Is the Constitution a ‘Living Breathing” Document?
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Former playboy model’s former husband, reality show participant, Ryan Jenkins, has now been formally charged with murder.
But even the veteran cops were stunned to find the body of 28-year-old Jasmine Fiore in a trashcan with no fingers or teeth.
The police believe that Jenkins removed the teeth and fingers of Fiore in a futile attempt to hide the victim’s identity.
In the age of “CSI” television shows most people realize that removing teeth and fingers will not impede identifying a deceased victim when DNA is available…
VH1 cancels two reality shows due to murder-suicide case
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VH1 has canceled “Megan Wants a Millionaire” and “I Love Money 3” in the wake of a high profile murder-suicide case involving a cast member. VH1 is a unit of Viacom. Both reality shows are produced by 51 Minds Entertainment.
Fiore, Jenkins’ ex- wife, was found stuffed in a suitcase inside a trash bin in Orange County, Calif. Because her fingers and teeth had been removed, the authorities identified her from the serial number on her surgical breast implants. Click here to read more
A critical 81 minute gap between when police indicate that Michael Jackson’s personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, found the singer not breathing and when the doctor called 911 may be a key part of a criminal prosecution for the singer’s death. .jpg)
According to the LAPD, Murray found Jackson totally unconscious, but then called his office and remained on the phone call for a half-hour.
The timeline in a police affadavit does not bode well for the physician.
Why does the U.S. lead the world in youth imprisonment? What should a truly effective juvenile justice system look like? How can the media stay ahead of the story?
On April 23-24, 2012, 30 journalists from around the nation joined some of the country's most prominent juvenile justice experts, practitioners and advocates to explore those questions at a special symposium at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, organized by John Jay's Center on Media, Crime and Justice with the support of the Tow Foundation and in cooperation with John Jay's Center for Research and Evaluation.
The 30 journalists, selected as Reporting Fellows, examined current sentencing and detention practices, the impact of race, treatment of mental health and substance abuse, and the role of police, courts, schools (and parents) in the so-called "school to prison pipeline." The year-long fellowship also includes the establishment of a "juvenile justice news network" for reporters to assist them in following trends in this area, and new research--with the aim of providing the tools that can help foster informed public debate at local and national levels in 2012 and beyond.
The symposium entitled Kids Behind Bars: Where's the Justice in America's Juvenile Justice System, Covering the Juvenile Justice Reform Debate in 2012 featured keynote speeches from Gail Garinger, The Child Advocate of the State of Massachusetts; attorney Bryan Henderson who argued the Supreme Court case related to juvenile Life Without Parole; and Mike Bocian, Pollster & Founding Partner, GBA Strategies.
Panelists included: Vincent N. Schiraldi, Commissioner, New York City Department of Probation, James Bell, Founder and Executive Director, W. Haywood Burns Institute, C. Jama Adams, Professor and Chair of John Jay College's Africana Studies Department and Joseph Gaudett, Chief of Police, Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Proceedings of the conference, including podcasts, research materials provided by speakers, are covered below. For a full list of speakers, panelists and the agenda click here.
NOTE: this page will be updated regularly with articles by Fellows and other information as it becomes available.
Papa Carry Me Home
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By · CommentsTreating America's narcotics problem as a public health issue could held suppress crime, reports Reuters. An annual drug monitoring report, released by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, also showed a decline in the use of cocaine since 2003, a sign that drug-interdiction efforts and public education campaigns may be curtailing the use of the drug's powder and crack forms. The rate of overall illegal drug use in the U.S. has declined by about 30 percent since 1979.
The report, based on thousands of arrestee interviews and drug tests, showed that on average 71 percent of men arrested in 10 U.S. metropolitan areas last year tested positive for an illegal substance at the time they were taken into custody. The figures ranged from 64 percent of arrests in Atlanta to 81 percent in Sacramento, Calif. Officials said the report supports President Barack Obama's strategy aimed at breaking the cycle of drugs and crime by attacking substance abuse with treatment rather than jail for nonviolent offenders. Federal drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said, "These data confirm that we must address our drug problem as a public health issue, not just a criminal justice issue."
The Justice Department on Thursday issued new federal rules aimed at “zero tolerance” for sexual assaults in prisons, says the New York Times. The regulations, issued after years of discussions among officials and prisoner advocacy groups, address a problem that a new government study found may afflict one out of every 10 prisoners. Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003, and the rules to carry it out are the first to address federal, state and local prisons and jails, including institutions holding juveniles.
The standards are binding on federal prisons, and states that do not comply could lose 5 percent of their federal financing. In enacting the law, Congress asked the prison system to address the problem without imposing a “substantial” cost. The rules may cost as much as $7 billion over the next 15 years, with federal grants available for demonstration projects. The standards focus on prevention, supervision and changing the prison culture.
Despite a political consensus favoring change, meaningful reform of Louisiana's lock-'em-up sentencing laws will not come easy, reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Prompted by the governor, the long-dormant state Sentencing Commission produced a package of five bills aimed at tackling some of the key factors driving the state's highest-in-the-nation incarceration rate. But bills were passed and signed by the governor, but only after the parts that would have actually reduced prison sentences were removed under pressure from sheriffs and district attorneys.
Two more proposals from the commission have progressed smoothly through the Legislature this year, but they, too, are unlikely to have a substantial effect on the incarceration rate. Even under dire financial circumstances, the political calculus in Louisiana has evolved slowly since a series of tough sentencing laws in the 1970s, '80s and '90s bloated the state's inmate counts. "The three easiest votes for a legislator are against taxes, against gambling and to put someone in jail for the rest of their lives," said state Sen. Danny Martiny, R-Kenner, a veteran policymaker who has led the judiciary committees in both the House and Senate.
A day after a federal judge issued a ruling fiercely criticizing the NYPD's stop-and-frisk tactics, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly unveiled new measures on Thursday intended to reduce the frequency of illegitimate stops, reports the New York Times. They include a re-emphasis on an existing departmental order banning racial profiling. The order is to be incorporated in routine training sessions for officers beginning next month.
Another calls for greater scrutiny of the work sheets known as UF250s that officers fill out after each street stop. Now, Kelly said, the executive officer at each of the city’s 76 precincts will be in charge of auditing the forms. He also said the department was moving to develop a “quantitative mechanism” to pinpoint those officers who were the object of complaints from civilians over street stops.
The U.S. Department of Justice has closed its investigation into allegations of excessive force and sexual abuse by members of the Lorain, Ohio, Police Department, concluding that while those issues existed in the past, there is no longer a pattern of such misconduct by officers, reports the Lorain County Chronicle-Telegram. “During our investigation, we found that there were instances of excessive force in the years preceding our investigation, along with allegations of sexual misconduct,” Jonathan Smith, chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, wrote. “LPD’s management did not adequately address this misconduct, and failures in LPD’s accountability and discipline systems may have allowed the use of excessive force and sexual misconduct to continue.”
The Justice Department offered up a 30-page technical assistance report that recommends sweeping changes to the Police Department’s policies and procedures governing use of force, complaints about officers and how internal investigations are handled. The report also recommends the city “investigate and remedy command deficiencies that permitted LPD’s past use of excessive force.” Lorain Mayor Chase Ritenauer said although the investigation, which was launched in November 2008, pointed out numerous problems, the Justice Department would have taken far more serious action if those issues persisted.
Ken Zisa, police chief in Hackensack, N.J., and scion of one if its most eminent political dynasties, faces 23 years behind bars after being found guilty Wednesday of insurance fraud and official misconduct, reports the North Jersey Record. After three days of deliberation, a jury delivered a split verdict, acquitting Zisa, 58, of conspiracy and witness tampering charges, but finding that he filed a false insurance report and acted improperly when he inserted himself into two investigations involving his former girlfriend, Kathleen Tiernan, who was also on trial.
Tiernan was found guilty of filing a false insurance report, but acquitted on a conspiracy charge. Zisa has been suspended from his job for two years. A sentencing hearing was tentatively set for June 22. His attorney said an appeal is planned.
The Justice Department assured a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., Thursday that it is making "a lot of progress" in clearing up a backlog of cases in which it seeks to indefinitely detain accused sexual predators, reports USA Today. The paper reported in March that the department's effort to lock up accused predators after the end of their sentences has been fraught with long delays and questionable medical determinations that kept dozens of men incarcerated without a trial for as long as five years even though they did not meet the requirements for detention.
Fourth Circuit judges have said that they are concerned by the long delays in handling those cases and have suggested that they could threaten the defendants' constitutional due process rights. During two hearings, Justice Department attorney Ian Samuel told the judges that those cases are "moving through the pipeline" and that the process for deciding who should remain in prison is "moving toward the sort of system that Congress and the BOP (Bureau of Prisons) always envisioned."
