It’s rare to see a governmental body put checks on prosecutors. Usually, the governments (local, state, and federal) count on prosecutors to be their heavy hand, the top law enforcer. This has led, in part, to prosecutors having more power than ever and throwing that power around with little thought about its effects on due process rights or even the health of defendants.
What Private Information Will Google Give Cops Without a Warrant?
Google surprised some folks this week when they announced their policy requires law enforcement to provide a probable cause warrant when seeking information contained in emails and documents on their cloud-storage system. Surprised because the law doesn’t require it and surprised because they simultaneously admitted that about 2/3 of the information they hand over is done so without a warrant. [Read more…]
Feds Don’t Want You Knowing Their Surveillance Policies
The Justice Department, which oversees the FBI and all other federal law enforcement arms, has memos that detail just how and when they can track citizens via GPS. But, they want to keep these memos to themselves. They have refused to release their views on GPS tracking to the public through requests by the ACLU. Instead, they forward copies of the memos with huge sections blacked out. Now, why would a governmental agency in a nation “for the people” be so compelled to keep quiet something that could possibly threaten the liberty in which the country was founded upon? [Read more…]
Can Your “Right to Remain Silent” Work Against You?
The average person knows a little about having a “right to remain silent”. Even if you’ve never personally been arrested, you’ve heard that line before on television. But if remaining silent in the face of criminal charges is a right, how could it be used as evidence of our guilt in court? The Supreme Court has recently decided to hear a case where this question is the crux of the matter. [Read more…]
Getting a Job After A Criminal Conviction and Jail
When you have a conviction on your record, it can have untold consequences for the rest of your life. In particular, a conviction can make it difficult to find a good job. Fortunately, there are programs out there specifically targeted at ex-offenders and that assist people in getting back into the workforce after a period of incarceration. [Read more…]
DNA Evidence That Proves Innocence Is Not Always Available for Defendants
Imagine a man was wrongfully convicted of a serious crime. Imagine there was evidence that could prove his innocence. One would think, in the system where due process is given so much lip-service, that the wrongfully convicted man would have clear and easy access to this evidence. But in the case of DNA, one would likely be wrong. [Read more…]
Why We Don’t Hear of Police Shooting Statistics
There’s a reason we don’t know for certain if shootings of civilians by law enforcement are up or down, why we don’t know how many of such shootings are truly justified, or how much of a percentage of the total police killings are actually heard about on the evening news. That reason: no one is tracking it. And that is a serious problem. [Read more…]
FBI’s Hair Analysis Crime Lab Under Review
In July, the Department of Justice announced there would be a nationwide review of FBI hair analysis practices, including more than 21,000 cases that were handled before 2000. The review would focus on whether FBI lab analysts gave misleading or downright inaccurate testimony regarding their work. But the review isn’t big enough, says a recent article in the Washington Post, pointing out that these very same analysts trained thousands of state and local crime lab workers using the same flawed scientific justifications. [Read more…]
The Problem with Eyewitness Identifications
If you were to witness a crime, would you remember what the suspect looked like, how they were dressed, or what they said? Many people believe they could be trusted to “finger” the bad guy. But, many would be wrong. Eyewitness identification is the leading contributing factor to wrongful convictions in the United States. More people are wrongfully convicted on the basis of a flawed eyewitness id than are by mishandled evidence, for example.
The flaws of eyewitness identification are widely known. Just this week, one state took a major step to reduce the likelihood that such an identification would incarcerate another innocent person. [Read more…]
Do Police Need A Warrant to Search Emails, Cellphone Records, Text Messages?
It would be nice if there was one simple answer to the above question—if we could get a consensus on when a warrant was needed to infringe on the privacy of citizens. But the “courts are all over the place” as Hanni Fakhoury with the Electronic Frontier Foundation says. One state may say a warrant is needed for any cell phone infringement, while others say text messages and emails are fair game. So, how can we make sense of this jumbled mess of court rulings? [Read more…]
