In 2015, New Mexico became the first state to ban civil asset forfeiture, also known as policing for profit. Law enforcement cannot take people’s valuables and use the civil court system to gain ownership of them. State law now stipulates that cash and property can only be seized by law enforcement and forfeited when the original […]
Two elected district attorneys in North Carolina have been arrested and one has pleaded guilty for a scheme that authorities said involved both men hiring the other’s wife for bogus jobs. Craig Blitzer and Wallace Bradsher were both accused of taking about $100,000 in state money from the North Carolina payroll program for jobs that didn’t really […]
For years, Indiana has been at the center of the national conversation about opioid addiction, which has ravaged the state since the late 1990s. Between 1999 and 2014, the number of drug overdoses skyrocketed 500 percent. There was also a 60 percent increase in emergency visits for non-fatal overdoses between 2011 and 2015. By and large, the medical community […]
A lawsuit filed against the city of Louisville by a man exonerated after serving 14 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit will go forward. U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson ruled that the man, Kerry Porter, had “compelling evidence” that police possessed information that someone else, Juan Leotis Sanders, had murdered truck driver Tyrone Camp— […]
In 1998, Vance Haskell was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole for the shooting of Darrel Cooley. Nearly four years prior, Cooley was gunned down with a semiautomatic weapon at a steakhouse in Erie, Pennsylvania. Haskell matched the profile of a suspect based on the reports of multiple witnesses, but it was the […]
There is widespread agreement that the bail system is broken. Millions of people annually sit in local jails without conviction because they cannot afford bail, and 75% of pretrial detainees have been charged only with drug or property crimes. The effect is that bail needlessly causes people to lose their jobs, not be able to care for […]
Damning new details have surfaced about a Bronx prosecutor and two investigators tied to the case of Pedro Hernandez, a 17-year-old accused of two non-fatal shootings that occurred in 2015. According to PIX11 News, Assistant District Attorney David Slott and detectives Daniel Brady and David Terrell pressured several witnesses to identify Hernandez as the gunman in […]
The Christian County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office has been removed from handling a murder case after a judge found that Commonwealth’s Attorney Lynn Pryor had a conflict of interest from previously dating the lead detective. Pryor, who took over as top county prosecutor in January 2007, and her entire office are now off the murder case of Jarred Tabor Long […]
Norfolk County (Massachusetts) prosecutors announced on Monday that they do not intend to retry Fred Weichel, a South Boston man who spent 36 years behind bars for a murder the existing evidence suggests he did not commit. Yet the district attorney’s office took pains to clarify that the decision not to re-prosecute falls far short […]
When Henry Ayo was arrested for allegedly trying to steal an air conditionerand jailed in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison last August, he was financially dependent on his wife and unable to make bail. Paying thousands of dollars to secure his pretrial release from the jail was impossible at the time, yet the judge presiding […]
Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey will be departing at the end of his term in 2018, ending a 26 year tenure as the elected prosecutor for Texas’ 10th largest county. Healey, a Republican, was originally appointed to office in 1992 and has been reelected six times. He faced a general election challenger only once; in […]
Years after his brutal death, Darren Rainey remains on the minds of the people of Miami. That’s bad news for Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. In 2012, guards locked Rainey in the shower at the Dade Correctional Institute. He died after he was essentially boiled to death. Other inmates said he was screaming for […]
The Illinois Supreme Court has smacked down a prosecutor who created his own private police force with civil asset forfeiture dollars. Former LaSalle County State Attorney Brian Towne created the task force in 2011. According to Forbes, “Using the state’s civil forfeiture laws, which allow law enforcement to seize — and keep — property even if the owner has never been criminally charged, […]
The Washington Post, the Root, and others have recently written about a District of Columbia police officer who was seen in D.C. Superior Court wearing a t-shirt with a white supremacist symbol and the grim reaper holding a rifle and police badge. Under the ugly image of death is the caption “let me see that waistband […]
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is urging the state of New York to create a independent commission to look into what he has called a “wrongful convictions crisis” in Brooklyn. Since 2014, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU) has investigated at least 70 convictions; 23 have been overturned. The CRU, which was started by the […]
A Kentucky judge has ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional for defendants who committed a murder before they turned 21 years of old. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons that the death penalty is unconstitutional for anyone who committed murder when they were under the age of 18. Fayette Circuit Court […]
Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a bar complaint with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel against Leon Cannizzaro, the District Attorney for New Orleans Parish, Louisiana. The gist of the allegations involve a series of fake subpoenas Cannizzaro’s office was using to coerce people not accused of a crime to come to the DA’s office and […]
A Hawaii judge has blasted Honolulu prosecutors for bringing charges against a woman who’d previously filed a sex discrimination suit against a major donor. Judge Karen Nakasone dismissed all charges against Laurel Mau, an architect who worked for Mitsunaga & Associates, an influential architectural and engineering firm that had been one of the top donors to the […]
In a speech last week to a group of law enforcement officials in Suffolk County, New York, President Trump suggested that America was under threat “because police [aren’t] allowed to do their job.” He decried laws that he sees as “heavily stacked against [police]” and “made to protect the criminal.” In the face of this perceived […]
After he shot Stan Severi last December in Tehachapi, California, Sheriff’s Deputy Gabriel Romo admitted to making a near-fatal mistake. Severi was unarmed, but Romo believed he was reaching for a gun and fired a single shot at Severi’s abdomen. The deputy realized shortly after taking the shot that Severi didn’t have a weapon. Nevertheless, Kern […]
Eric Gonzalez has a longstanding reputation as a “pure district attorney” and criminal justice reformer. Before assuming his position as the Brooklyn District Attorney in 2016, following the death of much-beloved predecessor Ken Thompson, Gonzalez worked on a policy to scale back the prosecution of low-level marijuana offenders. He also assisted in the creation and implementation of a […]
A Kentucky murder conviction has unraveled amid allegations that the elected prosecutor was having an affair with the lead detective on the case. The prosecutor’s office is also being accused of failing to disclose critical evidence to the defense. David Wayne Dooley was convicted of the 2012 murder of Michelle Mockbee and sentenced to life in […]
Anthony Huff tragically died in the Garfield County Jail in Oklahoma last year, after staff restrained him in a chair and failed to hydrate and feed him for two days, according to court documents unsealed and released to the public on July 25. But in a rare move, prosecutors in the state decided to hold the […]
Viewers know that Olivia Benson is the leather jacket-wearing detective on Law and Order SVU, an icon to law-abiding women everywhere. In a recent Women of the World biography, the newly-anointed district attorney for San Diego Summer Stephan received comparisons to Olivia Benson for her tough-as-nails approach to offenders. Stephan has taken over the top prosecutor job, handpicked by her […]
Throughout his life, Nick has battled mental illness and an addiction to crack cocaine. He was convicted three times in the 1990’s for offenses that are characteristic of someone struggling with addiction, and served more than four years in a Washington State prison. But despite his fierce desire to remain sober and gainfully employed since […]
District attorneys in Oregon have a new tactic to deal with judges that hand down rulings against their offices: they’re effectively getting rid of them. County circuit judges in both Lane and Multnomah counties have been disqualified from hearing criminal cases this year following accusations from district attorneys that the judges failed to be “fair […]
Protesters railing against extreme heat in one of St. Louis’ abuse-plagued jails were pepper-sprayed by police clad in riot gear last Friday and Saturday, as they called on city officials to shut down the dangerous facility. They say inmates at the Medium Security Institution, nicknamed the “Workhouse,” are living in cells with no air conditioning despite […]
The Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously threw out a child molestation conviction because the Campbell County trial prosecutor “flagrantly abused its authority in prosecuting the case” by making misleading statements to the jury during closing argument. David Albert Soloway was sentenced to 45 years in prison after the 8-year-old daughter of his live-in girlfriend accused him of molesting […]
Earlier this week, the Oregonian newspaper reported that Ted Wheeler, the Mayor of Portland, Oregon had narrowed the field of candidates for Portland police chief to four candidates.
Two United State Senators have proposed reforming money bail as a way to lower the incarceration rate in the country. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) are co-sponsoring the Pretrial Integrity and Safety Act, which would “encourage states to reform or replace the bail system.” The U.S. Department of Justice would provide grants […]
Defense lawyers are asking a judge in North Carolina to hold Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell in contempt over allegations that he has failed to release files relevant to the investigation and prosecution of Mark Carver. Carver was convicted of strangling University of North Carolina student Irina Yarmolenko in 2011 and sentenced to life without parole. […]
On January 16, Markcus Brown was on his way to a job interview when he was approached by a police officer at one of the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) hubs in Dayton, Ohio. Standing next to friends wearing baggy pants and sweatshirts, Brown was asked to show his identification. After declining the request, he was […]
Recently, a Massachusetts judge took two former prosecutors to task for attempting to cover-up the extent of a massive lab scandal that called into question thousands of drug convictions in the state. Today, a lawyer from the Innocence Project and a Northeastern Law Professor took the rare step of filing bar complaints against those lawyers — Kris Foster and Anne Kaczmarek — previously […]
In response to an increase in violent crime, lawmakers, law enforcement, and various community members in Baltimore, Maryland are considering a plan that has proven ineffective at reducing crime for decades: mandatory minimum sentencing. Under a proposal announced last Friday, people caught in possession of an illegal firearm within 100 yards of a public space— including […]
Pam Bondi spent four years pursuing racketeering charges against the former president of the Jacksonville Bar Association.
A recent report by CityBeat shows that Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney Joe Deters has engaged a longtime friend and former subordinate in a number of no-bid contracts totaling approximately $2.2 million. Two-thirds of the funds paid by Deters to Dennis Lima and his technology company have come from funds collected by his office through criminal forfeiture efforts.
In the context of the justice system, it is now becoming disturbingly common: a conviction vacated and an innocent person freed from prison because of the misdoings of former New York City Detective Louis Scarcella. The latest is 43-year-old Jabbar Washington. Earlier this week his conviction was vacated after prosecutors determined he was denied a fair trial […]
The Office of Bernalillo County District Attorney Raul Torrez has fired a prosecutor who allowed critical evidence to be destroyed in a rape case. Torrez fired Jacqueline James because she authorized the destruction of evidence in a rape case — DNA, witness statements, photographs — that her office had decided not to prosecute. Only one month after that happened, the same suspect […]
The office of Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson has suspended Leah Lucius, an assistant district attorney, after she was arrested on suspicion of driving drunk. Lucius, who has has been working with the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office since July of 2015, apparently made her situation even worse by asking the arresting officer “for […]
Orleans County District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro has been ordered to disclose the names of all the prosecutors in his office who used “fake subpoenas” to compel witnesses to talk with them. Cannizzaro was given 20 days to produce the names of prosecutors who engaged in the practice during 2017. He then must provide the same information going back to 2013.