In all the attention paid to the marriage equality cases, it was easy to miss a rare bit of good news from the Supreme Court when it comes to criminal justice and government immunity issues. On March 27, the court handed down a 9-0 ruling in Millbrook v United States limiting the immunity of prison …
Category Archive: Criminal Justice
Apr 10 2013
NY Times on Police Surveillance
The New York Times has an article about the increasing use of wearable video cameras by police departments to record every interaction between officers and the public while they’re on duty. But the article also shows the reluctance of the police officers to accept such surveillance:
Apr 09 2013
New Hampshire Decides Against Privatizing Prisons
Here’s a rare bit of good news from our criminal (in)justice system. The state of New Hampshire, after taking bids from several companies to take over their prison system, has rejected all of those proposals on the grounds that they were unable to provide the level of care necessary for inmates.
Apr 09 2013
Debtors’ Prisons in Ohio
The ACLU of Ohio has a new report called The Outskirts of Hope, about the phenomenon of debtors’ prisons — throwing people in jail for being unable to pay fines and court costs. The title of the report is taken from a speech by President Lyndon Baines Johnson:
Apr 08 2013
Cuccinelli and ‘Crimes Against Nature’
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, now running for governor of that state and a rising star on the Christian right, is asking the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to grant an en banc rehearing and uphold the constitutionality of their anti-sodomy law, which was struck down by the Supreme Court’s Lawrence v Texas ruling in …
Apr 08 2013
700,000 Pot Arrests Explained
Harry Levine, a Queens College sociology professor who calls this country’s massive law enforcement spending and incarceration rates for marijuana a national disgrace, does an interview with New Inquiry and explains why there are so many such arrests.
Apr 08 2013
Prosecutors and the Rule of Law
ProPublica has a long report on the problem of prosecutorial misconduct — withholding evidence, sometimes even falsifying it completely, in order to get a conviction — and the total lack of accountability for those who engage in it. The report points out some high profile cases where the city or county paid up but the …
Apr 05 2013
Innocence Project of Texas Gets FBB Grant
The Foundation Beyond Belief has announced its grant recipients for the second quarter of 2013 and I’m very happy to note that one of the recipients is the Innocence Project of Texas (Disclaimer: I am the Media Relations Coordinator for FBB, but have no input into which groups get grants). Longtime readers of this blog …
Apr 02 2013
SCOTUS Issues Good Ruling on Police Dogs
After royally screwing up a ruling on the use of dogs to sniff for drugs a few weeks ago, and in the midst of all the attention paid to the marriage equality cases, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Florida v Jardines that at least puts some limits on the use of dogs to …
Mar 29 2013
‘Sovereign Citizen’ Convicted of Tax Fraud
James Timothy Turner, one of those infamous “sovereign citizens” who thinks he doesn’t have to follow the law because the government is some grand Illimunati conspiracy or something, has been convicted by a federal jury of a whole bunch of charges:
Mar 27 2013
Rand Paul on the War on Drugs
Like his father, Rand Paul can be maddening. Sometimes he sounds like a complete lunatic and other times he’s not only on the right side but is virtually alone in Congress in taking the right stand. That’s why ThinkProgress says that Democrats should be saying the things he’s saying about the disastrous war on drugs:
Mar 26 2013
NYPD Told to Target Young Black Men
There’s an important class action lawsuit going on in New York that challenges the NYPD’s stop and frisk program, which subjects almost 700,000 people a year to humiliating and unnecessary searches while walking the streets, almost all of them — 87% — black and Latino. And one police officer has a tape of his supervisor …
Mar 25 2013
Florida ‘Psychics’ Admit Fraud
Remember that family of psychics in Florida who were arrested and charged with defrauding clients to the tune of $25 million? 8 of the 9 members of the family have now admitted to the fraud and pleaded guilty, leaving only the matriarch of the family refusing to do so.
Mar 24 2013
Another Arrest for Filming the Police
Police officers arrested a young man in Florida for filming them…doing nothing. It was actually a prank, the kid did a pretty cool flip over the heads of the officers while someone else filmed it. Now that may be dumb, but it isn’t a crime. And when they found out it was being filmed, the …
Mar 22 2013
Misogynist Imam Arrested for Attempted Sexual Assault
A Danish imam who became infamous for saying that women who don’t wear a hijab deserve to be raped has been arrested and charged for attempted sexual assault himself. Here’s what he had to say about women deserving no respect and it’s all their fault if they get raped:
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