Wednesday, February 22, 2012 10:58
California police officers cannot be sued because they used a warrant that may have been defective to search a woman’s house, the U.S. Supreme Court...
Read full entry »Wednesday, February 22, 2012 10:24
A new federal edition of school crime indicators says that of the 33 violent deaths in schools in the year ending June 30, 2010, there were 25 homicides...
Read full entry »Wednesday, February 22, 2012 09:42
Illinois Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn will deliver a bad-news budget today, suggesting that the state close numerous prisons, mental health centers and social...
Read full entry »Wednesday, February 22, 2012 09:33
At a time when New York state’s booze patrol has downsized to its lowest level in 15 years, city hospitals have seen an alarming jump in emergency room cases stemming from underage drinking, reports the New York Daily News. The number of bombed teens in ERs has nearly doubled as the State Liquor Authority’s depleted staff has scaled back its routine enforcement to focus on bars and businesses with the worst records for alcohol infractions.
“The SLA says that they have zero tolerance when it comes to selling liquor to minors. I’d like them to put their money where their mouths are,” said City Councilman James Vacca. He said the agency’s skeletal staff depends on tips from the New York Police Department to root out establishments serving alcohol to minors or violating other rules of their liquor license. “If it wasn’t for the NYPD, there’d be an explosion of illegal sales,” said Vacca. “The NYPD is picking up the slack for the SLA.” Binge drinking by teens has become such a crisis that the city Health Department launched a $200,000 ad campaign in 2011 warning of the perils of alcohol abuse.
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Wednesday, February 22, 2012 09:24
The Supreme Court yesterday limited the circumstances in which prisoners must be told of their rights before they are questioned, the New York Times reports. The question was whether an inmate's confession to a sex cime should have been suppressed because he didn't get Miranda warnings before he was questioned. The answer turned on whether he was in custody at the time.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote tor the 6-3 majority that “custody” for these purposes “is a term of art that specifies circumstances that are thought generally to present a serious danger of coercion.” The inmate, Randall Fields, was in a Michigan jail for disorderly conduct when he was taken to a conference room and questioned for five to seven hours by armed deputies who used a sharp tone and profanity. He was told he was free to return to his cell but was not given Miranda warnings. The key inquiry, Justice Alito said, was whether a reasonable person in those circumstances would have felt free to end the questioning and leave. He said the fact of imprisonment did not by itself provide the answer. On balance, Alito said, Fields was not in custody, and so no warnings were required.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 09:03
A report to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concludes that the pay for court-appointed lawyers in Philadelphia death-penalty cases is "grossly inadequate" and "unacceptably increases the risk of ineffective assistance of counsel," says the Philadelphia Inquirer. Last year, The Inquirer reported that scores of death-penalty cases had been reversed by appellate courts or sent back for new hearings because of serious errors by defense attorneys. Low pay is a key reason, critics say.
In Philadelphia, fewer than 30 of 11,000 lawyers are willing to take capital-case appointments for indigent clients and also meet minimum state requirements for doing so. Philadelphia pays less than any other county in Pennsylvania, according to defense lawyers who petitioned the Supreme Court to increase the fees or halt death-penalty cases until that happens. The high court said more information was needed and asked Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner, who oversees homicide cases in Philadelphia, to determine if the pay for court-appointed lawyers was "so inadequate that it can be presumed that court-appointed counsel are constitutionally ineffective." Lerner found that, the compensation of court-appointed capital defense lawyers in Philadelphia is grossly inadequate, both as to the dollar amount of the compensation and as to the compensation schedule provided by the present fee system.
Read full entry »Wednesday, February 22, 2012 08:43
An increasingly active informant pool is helping the FBI identify suspects involved in alleged plots against the U.S. from within, says USA Today. Since the 9/11 attacks, when virtually no anti-terror intelligence network existed, federal authorities have tapped into a vast network of informants — many in the Muslim community — who have assisted in the arrests of suspects. Civil rights advocates and defense lawyers have complained that the tactics smack of a disproportionate focus on Muslims.
"We are getting regular calls from people across the country who are being approached by the (federal government) to act as informants," said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations. "And we are concerned about what kind of pressure is being used to get that cooperation." FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said, "We do not investigate people based solely [ ] on their race, ethnicity, national origin or religious affiliation," In the complaint last week in a plot to bomb the U.S. Capitol, FBI agent Steven Hersem noted that the informant not only brought the suspect to the FBI but accompanied the suspect and the undercover agent Friday on the drive toward the Capitol where the suspect was arrested.
Read full entry »Wednesday, February 22, 2012 08:10
A federal judge has struck down a Louisiana law that banned sex offenders from using social media sites, ruling that the law was overly vague and violated...
Read full entry »Wednesday, February 22, 2012 07:14
Ohio's capital punishment system could be under its own death watch as scrutiny over how the state executes prisoners has led to calls for significant changes of the death penalty, if not an outright repeal, says the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Despite the issues plaguing the state's execution process, Ohio officials say they are are getting this call on life-or-death right. "I feel that we have a solid protocol, and I know that we have the professionally trained staff to execute that protocol," said state corrections director Gary Mohr.
Mohr knows there are plenty of people from judges to former prison officials to anti-death penalty activists who have heavy concerns about the death penalty. They question why some criminals land on death row and others do not, whether the state's execution procedures are legal and whether the system can be revamped to restore waning public trust. Ohio has botched one execution, which had to be postponed, and had two others with lengthy delays, including one in which the inmate, while strapped to the gurney in the execution chamber, cried out, "This isn't working." Under legal duress, the state switched from a three-drug concoction to a one-drug dose for lethal injection, a change that is the subject of a lawsuit.
Read full entry »Wednesday, February 22, 2012 06:52
Gun sales have skyrocketed since Barack Obama became president, says Bloomberg Business Week blogger Joshua Green. During that time, the stock of gunmaker Sturm Ruger (RGR) has outperformed gold. Analysts aren’t sure what’s causing the trend. Many anticipated a boost in sales from gun owners fearful that Obama might outlaw assault weapons — the “fear trade.” They expected a brief spike, no more. Instead, gun sales kept rising, and they’ve continued to rise even since last fall. Ruger, up 400 percent at the time, is now up more than 500 percent.
Despite the fact that Obama hasn’t made the slightest feint toward regulating guns, firearms enthusiasts have whipped themselves into a paranoid frenzy, convinced that this is all just part of some elaborate conspiracy. National Rifle Association executive director Wayne LaPierre told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) two weeks ago of a "a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term." The website ammo.net has a graphic on just why Obama is, as they put it, the “greatest gun salesman in America”
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