FBI admits forensic evidence errors in hundreds of cases - BBC News. The FBI has admitted "errors" in evidence provided by its forensics laboratory to US courts to help secure convictions, including in death penalty cases, over more than 20 years. A report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) noted "irregularities" in the hair analysis unit. More detail on the cases affected is expected later from campaign groups. Flawed forensics were used in at least 60 capital punishment cases, the OIG report found. Fourteen defendants were either executed or died in prison, says the Washington Post, which first reported the story at the weekend. The review of cases was prompted by the Post's 2012 story that three men were wrongly placed at the scene of violent crimes by the unit's hair analysts, raising the possibility of hundreds of unsafe convictions. In a statement, the FBI admitted "errors made in statements by FBI examiners regarding microscopic hair analysis in the context of testimony or laboratory reports".
D.A. seeks appeal of dismissed manslaughter charge against Shaun Cowley. Cowley and his partner approached Willard in her car during an undercover drug investigation; Cowley said when Willard backed out of the parking space, he thought she was trying to run him over. In his decision, Dever wrote that prosecutors presented no evidence that Cowley’s "conduct was not legally justifiable," pointing to a consulting detective’s testimony that Cowley could have thought Willard was trying to kill him. But Gill said Thursday that the standard for a judge to advance a case to trial is "quite low in terms of any reasonable evidence" and requires the judge to review the case "in the light most favorable" to prosecutors, who must only show probable cause that a defendant committed a crime.
"That’s a standard we believe was met," Gill said. Gill said he and his senior prosecutors also asked the state’s appellate lawyers to review whether Dever’s ruling took testimony "out of context, based on what was presented. " "Judge Dever’s conclusions were really solid. Snohomish man gets 45½ years in home invasion. A Snohomish man with no prior criminal history was sentenced to more than 45 years in prison Thursday for serving as a lookout during a home-invasion robbery Dec. 19 in Ridgefield. During the robbery, a victim was tied up and several firearms were stolen. Jarrod A. Wiebe, 27, received the most severe sentence among his three co-conspirators in the robbery, even though the prosecutor and defense attorney agreed that he was the least culpable of the group because he was not armed and was not inside the home when one victim was tied up during the robbery. However, the state's sentencing laws gave Clark County Superior Court Judge Scott Collier almost no discretion in determining Wiebe's sentence.
"This is one of those cases (for which) I think the Legislature should have given a safety valve to the court," Collier said. He said the sentence is "a shock to the conscience. " A jury found Wiebe guilty Oct. 1 of 16 felonies, nine of which had firearm enhancements. "Even Mr. Terminal Cancer Patient Can't Use Illness As A Defense In Iowa Marijuana Trial. An Iowa terminal cancer patient showed up to court Tuesday wrapped in a blanket, still wearing hospital identification wristbands, to testify at his trial on felony marijuana charges. He's been barred from a defense that explains the marijuana was to relieve his aggressive and rare cancer of the blood vessels.
Benton Mackenzie, 48, faces up to five years in prison if he's convicted of marijuana manufacturing and conspiracy for growing plants he says he used to make canabidiol, or CBD, a non-psychoactive compound in cannabis, to treat his tumors. Quad City Times reporter Brian Wellner first reported on Mackenzie's return to court Tuesday and tweeted courtroom photos of Mackenzie wrapped in a blanket: BREAKING: Benton Mackenzie testifying at his #marijuana trial. pic.twitter.com/xCARNakYSE— Brian Wellner (@brianwellner) July 8, 2014 Mackenzie sat in a wheelchair, during some court proceedings: Mackenzie has said he's been threatened with jail if he discloses his medical condition in court. Fugitive Susan LeFevre. Texas has been holding this man hostage for 12,600 days.
John McCain: Citizens United Is 'Worst Decision Ever' ... 'Money Is Money,' Not Free Speech. Man spends 2 years in solitary after DWI arrest. A man in New Mexico has been awarded $22 million after being tossed in solitary confinement for 2 years following a DWI arrest. KOB-TV's Marissa Torres reports. By Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer, NBC News A New Mexico man who said he was forced to pull his own tooth while in solitary confinement because he was denied access to a dentist has been awarded $22 million due to inhumane treatment by New Mexico's Dona Ana County Jail. Stephen Slevin was arrested in August of 2005 for driving while intoxicated, then thrown in jail for two years. He was in solitary at Dona Ana County Jail for his entire sentence and basically forgotten about and never given a trial, he told NBC station KOB.com Tuesday night.
"[Jail guards were] walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate," Slevin said. "Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing at all, to get me any help. " Slevin's medical problems extended beyond his dental issues, he said. He said his lawsuit "has never been about the money. NBC News. Texas man wrongly put away for 18 years denied compensation after legal glitch. How Washington lost faith in America's courts - Terrorism. As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the unexpected extent of the damage Americans have done to themselves and their institutions is coming into better focus.
The event that “changed everything” did turn out to change Washington in ways more startling than most people realize. On terrorism and national security, to take an obvious (if seldom commented upon) example, the confidence of the U.S. government seems to have been severely, perhaps irreparably, shaken when it comes to that basic and essential American institution: the courts. If, in fact, we are a “nation of laws,” you wouldn’t know it from Washington’s actions over the past few years. Nothing spoke more strikingly to that loss of faith, to our country’s increasing incapacity for meeting violence with the law, than the widely hailed decision to kill rather than capture Osama bin Laden.
And don’t assume that these high-level examples of avoiding the court system are just knotty exceptions that prove the rule. Shake-up in Texas execution probe draws criticism, questions. Obama says Reagan raised debt ceiling 18 times; George W. Bush seven times. In a televised address to the nation on July 25, 2011, to discuss the pending deadline on the debt ceiling, President Barack Obama made his pitch for a "balanced" approach to reducing the deficit -- one that includes spending cuts as well as revenue increases from tax increases for wealthier Americans. With the debt ceiling issue caught in a political deadlock over how to reduce the deficit, Obama noted that raising the debt ceiling has been a relatively routine exercise for decades.
"Understand –- raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money," Obama said. "It simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up. In the past, raising the debt ceiling was routine. Since the 1950s, Congress has always passed it, and every President has signed it. President Reagan did it 18 times. George W. Our colleagues at PolitiFact New Jersey last week looked at a similar claim, that every president has raised the debt ceiling.
The Supreme Court Allows Dow Chemical To Get Away With Polluting Michigan. Nearly all cultures have myths about bullies that use their size and authority to oppress and injure individuals who lack the power to defend themselves. Even the Christian bible features a story from the Hebrew Scriptures about a domineering giant (Goliath) who is slayed by a much smaller child (David) with a slingshot. The story alludes to the fact that regardless of the foe’s size and power, with assistance, a less powerful child can easily defeat a giant. In America, there are giants in the business community who dominate and injure individuals because they have powerful legal representation and unlimited resources to crush the little guy in the justice system by drawing out a case for years.
Within the past month, the ability of individuals to band together to take on powerful corporations was dealt a crushing blow when the conservative Supreme Court disallowed class action status to millions of women who suffered pay discrimination at the hands of retail giant Wal-Mart. 15-Year-Old Girl Faces Life in Prison for a Miscarriage? Why Conservatives Are Criminalizing Pregnant Women | Gender. July 4, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing.
Yet she faces life in prison in Mississippi over the death of her unborn child. Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence. Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. "Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and subjected to truly cruel laws," said Lynn Paltrow of the campaign National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). "If the Law Does Not Protect Jose Padilla . . . It Protects No One"
In February, a federal district court in South Carolina dismissed our lawsuit on behalf of American citizen Jose Padilla against Donald Rumsfeld and other current and former officials, saying the former Secretary of Defense was entitled to “qualified immunity” for his role in the arbitrary detention and torture of Padilla. Today we appealed that dismissal to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. As you might recall, Padilla was arrested in March 2002, held without charge for four years in a South Carolina military brig and without access to a lawyer for two years, and was tortured to the point that brig authorities described his behavior (or lack thereof) as “like a piece of furniture.”
The Bush administration first claimed that Padilla was plotting with al-Qaeda to detonate a radiological “dirty bomb” in a U.S. city, but no evidence of such a plot has ever been presented. Learn more about torture and detention: Sign up for breaking news alerts. _ln9aa10UAg1qzqlvro1_500.png (PNG Image, 500x624 pixels) Chicago State's Attorney Lets Bad Cops Slide, Prosecutes Citizens Who Record Them. When Chicago police answered a domestic disturbance call at the home of Tiawanda Moore and her boyfriend in July 2010, the officers separated the couple to question them individually.
Moore was interviewed privately in her bedroom. According to Moore, the officer who questioned her then came on to her, groped her breast and slipped her his home phone number. Robert Johnson, Moore's attorney, says that when Moore and her boyfriend attempted to report the incident to internal affairs officials at the Chicago Police Department, the couple wasn't greeted warmly. "They discouraged her from filing a report," Johnson says. "They gave her the runaround, scared her, and tried to intimidate her from reporting this officer -- from making sure he couldn't go on to do this to other women.
" Ten months later, Chicago PD is still investigating the incident. Moore, on the other hand, was arrested the very same afternoon. Her crime? Moore's case has inspired outrage from anti-domestic abuse groups. Arizona SWAT Team Cleared in Former Marine's Killing. <br/><a href=" US News</a> | <a href=" Business News</a> Copy The SWAT team that gunned down a former Marine in his Tucson, Ariz., home was cleared today of any wrongdoing in the incident. Jose Guerena, 26, was killed in a hail of bullets from the SWAT team, which broke down the door to his home on May 5 while trying to serve a search warrant as part of a home invasion probe. Guerena did not fire a single shot in the incident, but Pima County Chief Criminal Deputy Attorney David Berkman said in the report issued today that the five SWAT team members were justified in using deadly force because the former Marine pointed his weapon at them.
"A close examination of the rifle revealed it appeared to have been damaged by being fired upon from such an angle that it must have been pointed toward officers," Berkman wrote. "The officers were mistaken in believing Mr. "This is no surprise to me," Storie told KGUN. A SWAT officer, Sgt. Dems: Thomas should recuse himself - Jennifer Haberkorn. Seventy-four House Democrats are asking Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from any health care reform cases, citing reports that his wife financially benefited from efforts to repeal the legislation.
The members, led by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), ask that he “maintain the integrity of this court.” Continue Reading “The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law. From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife's financial stake in the overturn of healthcare reform is blurred,” the members wrote. They cite Thomas’s wife, Virginia, advertising herself as a lobbyist who has “experience and connections” and appeals to clients who want to overturn health reform. They also say Thomas did not disclose his wife’s receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation between 2003 and 2006.
There are several lawsuits challenging the health care reform law’s so-called individual mandate. C Drew - Street Artist Adventures » The Nikita Biddle Story. Police Brutality during the Civil Rights Movement by Carlos Cortez (an Art Patch Project design) The Nikita Biddle Story In 2009 Nikita Biddle was a young courageous single woman struggling to emerge into her adult life.
Nikita and her sister stayed in public housing in Kane County. They each had separate apartments. Nikita’s sister became caught up in the tensions of daily life and drawn into a fight with a neighbor on December 2, 2009. Nikita was brave enough to fight this unfair eviction action. Two policemen who were notorious for abusing tenants and had been on duty at this site for a long time, began a campaign of the harassment of Nikita to try to force her to give up her fight to maintain her public housing because they knew that her innocence would of been proven during her eviction trial date. By February 17, 2010 it was apparent to Nikita that she needed some evidence of what the authorities in her building were doing to her so she could fight her eviction in court. The two-tiered justice system: an illustration - Glenn Greenwald. Of all the topics on which I’ve focused, I’ve likely written most about America’s two-tiered justice system — the way in which political and financial elites now enjoy virtually full-scale legal immunity for even the most egregious lawbreaking, while ordinary Americans, especially the poor and racial and ethnic minorities, are subjected to exactly the opposite treatment: the world’s largest prison state and most merciless justice system.
That full-scale destruction of the rule of law is also the topic of my forthcoming book. But The New York Times this morning has a long article so perfectly illustrating what I mean by “two-tiered justice system” — and the way in which it obliterates the core covenant of the American Founding: equality before the law — that it’s impossible for me not to highlight it. The article’s headline tells most of the story: “In Financial Crisis, No Prosecutions of Top Figures.” And that, in turn, led to this, from The New York Times, June 3, 2009: Supreme Court: Exonerated inmate won't get $14M. Colorado DA drops felony hit-and-run charges against billion-dollar financier because of "serious job implications" Jeremy Marks "Attempted Lynching" Case.