The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "civil trial" ...
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'Perversion files' show locals helped cover up
On June 14, 2012, following a civil trial, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that decades of the Boy Scouts’ confidential files would be made public. They would first need to allow the Scouts and plaintiffs’ attorneys time to redact the files of sensitive information. Given a months-long head start, editor Terry Petty and reporter Nigel Duara began the process of negotiating the unredacted files from a longtime source. The negotiations took two months and required the guarantee of an embargo. In August, they received a CD with 20,000 pages of perversion files. Duara and Petty combed through the files, looking for patterns. The Scouts’ concealment of the abuse has been reported before, beginning with an exhaustive series in the early 1990s from the Washington Times. But the AP team found something else: Locals helped. County attorneys, newspaper editors, mayors and police officers were all detailed in the files helping keep the Scouts’ name out of charging documents and off the front page. Indeed, a local county attorney proudly reported to Scouts leaders that he quashed an investigation in which a man confessed to sexually abusing two brothers “to protect the name of Scouting.”
Tags: Boy scouts; abuse; record
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New Orleans's tech contracting scandal
Former top mayoral aide, Greg Meffert, was caught in a web of self-dealing and exposed free vacations that the mayor had received. The series “helped the FBI and other federal investigators track the payments and relationships”. Also, it eventually “led to a 63-count federal criminal indictment against Meffert, his wife and the city vendor, Mark St. Pierre”.
Tags: crime; Mayor Ray Nagin; technology chief; state government; corruption; gifts; city hall; civil trial; city government
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Detroit's Terror Trial
In 2003, three men in Detroit were tried on charges of terror-related crimes. They were all of Arab descent and had phony passports. After all three were convicted, reporters conducted an investigation of the trial and found that at least a hundred documents had been withheld from defense lawyers and the chief witness against the men was an international con-artist. The convictions were thrown out and the prosecutor was charged with misconduct.
Tags: war on terror; attorney general John Ashcroft; Patriot Act; sleeper-cells; terrorism; consititutional rights; civil rights; FBI; justice department; federal court
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Seize first, convict later
"Months or years before some suspected Scott County drug dealers get their day in criminal court, their seized property and cash already belong to law enforcement agencies. One in four Scott County residents who had property and money seized by local police never faced any criminal charges, a Quad-City Times investigation of court records shows."
Tags: defendants; police seizures; profits; drug; civil forfeiture laws; criminal convictions; criminal trials; "bounty-hunting" of assets; budget padding; tracking property; guns; vehicles; homes; boats
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Settling His Accounts (A Prisoner of Means)
Maurice Mathie may be in prison, but he is now a wealthy man. Suffolk County just cut a check to him for $450,000 following a civil suit brought by Mathie. In the lawsuit, Mathie claimed he was raped in prison -- and not by another inmate, but by the chief of security, Sgt. Roy Fries. The judge in the case found indeed Fries had acted "maliciously and sadistically" against Mathie "for purposes of 'personal gratification.'" The original damages were $750,000, but a three-judge federal panel adjusted the award to $450,000. Amazingly, however, no criminal charges were ever filed against Fries, and he continues not only to collect a $40,000/year pension, but holds a prestigious position within a Long Island fire department. Meanwhile, Mathie, convicted of manslaughter, is trying reopen his own case (which never went to trial; he copped a plea). He says he killed Paul Vincent Lamariana in a moment of "terror and confusion," after the victim attacked a member of his family. The prosecutors, however, say Mathie was abusing drugs, and that he killed Lamariana to steal his dope. The article delves into the events surrounding the killing by Mathie, as well as the subsequent rape he suffered at the hands of Fries. A sidebar interview with Fries himself is also included (he denies any rape ever took place).
Tags: prison; prison rape; rape; lawsuit; sexual abuse; murder; manslaughter; damages; awards; civil court; court; Mathie; Fries; Lamariana; Suffolk; fire department; drugs
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In Mississippi, Justice Delayed-But Not Denied
This is a copy of the year-long coverage from beginning to end. The jury took only 3 1/2 hours to convict former KU Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers in the murder of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer. But the trial that resulted in that verdict took 32 years to bring about. And The Clarion-Ledger played a significant role in making it happen.
Tags: Ku Klux Klan; NAACP; Prison; mistrial; jury tampering; Civil rights; Crime; Courts; fire-bombing; never serving a prison sentence.
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Who Killed Jane?
This broadcast investigates the death of Jane Neumann in a quiet Wisconsin town. Her death defied logic from the start, and her family wants to understand what happened, why it happened, and how it could have happened to Jane. Did someone commit the perfect crime or was there a murder at all? 48 Hours was given total access by all parties in the civil trial of Jane's husband. The case raises the question of whether or not small town police departments are equipped to investigate cases of this nature.
Tags: TAPE
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No title (id: 13209)
The Spectator examines the astonishing rise in punitive damage awards affirmed by Alabama appelate courts. Plaintiffs see the oppurtunity for riches. Juries, flexing the populist muscle, exercise their right to teach large corporatins that you don't mess with Alabamans. Lawyers are only doing their jobs, which in some of the larger cases can result in hauling away half the settlement loot. (April 1996)
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No title (id: 10981)
In March 1989, the Exxon Valdez apilled 11 million gallons of oil into the wates of Prince William Sound, Alaska-the largest oil spill in U.S. history and perhapst the most devastating ever. Our one-hour story has three acts: Act One, unfolding dramatically as a moment of crisis, reconstructs how and why the tanker hit the rocks of Bligh Reef, and reveals the ways in whcih not nly Captain Hazelwood, but Exxon itself, was culpable. Act Two looks at tha aftermath of the spill: the disastrous, P.R. - Motivated clean-up effort mounted by Exxon and the Coast Guard that my have caused more ahrm than good, and probes the controversy surrounding the oil spill's role in the collapse of commerical fishing i the Sound five years later. Act Three begins with an account of the civil trial underway in Alaska at the time of broadcast in whcih fishermen and other Alaska resident were trying to recover from Exxon billions of dollars for damages relatig to the spill, and then goes on to talke a lovger view of oil tanker safety and oil spill prevention issues tha affec the entire U.S. coastline today.
Tags: Peter L. Bull; Robert Abeshous; John Donvan; tape; 44 pages