Justice (courts/crime/law)
Report looks at colleges with highest violent crime rates
ABC News used data reported by the country’s universities and analyzed reports of campus crime to determine which colleges had the highest reported violent crime rates. The analysis divided the schools into four categories — largest to smallest and were available from 2002 and 2003. "In the smallest category, schools with 2,100 students or fewer,…
Read MoreInnocent man likely executed in Texas
Lise Olsen of the Houston Chronicle reports that a witness now says he was influenced by police to identify Ruben Cantu, then 17, as the killer in an alleged murder-robbery. Cantu, who claimed to have been framed in the capital murder case, was executed in August 1993. “A dozen years after his execution, a Houston…
Read MoreMortgage fraud surges in Chicago
David Jackson, with contributions from Ray Gibson, Todd Lighty and John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, reviewed thousands of pages of land and court records and interviewed more than 100 people to show that a white-collar crime wave is raking Chicago’s poorest communities, robbing vulnerable families of their homes and draining billions of dollars from…
Read MoreCalif. conservators profit from vulnerable seniors
Evelyn Larrubia, Jack Leonard and Robin Fields of the Los Angeles Times examined records of more than 2,400 cases handled by California’s professional conservators since 1997 to produce a detailed four-part series on the state’s failure to protect its senior citizens from those hired to handle their affairs. More than 500 seniors were entrusted to…
Read MoreFlawed homes go unrepaired in hurricane-prone area
Mc Nelly Torres of South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that, despite an engineer’s independent study showing workmanship and materials that did not meet standards in a hurricane-prone area, homeowners have been waiting 10 years for their homes to be fixed. Torres reviewed hundreds of records, including a grand jury report, two independent studies, and other construction-related…
Read MoreTroopers with political connections win promotions
Brad Schrade of The Tennessean analyzed three years of the patrol’s promotions and proposed promotions to show that two-thirds of Tennessee Highway Patrol officers tapped for promotion under Gov. Phil Bredesen gave money to his campaign or had family or political patrons who did. Among those with such connections, more than half were promoted over…
Read MoreBanned drivers flout law in Va.
Bill Burke and David Gulliver of The Virginian-Pilot used local court data to show that " from 2000 to 2004 in Hampton Roads, 42,606 people were convicted of driving on a suspended or revoked license, according to an analysis of court records." More than 4,600 people were found guilty three or more times, and some…
Read MoreStudents investigate 23-year-old murder case
Students from the Missouri School of Journalism led by Steve Weinberg, a former director of IRE, spent months researching DNA testing, digging up court testimony and interviewing witnesses to report on a St. Louis case which had been controversially re-opened in 2003. The report is a detailed account of the 1982 murder of JoAnn Clenney…
Read MoreCampaign contributions may bolster charges against Delay
Jonathan Salant of Bloomberg Markets analyzed Federal Election Commission records to find the Republican Party’s $190,000 in donations to seven Texas politicians in 2002 is five times more than any of the other contributions the national party made to state legislative races that year. “The charges may bolster a prosecutor’s accusations that Tom DeLay, who…
Read MoreInmate deaths were preventable
Rick Anderson of Seattle Weekly examined King County’s internal jail records to show that deceptive administrative tactics hid a spike in local jail deaths this year, including what turned out to be two preventable suicides. Record requests showed that among the 13 deaths in a 27-month period were that of a man who died from…
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