Forensic.
School Safety and Security. Wrongful conviction. Exonerating the Scottsboro Boys - Anna Julia Cooper Project - Anna Julia Cooper Project. Updated November 21, 2013: This morning, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles voted to posthumously pardon the three of the nine Scottsboro Boys who still have convictions on their records.
The state government opened the door for the pardons by passing legislation in April that allowed for posthumous pardons, which were previously banned in Alabama. Read More at the Montgomery Advertiser Updated April 12, 2013: After passing unanimously in the Alabama House and Senate, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signed Senate Bill 97 allowing for posthumous pardons of the Scottsboro Boys on Thursday afternoon.
Criminal Injustice: The Best Reporting on Wrongful Convictions (#MuckReads) We’ve rounded up the best MuckReads on faulty criminal trials: from prosecutors suppressing evidence, to the convicted’s continued struggle after exoneration.
In 1991, an unemployed printer named David Ranta was convicted of killing a Hasidic rabbi in Brooklyn. Last week, Ranta was released from the maximum-security prison in which he’d spent nearly 22 years, after almost every piece of evidence used to convict him fell away. The New York Times reported that the lead detectives on the case “broke rule after rule” — they “kept few written records, coached a witness and took Mr. Central Park 5 - PBS Video. Racial Bias in Death Penalty Cases: A North Carolina Test - Andrew Cohen - National. A judge gives life to an extraordinary new law designed to remedy the state's long history of prejudice in capital trials.
The execution chamber at Central prison in Raleigh, N.C / AP If we still want to have a sound and sober national conversation about race and justice, if we still are eager to use a single case as a totem for what we perceive to be wrong or unjust about the criminal justice system, perhaps we all would be better served by paying attention to what's happening in North Carolina to a man named Marcus Robinson than we are by paying attention to what's happening in Florida to a man named George Zimmerman. Study: All-White Juries More Likely To Convict Black Defendants. Duke University released a study on Tuesday that examined the impact of race in jury pools in Florida, and there's good news and bad news.
The bad news is that, according to the study, which looked at 700 cases between 2000 and 2010, all-white jury pools are significantly more likely to lead to convictions of black defendants than white ones.
USA - Broken Criminal Justice System. Violent Teens: What's happening? Women behind Bars. The War on Drugs. Chicago Homicides. Chicago Police Dial Back on Response to Some 911 Calls. Opinion: Treat Chicago gangs as terrorists. Gun Bill to be Named After Hadiya Pendleton. 10-year-old boy among victims as more than 20 shot on one Chicago day. By John Newland, Staff Writer, NBC News A 10-year-old boy was shot Wednesday in Chicago toward the end of a day that saw at least three people slain and 20 others wounded, police and local media said.
The boy was standing on North Waller Avenue just before 8 p.m. when a group of men on a nearby street corner began fighting, said Officer Hector Alfaro, a Chicago Police Department spokesman. Mentoring for at-risk boys expanded as part of city effort to reduce violence. In an effort to reduce the violence that has dogged Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Thursday he is tripling the city’s investment in a mentoring program for at-risk boys.
The program, called Becoming a Man, includes tutoring, mentoring, character development and counseling sessions that take place at schools and are provided by the nonprofit Youth Guidance. The city plans to expand the program from 17 high schools to 40. The $3 million tab will come from city coffers and private donations. Mayor Rahm Emanuel Puts $4.5 Million in Anti-Violence Programs for Youth. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Wendell Hutson ENGLEWOOD — Two days before first lady Michelle Obama attends the funeral of slain teenager Hadiya Pendleton, Mayor Rahm Emanuel laid out his plan for reducing youth violence.
"There are about 7,000 young men at risk of committing crimes, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab, and when the school bell goes off, it does not mean our commitment to kids should end," Emanuel said at a Thursday news conference at William R. Harper High School on the South Side. The city will put an additional $4.5 million into summer jobs, mentoring and recreational programs, which would benefit another 2,000 youth attending 17 public high schools. One of those programs is Becoming A Man (B.A.M.), which among youth involved has reduced violent crime arrests by 40 percent, increased high school graduation rates by 10 percent and even reduced failing grades by youth by 37 percent, according to an evaluation by the University of Chicago Crime Lab.
Chicago Confronts Urban Blight, 1954: A Great City at a Crossroads. Chicago is one of the world’s great cities — and most of the clichés that have long stuck to the Windy City (a nickname with origins that even Chicagoans argue about) remain anchored in truth today.
