Maricopa County Superior Court has the deserved reputation of being one of the most overturned courts in America concerning criminal convictions. Any defense attorney is well aware of why. Its not a court, its a judge, a prosecutor, the police an
Statically the leading cause of false convictions and wrongful imprisonment of innocent people is "prosecutorial misconduct." This misconduct can be defined numerous ways, but simply stated it is when prosecutors conduct themselves or the case in a m
The root cause of everything from street muggings and gang delinquency to rudeness at traffic lights to excessive lawsuit filing has finally been found, and it's...libertarianism. At least that's the view of Andrew Peyton Thomas.
A federal appeals court endorsed the government's sweeping authority to detain terrorism suspects whom it can link to al-Qaeda, the Taliban and affiliated groups. They went further rejecting attempts to apply principles from "the laws of war" to dete
A judge in Dickson County, Tenn., had officers pull a spectator out of his courtroom "on a hunch," held him in custody and made him submit to a urinalysis for drugs. The judge "routinely drug-screens 'spectators' in his courtroom if he 'thinks' they
A Montgomery County couple has been arrested on child endangerment charges for failing to register their children with the school district as they were home-schooled, the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office said Monday. Richard Cressy, 47, and
A bid by state legislators to retroactively change self-defense laws is unconstitutional, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled. Judges said Cesar Montes, convicted of a 2005 shooting death is not entitled to take advantage of changes in self-defense la
No fear. The mantra of Mexican drug smugglers bringing marijuana into the US. No fear of arrest or prosecution. The worst-kept secret on the border for years was US authorities wouldn't prosecute cases involving less than 500 pounds of marijuana.
Women are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. prison population, and sexual violence is often at the root of the events that put them behind bars. Women and girls are victimized at all income levels—one in three experiences some form of abuse by
Ft. Hood Shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan is back in the news by way of his attorney, retired Col. John P. Galligan and Galligan’s latest claims the military is hampering Galligan’s defense of his client.
Last month, a federal judge ruled Ciavarella and Conahan can only be held liable for actions they took outside the courtroom to further their alleged kids-for-cash conspiracy. Ciavarella is immune, the federal judge said, from liability for any decis
Who is Rachel Yould? Is she a victim of domestic violence or a schemer who took on 2 identities to get rich? Did the 37-year-old ex-beauty queen and academic scholar fraudulently use 2 Social Security numbers and 2 names to obtain more than
ABC News first reported Bernie Madoff had injuries consistent with an assault. Now, the source says Madoff was not attacked in prison, but that he fell off a bed onto his face. There was a lot of facial bleeding and, Madoff came with facial fractures
The Minnesota Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the right of police to confiscate vehicles from owners who have done nothing wrong. The decision narrowed the applicability of an "innocent owner" defense in cases where a vehicle is jointly owned. The h
A judge says Kansas law doesn't allow a "necessity defense" in the trial of a man charged with killing one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers. Scott Roeder has confessed saying it was necessary to save unborn children.
Last week, James Bain was released from a Florida prison after serving 35 years for a crime he didn’t commit. DNA testing finally cleared Bain of raping a young boy in 1974.
In October, Jagels told the Bakersfield Californian that after 26 years in office, he won't be running for reelection in 2010. Good riddance to him. You'd be hard pressed to find a law enforcement official who embodies the worst excesses of America's
Erick Williamson, the Springfield, Virginia man arrested earlier this year for being naked in his own home was convicted of indecent exposure on Friday. The judge sentenced him to 180 days in jail, but suspended the sentence.
But the appeals court reconsidered the case after a decision in June from the United States Supreme Court that prohibited prosecutors from introducing crime lab reports without testimony from the analysts who prepared them. The appeals court rever
[His arrest led to the great "Photography Is Not a Crime." In fact it was cited against him at sentencing.] 9 months after filing my appeal, I received notice I was victorious. The fact I prepared my appeal pro se makes the victory that much sweeter.
While we were all out doing our Christmas shopping, the highest court in the land quietly put the kibosh on a few more of the remaining shards of human liberty. It happened earlier this week, in a discreet ruling that attracted almost no notice
A rogue Philadelphia narcotics unit headed up by Officer Cujdik was shaking down immigrant bodegas across the city. Cujdik's thugs would come into stores armed with search warrants for selling otherwise innocuous items like small plastic bags
The governor of Mississippi simultaneously ignored increasing evidence there may be a high number of innocent people in prison in MS and handed out pardons to the convicted murderers who happen to do work on his house.
A judge is weighing a critical legal question in the case of a man who confessed to killing one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers: Can the man claim at his trial that the slaying was justified to save the lives of unborn children? S
A wayward crime lab worker who fakes his way into the job is one thing. A fraud who manages to stay on the job for 15 years is a symptom of mass institutional failure. The most disturbing part; the institutional failure continued after being exposed.
A Texas teenager who was sentenced to eight years in prison for graffiti and marijuana possession has had his sentence reduced under new state legal guidelines. Corpus Christi Judge Marisela Saldana sentenced 18-year-old Sebastian Perez to eight y
The New York State Police’s supervision of a crime laboratory was so poor that it overlooked evidence of pervasively shoddy forensics work, allowing an analyst to go undetected for 15 years as he falsified test results and compromised nearly one-thir
23-year-old Matthew Freeman is facing a year in jail for violating Michigan's laws for convicted sex offenders. He was caught by a police officer playing basketball within 400 feet of a school. He also happened to be in front of his own home.
The JFP reported in 2006 that former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters and his then-assistant district attorney, Bobby DeLaughter, excluded DNA evidence in 1994 that likely would have exonerated Willis of the crime. Maw said she suspected Pete
A man who spent 28 years behind bars for a rape and murder he said he didn't commit walked out of a federal prison in Arizona on Tuesday with $75 and a bus ticket to Ohio after DNA testing showed he was innocent. The conviction of Donald Eugene Ga
