Justice (courts/crime/law)
Mugged by a Mug Shot Online
“Web sites are publishing arrest photos of millions of Americans and often charging fees to remove the pictures.”
Read MorePretrial detainees on the rise in New York
WNYC News reports that “over the past decade, as New York City’s backlog of felony cases has grown, so too has the time defendants are spending behind bars before trial. The average pretrial detention in a felony case was 95 days in 2012.”
Read MoreMeet the lawyer who keeps some of America’s worst charities in business
“The Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting spent a year identifying the 50 worst charities in America based on the money they paid to professional solicitation companies over the past decade. Copilevitz & Canter has represented nearly three-quarters of them, as well as most of their for-profit telemarketers and direct mail companies.”
Read MoreLeft in limbo, hundreds of Minnesotans with mental illness languish in jail
“Hundreds of inmates with dangerous psychiatric problems languish in county jails across the state.”
Read MoreForgotten Era: DA contenders Spota and Perini: Ties to ’80s probes of Suffolk law enforcement
“In the late 1980s, state and local investigators probed widespread misconduct in Suffolk County, much of it criminal, in the district attorney’s office and county police department. The scrutiny culminated in a controversial 1989 report by the now-defunct State Commission of Investigation. The report presented a disturbing portrait of a broken county law enforcement system.…
Read More12 years after reporters help prove man’s innocence, prosecutors finally dismiss conviction
In December 2001, the Chicago Tribune published a five-part series, “Cops and Confessions,” with one of the installments highlighting the case of Daniel Taylor, an inmate serving a life sentence without parole for a double murder he didn’t commit. Nearly 12 years later, on June 28th, 2013, Cook County prosecutors would admit the truth and…
Read MorePortland drug informant’s cases fall apart after questions about his credibility, whereabouts
“Police and prosecutors say checks-and-balances ensure the integrity of the system. But defense attorneys — whose clients faced years in prison because of Jackson’s work — say police wasted thousands in taxpayer dollars putting so much faith in a dubious undercover source,” The Oregonian reports.
Read MoreNevada chief justice orders courts review after potentially more than 2,400 ruled mentally ill not reported to gun database
“(A Reno Gazette-Journal) report this week found that Washoe District Court in Reno did not send 179 names to the Department of Public Safety’s database of people prohibited from possessing a gun. When the RGJ asked the department how many reports it had received from other courts in the state, the director said only 13…
Read MoreShortcomings seen in response to missing Iowans
“A Des Moines Register examination of missing-person cases revealed ongoing shortcomings in how Iowa responds when its residents vanish.”
Read MoreU.S. reviewing 27 death penalty convictions for FBI forensic testimony errors
The Washington Post reports: “The unusual collaboration came after The Washington Post reported last year that authorities had known for years that flawed forensic work by FBI hair examiners may have led to convictions of potentially innocent people, but officials had not aggressively investigated problems or notified defendants.”
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