by Matt Clarke
After examining hundreds of cases, the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission has verified its first claim of innocence – which resulted in both controversy and stinging criticism from prosecutors.
In 2006, North Carolina became the first state to establish a government agency with the sole mandate of ...
by Matt Clarke
In November 2009, an Arizona state judge held Maricopa County Detention Officer Adam Stoddard in contempt of court and ordered him to hold a press conference and publicly apologize to defense attorney Joanne Cuccia, after Stoddard took a document from Cuccia’s file while she was participating in ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 5, 2009, guards at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville prepared for an onerous task – executing state prisoner Romell Broom. They tried for two hours to find a usable vein in which to inject the three-drug lethal injection cocktail. Unable to find one, ...
by Matt Clarke
There are two criminal justice systems in the United States. One is for people with wealth, fame or influence who can afford to hire top-notch attorneys and public relations firms, who make campaign contributions to sheriffs, legislators and other elected officials, and who enjoy certain privileges due ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 30, 2009, Catherine S. Evans, a former Dallas state district judge and the newly-appointed ombudsman for the Texas Youth Commission (TYC), resigned after she was indicted on a third-degree felony charge for smuggling a prohibited weapon into a TYC facility. [See: PLN, March 2010, p.28]. ...
by Matt Clarke
In 2006 Congress enacted the Adam Walsh Act, which requires states to institute stricter monitoring of sex offenders or face losing 10% of their federal crime-prevention grants. Although all states were supposed to comply with the Act by July 2009, as of May 18, 2010 only Ohio, ...
by Matt Clarke
In an attempt to bridge a budget shortfall, the Austrian Justice Ministry has set up call centers in prisons and con-tracted them out to private companies that might otherwise outsource the work overseas. The move has prompted criticism about prisoners handling private customer information.
Austrian prison officials ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 7, 2009, three private prison guards were convicted of charges involving the unjustified beating of a New York prisoner in 2007. [See: PLN, Sept. 2009, p.50; July 2009, p.50]. A fourth guard was convicted of related charges in January 2010.
Rex Egurido, 28, a Nigerian ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 4, 2009, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that a state prisoner who had been erroneously released through no fault of his own, and who had not violated any of the conditions of his release, was entitled to credit against his sentence for the ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 5, 2010, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the Sheriff of Bristol County could not charge fees for certain jail services.
In 2002, prisoners at the Bristol County House of Correction and Jail in Dartmouth, Massachusetts filed a complaint in state Superior Court ...
