a sign that drug-interdiction efforts and public education campaigns may be curtailing the use of the drug's powder and crack forms. The rate of overall illegal drug use in the U.S. has declined by about 30 percent since 1979.
The report, based on thousands of arrestee interviews and drug tests, showed that on average 71 percent of men arrested in 10 U.S. metropolitan areas last year tested positive for an illegal substance at the time they were taken into custody. The figures ranged from 64 percent of arrests in Atlanta to 81 percent in Sacramento, Calif. Officials said the report supports President Barack Obama's strategy aimed at breaking the cycle of drugs and crime by attacking substance abuse with treatment rather than jail for nonviolent offenders. Federal drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said, "These data confirm that we must address our drug problem as a public health issue, not just a criminal justice issue."
