Things just went from bad to worse for Rep. Michele Bachmann. In addition to the FEC and the Office of Congressional Ethics, the FBI has now joined the investigations into campaign finance violations during her failed 2012 presidential run.
Category Archive: Criminal Justice
May 22 2013
A Terrible Juliet-Juliet Prosecution
A few years ago, Todd Heywood and I did a lot of reporting on so-called Romeo and Juliet relationships and how the use of statutory rape laws against young people who are just over 18 with a girlfriend or boyfriend under 18. Here’s a horrible story of a Juliet-Juliet prosecution that threatens to ruin the …
May 22 2013
Appeals Court Cuts Crack Sentences
In 2010, Congress passed and President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the disparity in sentences for crack vs powder cocaine from 100-1 to 18-1. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the new sentencing guidelines applied to cases where the defendant had been convicted before that law was passed but not yet …
May 14 2013
Canada Has Bad Cops Too
America is apparently not the only country that has its share of abusive, corrupt police officers — or the only one that doesn’t do anything to punish them when they’re caught. Here’s an officer in Durham threatening to plant drugs on a suspect and being incredibly abusive.
May 14 2013
Whites More Likely to Abuse Drugs
Here’s a fact that may come as a real shock to people, especially given the massive disparity in the number of arrests, convictions and prison terms for drugs — black people are actually less likely to use and abuse drugs than white people. Another new study confirms that.
May 13 2013
Bad Forensic Evidence. Again.
A year ago, it was revealed that the Department of Justice had done a review of hundreds of cases involving hair and fiber analysis and found that hundreds of people may have been wrongfully convicted as a result of shoddy and overclaimed work at an FBI crime lab. They didn’t bother to report that to …
May 09 2013
DEA Ramping Up Marijuana Enforcement. Again.
One of President Obama’s most obvious broken promises has been on the issue of federal enforcement of marijuana laws in states where medical marijuana is legal. Despite saying repeatedly that he would shift resources against such enforcement, prosecutions have actually increased. And now there’s a new crackdown making it even worse.
May 07 2013
Catholic Coverup of Child Abuse Continues
To listen to the apologists for the Catholic Church, the problem of pedophile priests and the church’s actions in covering up their crimes by moving them from parish to parish is an artifact of the distant past. Not so. The archbishop of Newark is apparently still doing it.
May 07 2013
NYPD Commish: Everything Wrong With Justice System
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly gave an interview to a TV station that shows him to be pretty much everything that is wrong with our criminal (in)justice system. Believe it or not, he actually argues that the NYPD’s stop and frisk program, which targets blacks and Latinos a staggering 87% of the time, isn’t racist enough.
May 04 2013
Gaffney, McCarthy Team Up to Bring the Stupid
Frank Gaffney and Andrew McCarthy are two of the loudest and dumbest voices on the right. They have literally never seen an authoritarian anti-Islamic policy they didn’t endorse. Gaffney has argued that we should end Muslim immigration and not allow any mosques to be built. Now they’re teaming up to say dumb things about a …
May 03 2013
Florida Republicans Want to Speed Up Executions
The Florida legislature has passed a package of criminal justice reforms that include provisions to speed up the execution of those on death row. Gov. Rick Scott is almost certain to sign the bill. And one Republican callously declared that it’s “not about guilt or innocence.”
May 03 2013
Fuck You, Mayor Bloomberg
Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York has rarely met an authoritarian policy he didn’t heartily endorse. Speaking against a bill that would appoint an inspector general to oversee the NYPD and give innocent victims of its stop and frisk program some legal recourse, he said:
May 01 2013
Why Moderate Muslims Matter
William Saletan makes a point that I have been making for years, which is that in our fight to remain safe from the attacks of Muslim extremists, our most important allies are moderate Muslims (who are often at as much risk from such attacks as we are).
Apr 26 2013
Michigan School Sued for Ignoring Sexual Assault
In the wake of the horrifying situation in Steubenville, Ohio, a Michigan school has now been sued for allegedly ignoring a sexual assault and refusing to take the situation seriously. This school. Forest Hills Central, is only about 45 minutes from where I live. RH Reality Check has the story.
Apr 25 2013
Nugent’s Inane Screed
Ted Nugent has reacted to the arrest of one of the Boston Marathon bombers in exactly the manner one would expect, with an inane explosion of ignorant rage that boils down to “let’s kill him as quickly as possible.” And for some reason, he thinks this has something to do with voodoo.
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