Great documentary on False Confessions.
The Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners to put former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel‘s name back on the ballot for mayor.
Emanuel took his case to the high court one day after a state appeals court ruled that he was not eligible to run for mayor because he didn’t live in Chicago for a year before the Feb. 22 vote.
Officially, the high court issued a stay — essentially stopping the lower court’s order to remove Emanuel’s name from the ballot — but it did not say whether it would hear his appeal.
In the meantime, the high court said, any ballots that are printed must include the former White House chief of staff’s name
Although it would require a change in state law, the Governor is suggesting he is open to the idea of moving prison inmates out of state.
Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe says officials in northern Louisiana have offered to house some inmates there for $28 a day. That’s less than half of the average cost to keep an inmate in prison in Arkansas, where the state’s prison population has more than doubled in the past two decades.
(Source)
I found that the person in charge of dietary at the jail saw my ad and said something to my mother about it not knowing of her relationship to me.
From The Hill:
A 2-1 ruling from the Illinois Appellate Court reversed a decision by a Cook County Circuit Court that found Emanuel met the eligibility requirements to run.
The Appellate Court found that Emanuel had not met Chicago’s municipal code requirement of being a resident of the city for one year and that he is not exempt from the election laws for being absent on governmental business — meaning his work in Washington as President Obama’s chief of staff.
A group of Arkansas judges, corrections personnel and others recently released a study regarding the growing prison population in Arkansas, the increased costs of maintaining that population and the lack of effect of imprisonment on whether the imprisoned later re-offend (termed (recidivism”).
I intend on blogging a few posts about it but check it out now.
Most of the local West Memphians know about the high bonds set in District Court. If its Meth related with a prior, its automatically a $100k bond if not a million dollar bond. An accused with no priors could still get a $50K bond on a non-violent offense. Bonds are set every day in that court that would make headlines in Memphis where there are twenty times the felons being arraigned daily.
By comparison, look a this story:
19 year old Cody Gorecke is facing multiple charges including, second degree murder, aggravated assault, and criminal use of a prohibited weapon. In addition to drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana, and minors in possession of alcohol. He is being held on 100 thousand dollars bond.
Murder, Violence AND Drugs = 100,000 bond.
One could argue that higher bonds actually have a crime fighting deterrent. Or one could argue that the exponentially higher bonds are no bond at all and violate Constitutional protections.
Well He is not, according to a Canadian Court.
An accused arsonist was acquitted after a statement he made was not allowed in court. The statement was “Oh God, let me get away with it this just this once.”
The trial court disallowed introduction of the statement ruling it was private communications and was thus improperly intercepted.
Disagreeing with this result, Justice J.A. Hutcheon wrote,
In my opinion, the word “person” is used in the statutes of Canada to describe someone to whom rights are granted and upon whom obligations are placed. There is no earthly authority which can grant rights or impose duties upon God.
So there you have it. As a matter of law, God is not a person. Sorry Bette Midler.
Thanks to Abraham Piper at 22Words for the story.
It is common practice in Arkansas to take a DNA sample from a convicted felon. The reasoning is that it will help future crime fighting efforts. However, Arkansas does not permit DNA samples to be taken of a misdemeanor offender.
However, New York is about to take DNA samples from virtually all offenders:
Gov. David Paterson has proposed roughly doubling New York’s DNA database to include samples from even low-level offenders, making it the first in the nation to so broadly collect and use this evidence to solve crimes and exonerate people wrongly convicted.
New York’s law would require adding about 48,000 samples a year to a laboratory system that state officials say is capable of handling the extra work, with no current backlogs.
“You think it’d be a huge explosion, but we have samples on so many people that recommit crimes already – it’s the old rule of criminals don’t specialize,” said Sean Byrne, acting commissioner of the Division of Criminal Justice Services.
State police now have DNA samples from 356,000 people convicted of felonies and certain misdemeanors, including petty larceny and endangering the welfare of a child. The database began in 1996 with the genetic material from killers and sex predators, and has been expanded three times.
The governor’s plan has drawn support from a law school center involved in efforts nationwide to use DNA evidence to reverse wrongful convictions. But the New York Civil Liberties Union said the latest proposed expansion raises many questions, including about protection of privacy rights, and should be given further study.
See whole article.
From an article in the Washington Post:
Nearly 400 people were convicted of driving while intoxicated in the District since fall 2008 based on inaccurate results from breath test machines, and half of them went to jail, city officials said Wednesday.
D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles said the machines were improperly adjusted by city police. The jailed defendants generally served at least five days, he said.
Nickles’s office has begun notifying the drivers, a move that immediately triggered at least one lawsuit against the District and could lead to requests for expungements, new trials and even deeper skepticism about the integrity of testing. Challenging test results is at the heart of drunken-driving cases, and this revelation will only strengthen those challenges, defense attorneys said.
The District’s badly calibrated equipment would show a driver’s blood-alcohol content to be about 20 percent higher than it actually was, Nickles said. All 10 of the breath test machines used by District police were wrong, he said. The problem occurred when the officer in charge of maintaining the machines improperly set the baseline alcohol concentration levels, Nickles said.
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