Category: Criminal Justice
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Prosecutor’s Bid To Tap Pipeline-Funded Account Questioned
As hundreds of Enbridge Line 3 pipeline protesters fight criminal charges in Minnesota state courts, at least one county prosecutor has attempted to seek reimbursement for his efforts from a controversial public safety fund bankrolled by the pipeline company itself, an advocacy group found. The Center for Protest Law and Litigation obtained Hubbard County Attorney…
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New RICO Suit Targets Fla. Attys Behind Debt Relief ‘Scam’
Four student loan recipients have filed a racketeering complaint against Florida attorneys they hired to settle their debts, accusing the lawyers of running an “illegal nationwide, advanced-fee, student loan debt elimination telemarketing scam” that ultimately led to two of the students being sued by creditors. Lindsey Crits, Evan Wendt and two others said they were…
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NCAI Says Cop Violence Over DAPL Protests Threatens Tribes
The National Congress of American Indians has filed a brief in support of injured Dakota Access pipeline protesters suing North Dakota police, saying excessive use of force poses a threat to all tribes struggling for recognition of treaty rights. In a proposed amicus brief filed Friday, the NCAI urged a federal judge in North Dakota…
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Ojibwe Pipeline Protesters Win Order Against Minn.Sheriff
Two Ojibwe women won a temporary restraining order Friday against a Minnesota sheriff after his department allegedly barricaded the driveway of a private camp where Enbridge pipeline protesters were gathered as guests. The order prevents the Hubbard County sheriff’s office from blocking access to and from the property, which is owned by the nonprofit Switchboard…
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Ojibwe Pipeline Protestors Sue Minn. Sheriff Over ‘Blockade’
Two Ojibwe women have sued a Minnesota sheriff for allegedly blocking access to private property where Native protesters of the Enbridge pipeline gathered, in what they call the “most militarized response to an easement dispute in history.” In a complaint filed against the Hubbard County Sheriff’s Office on Friday, Ojibwe activists Winona LaDuke and Tara…
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In Small Alaska City, Native Women Say Police Ignored Rapes
NOME, Alaska (AP) — There’s not much that scares Susie. As an Alaska Native woman, she thrives amid sub-zero winters in her village near the Arctic Circle, and camps with her family each summer at the Bering Sea, catching, drying and smoking salmon to put away for winter. But Susie is afraid to return to…
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Are cellphones really to blame for spike in S.C. prison violence?
BISHOPVILLE, S.C. — The deadly, seven-hour riot that broke out in a South Carolina prison last weekend occurred amid a rising tide of violence within the state’s prison system. State corrections officials were quick Monday to blame contraband cellphones as major contributing factors in the bloodshed, but observers say there are other reasons for the alarming spike in…
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The Psychological Violence of Mexico’s War on Drugs
Violence committed by Mexican police and military forces during the country’s prolonged drug war has wreaked a psychological toll at least as debilitating as the deadly acts of the drug cartels themselves, according to a study from the Mexican Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE) The study, published in the International Journal on Drug Policy, entitled “Mourning our…
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When Forgetting Kills a Child
In late June, 38-year-old Nicole Engler unintentionally left her only child to die of hyperthermia in a hot car. Hours later, tearing her hair out and begging police to let her commit suicide, she was in the county jail, facing second-degree manslaughter charges. Her attorney picked up the phone and called neuroscientist David Diamond in…
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The Silencing of Prison Legal News
A resource that civil rights attorneys say is critical for prisoners across the country who are fighting abuse and neglect behind bars has just become off-limits to Florida inmates. Last month, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Alabama, Georgia and Florida, upheld the state’s decision to ban Prison Legal News (PLN), on the grounds…
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District Judge Rejects Pleas in Favor of Juries
In an opinion published Thursday, a federal judge announced that he is rejecting plea deals that transfer criminal adjudications from the public arena to the prosecutor’s office just “for the purpose of expediency.” Sentencing Law and Policy blogger Douglas Berman flagged the decision as “remarkable” and a must-read, suggesting it may signal more jury trials…
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‘Buy American’ Campaign Boosts Private Sector Use of Prison Labor
The populist slogan “Buy American” increasingly means buying goods produced by America’s thriving prison-based industries, says a new report. In Made in America: Race, Trade, and Prison Labor, Chapman University Law professor Lan Cao argues that public sentiment against outsourcing labor has offered cover for prison labor programs to expand “under the rubric of providing…
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For Some Conservatives, the Death Penalty is Another Big-Government Failure
Heather Beaudoin is a Michigan native who has spent the last decade working with conservative and evangelical communities to repeal state death penalty laws. She is now the National Director of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCATDP), a project of the Brooklyn-based organization Equal Justice USA, which grew out of her work with the Montana Abolition…
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Sex Workers Decry ‘Moral Panic’ Over Human Trafficking
At the height of national outrage over what government officials and activists call a human trafficking epidemic, sex workers are challenging what they say are misleading and harmful efforts to link prostitution to sex trafficking. “People have used this moral panic, this idea that there is a trafficking epidemic, to create so much funding and…
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Who’s policing counterfeit airplane parts?
A tide of defective and potentially counterfeit airplane parts has been making its way into U.S. aircraft unreported and unchecked, according to senior aviation specialists and whistleblower attorneys. Earlier this spring, a government audit of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)—the agency responsible for ensuring airline safety—said the FAA had consistently failed to alert federal law…
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Enforcement Can’t Stop Fake Chinese Drugs: Report
No amount of enforcement can stop the torrent of fake drugs and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) coming into the U.S. from China, says the author of a paper forthcoming in the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review. China is the world’s largest supplier of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and APIs, and the source of 79% of all counterfeit…
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The Dirty Data Feeding Predictive Police Algorithms
The ability to predict crimes before they happen has long been a topic of fascination for science-fiction writers and filmmakers. In real life, predictive policing is getting a similar buzz, as dozens of police departments experiment with algorithm-driven programs to help them deploy resources more effectively. But more attention should be focused on problems with…
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White Collar Crime: Why Top Execs Escape Prosecution
When Pulitzer Prize-winner Jesse Eisinger covered capital markets for the Wall Street Journal and Conde Nast Portfolio in the early 2000s, he began to see early hints that the subprime market bubble was close to bursting. When the inevitable crash happened, he probed further into the roots of the disaster for ProPublica. His exploration of what he terms “bad…
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Fraud and the Elderly: Is Anyone Paying Attention?
Paul Greenwood, San Diego’s Deputy District Attorney, has been investigating crimes against the elderly for over two decades. As head of San Diego’s Elder Abuse Unit, he’s been a front-row witness to the tragedies such crimes have left in their wake. “I have seen for myself many instances where victims in their seventies, eighties, nineties,…
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America’s Oldest Crime Victims
Last spring, 75-year old Kanda Aromdee walked into a Chase bank in upper Manhattan and withdrew $10,000, while two men waited for her outside. By this time, she was afraid. The men had approached Kanda (a pseudonym) around the corner outside a 99-cent store, with an old con that has a hundred postal and telephone…