By Kevin Kearon
Society has little tolerance for any form of sexual abuse of children, especially in a school setting. All the more reason to remember that the only thing worse than the sexual abuse of an innocent child is a false accusation of the sexual abuse of an innocent child.
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By Robin L. Barton
The criminal conspiracy case tied to the deaths of 29 Massey Energy employees in a mine explosion hasn't gotten the kind of media attention it deserves.
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By Glenn E. Martin
The mass incarceration of minority communities, and the resulting mass reentry and lifetime collateral consequences, have created the “perfect storm” to ensure that criminal record-based employment discrimination serves as a surrogate for race-based discrimination.
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By Natasha O’Dell Archer
The Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal focused national media attention on a dark fact of American life: the nationwide epidemic of child abuse, neglect and endangerment. Tragically, that case was just the tip of the iceberg.
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By Margaret Colgate Love
“Felon” is an ugly label that confirms the debased status that accompanies conviction, says former pardon attorney Margaret Love. It identifies a person as belonging to a class outside many protections of the law, someone who can be freely discriminated against, someone who exists at the margins of society.
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By Robin L. Barton
When covering criminal cases, should the focus be on the defendant or the victim?
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By Robin L. Barton
On Dec. 3, 2008, Laura Garza, a 25-year-old aspiring dancer, left a Manhattan night club with Michael Mele, a 26-year-old registered sex offender, and disappeared...
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By JoAnne Page
In their State of the State speeches last month, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced sweeping criminal justice proposals that, if implemented, will save taxpayers millions of dollars and significantly reduce crime--but only if they are done right, says the president of New York City's The Fortune Society.
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By Will Matthews
Today, according to some studies, nearly half of the tens of thousands of immigrants in detention every day are locked up in jails and detention systems operated by private prison companies. This explains the private prison industry's deep financial incentive to see the continued expansion of the system, even in the face of myriad abuses.
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By Thomas Giovanni and Laura K. Abel
On Halloween, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case illustrating how people and society suffer when indigent defense systems are chronically underfunded. In the case, Lafler v. Cooper, the Court will decide whether the Constitution is violated when an attorney’s advice to reject a plea bargain is based on a laughably poor legal error.
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