tagged w/ Criminal Justice System
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"McGraw-Hill Cos.’s Standard & Poor’s unit won’t rely on the argument that its rating opinions are protected by the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech to defend against a government lawsuit, according to the company’s attorney Floyd Abrams.
“I don’t have any magic First Amendment wand in my pocket for this one,” Abrams said in an interview today with Bloomberg Television’s Sara Eisen. “It’s not a First Amendment case. The government is alleging that S&P didn’t believe what it said; the First Amendment doesn’t protect against that.”
"The U.S. Justice Department filed a civil complaint in Los Angeles yesterday accusing McGraw-Hill and its S&P unit of three types of fraud, the first federal case against a ratings company for grades related to the credit crisis. A judge in San Francisco state court ruled in December 2010 that S&P’s ratings on three structured investment vehicles were a form a protected speech.
McGraw-Hill Cos.’s Standard & Poor’s unit won’t rely on the argument that its rating opinions are protected by the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech to defend against a government lawsuit, according to the company’s attorney Floyd Abrams.
“I don’t have any magic First Amendment wand in my pocket for this one,” Abrams said in an interview today with Bloomberg Television’s Sara Eisen. “It’s not a First Amendment case. The government is alleging that S&P didn’t believe what it said; the First Amendment doesn’t protect against that.”
"The U.S. Justice Department filed a civil complaint in Los Angeles yesterday accusing McGraw-Hill and its S&P unit of three types of fraud, the first federal case against a ratings company for grades related to the credit crisis. A judge in San Francisco state court ruled in December 2010 that S&P’s ratings on three structured investment vehicles were a form a protected speech."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-05/s-p-won-t-employ-first-amendment-defense-in-u-s-ratings-lawsuit.html
"The ratings agencies were wrong about the gold-plated grades they issued on mortgage bonds that later proved nearly worthless, the agencies have acknowledged. But those ratings were merely opinions, they have said, entitled to the same constitutional protection as any form of speech."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/sp-lawsuit-first-amendment_n_2618737.html
"In a statement, S&P said it "will vigorously defend" itself against the lawsuit. The company said that its ratings have always "reflected our current best judgments," a statement it has declared repeatedly since the housing market collapsed, turning the piles of debt it had once branded safe into worthless mounds of paper.
But the picture of S&P painted in the lawsuit -- one constructed with a bevy of internal emails -- sharply challenges that assertion."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/05/sp-lawsuit-emails_n_2623933.html?ref=topbar"McGraw-Hill Cos.’s Standard & Poor’s unit won’t rely on... more
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TUCSON (AP) — The suspect in the Tucson shooting rampage has pleaded not guilty to dozens of new federal charges that accuse him of killing six people and wounding 13 others.
Jared Lee Loughner entered the plea Wednesday to charges that included trying to assassinate U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, attempting to kill two of her aides and murdering federal judge John Roll and Giffords staffer Gabe Zimmerman.
NEW INDICTMENTS: Loughner charged on 49 counts
EXPERTS: Giffords needs year to show progress
TUCSON SHOOTING: A fatal chain of events
PHOTOS: Aftermath of Arizona shooting
He also is charged with causing the deaths of four others who weren't federal employees, causing injury and death to participants at a federally provided activity and using a gun in a crime of violence.
Loughner also will likely face state charges stemming from the Jan. 8 attack at a Giffords event outside a Tucson grocery store.TUCSON (AP) — The suspect in the Tucson shooting rampage has pleaded not guilty... more
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Government officials in both Norway and Iceland are questioning the grounds for what’s become a credit card blockade against WikiLeaks that has disrupted the non-profit whistle-blowing organization’s ability to raise funds. Norwegian-Danish finance firm Teller is also the target of a government inquiry.
Norway’s leading business newspaper, Dagens Næringsliv (DN), has reported in a series of articles this week how Visa Europe and MasterCard have effectively blocked their credit card holders’ ability to send donations to WikiLeaks. The blockade has been carried out through the Norwegian-Danish finance firm Teller, which handles credit card transactions for Visa Europe and MasterCard.
Teller officials claim they were ordered by Visa Europe to suspend yet another firm involved in the complicated chain of credit card facilitators, Datacell of Iceland, which received donations (which donors had charged to their credit cards) on behalf of WikiLeaks.
Demanding legal basis for the suspension
DN reported earlier this week that a leading Norwegian law professor believes the credit card blockade, suspected of being politically motivated because of WikiLeaks’ disclosures of classified government documents, is illegal and violates both national and EU finance agreements and directives.
Now, reports DN, the Icelandic Parliament has launched an investigation into the grounds for the actions taken by Teller, Visa Europe and MasterCard against WikiLeaks. ”Nobody has been able to clarify the judicial foundation as to why payments to Datacell, and therefore WikiLeaks, have been stopped,” Robert Marshall, who leads the Parliament’s control committee, told DN. “And that is, of course, a problem.”
Marshall called the credit card blockade “serious” and “highly dubious” and said the Icelandic parliamentarians were demanding a “legitimate reason” for it. So far, he told DN, Teller has only referred to “due diligence” undertaken to ensure that Datacell has operated in accordance with its agreement with Visa. Neither Teller nor Visa Europe has produced evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Datacell or WikiLeaks, even though they have effectively halted payments to WikiLeaks through Datacell for nearly three weeks. That, according to DN, has cost WikiLeaks an estimated USD 1.6 million in lost donations from its supporters and also is hurting Datacell, which has more than 3,000 other customers.
Norway also demands some answers
DN reports that Norwegian financial authorities at regulatory agency Finanstilsynet in Oslo are also raising questions and have asked Teller to produce a legitimate reason for turning away customers. Finanstilsynet planned to send a letter Thursday to Teller demanding a legal reason as to why Teller has effectively stopped payments to WikiLeaks by suspending Datacell.
Anders Kvam of Finanstilsynet told DN that “we’re looking into this,” and that the regulators want to know Teller’s basis for the actions taken against Datacell. Teller must answer by January 3, an unusually short deadline that means Teller officials will need to work on the issue during what otherwise is a Christmas holiday period in Norway.
“This is a current problem that must be solved,”" Kvam told DN. “It involves payment transactions, and we can’t let these types of questions remain unanswered.”
Teller sent out a press statement earlier this week saying it had concluded that Datacell had violated its agreement with Visa by turning over payments to a third party. Datacell’s officials objected immediately and legal action is pending.
Teller also claimed that it had found no violations on the part of Sunshine Press, WikiLeaks’ company in Icceland, but that it was now up to Visa to approve payments to Sunshine Press.
Views and News from Norway/Nina Berglund
Join our Forum if you’d like to comment on this story.Government officials in both Norway and Iceland are questioning the grounds for... more
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Exclusive Video: Richard I Fine, Ph.D Reflects on His Darkest Hours After 18 Months of "Coercive Confinement"
Los Angeles, CA Two days following his unexpected release from L A Central Men's Jail On Friday September 17, 2010 Richard I. Fine described the conditions in "coercive confinement' and his eighteen month ordeal waging a legal battle for freedom from his solitary jail cell without an attorney. Full Disclosure Network® presents a ten minute video preview from a three hour exclusive interview featured on the Internet Website http://www.fulldisclosure.net.
Richard Fine who holds a Ph.D in International Law and was a former U.S . Prosecutor in Washington D. C. tells of his darkest moment during his incarceration, and the reasons why he was never tempted to give in to the illegal order of State Superior Court Judge David P. Yaffe.
(Part of a three hour interview)
The full interview is to be released to Public Access Cable channels throughout California and on Community Cable channels in major cities throughout the United States a and the Internet. The Full Disclosure Network is billed as "the news behind the news", an independent public affairs cable TV show produced by Emmy Award winning host Leslie Dutton and Producer T J Johnston since 1992.Exclusive Video: Richard I Fine, Ph.D Reflects on His Darkest Hours After 18 Months of... more
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The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people.
Saying the US criminal system is racist may be politically controversial in some circles. But the facts are overwhelming. No real debate about that. Below I set out numerous examples of these facts.
The question is – are these facts the mistakes of an otherwise good system, or are they evidence that the racist criminal justice system is working exactly as intended? Is the US criminal justice system operated to marginalize and control millions of African Americans?
Information on race is available for each step of the criminal justice system -- from the use of drugs, police stops, arrests, getting out on bail, legal representation, jury selection, trial, sentencing, prison, parole and freedom. Look what these facts show.
One. The US has seen a surge in arrests and putting people in jail over the last four decades. Most of the reason is the war on drugs. Yet whites and blacks engage in drug offenses, possession and sales, at roughly comparable rates – according to a report on race and drug enforcement published by Human Rights Watch in May 2008. While African Americans comprise 13% of the US population and 14% of monthly drug users they are 37% of the people arrested for drug offenses – according to 2009 Congressional testimony by Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project.
Two. The police stop blacks and Latinos at rates that are much higher than whites. In New York City, where people of color make up about half of the population, 80% of the NYPD stops were of blacks and Latinos. When whites were stopped, only 8% were frisked. When blacks and Latinos are stopped 85% were frisked according to information provided by the NYPD. The same is true most other places as well. In a California study, the ACLU found blacks are three times more likely to be stopped than whites.
Three. Since 1970, drug arrests have skyrocketed rising from 320,000 to close to 1.6 million according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice.
African Americans are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rate for whites – according to a May 2009 report on disparity in drug arrests by Human Rights Watch.
Four. Once arrested, blacks are more likely to remain in prison awaiting trial than whites. For example, the New York state division of criminal justice did a 1995 review of disparities in processing felony arrests and found that in some parts of New York blacks are 33% more likely to be detained awaiting felony trials than whites facing felony trials.
Five. Once arrested, 80% of the people in the criminal justice system get a public defender for their lawyer. Race plays a big role here as well. Stop in any urban courtroom and look a the color of the people who are waiting for public defenders. Despite often heroic efforts by public defenders the system gives them much more work and much less money than the prosecution. The American Bar Association, not a radical bunch, reviewed the US public defender system in 2004 and concluded “All too often, defendants plead guilty, even if they are innocent, without really understanding their legal rights or what is occurring…The fundamental right to a lawyer that America assumes applies to everyone accused of criminal conduct effectively does not exist in practice for countless people across the US.”
Six. African Americans are frequently illegally excluded from criminal jury service according to a June 2010 study released by the Equal Justice Initiative. For example in Houston County, Alabama, 8 out of 10 African Americans qualified for jury service have been struck by prosecutors from serving on death penalty cases.
Seven. Trials are rare. Only 3 to 5 percent of criminal cases go to trial – the rest are plea bargained. Most African Americans defendants never get a trial. Most plea bargains consist of promise of a longer sentence if a person exercises their constitutional right to trial. As a result, people caught up in the system, as the American Bar Association points out, plead guilty even when innocent. Why? As one young man told me recently, “Who wouldn’t rather do three years for a crime they didn’t commit than risk twenty-five years for a crime they didn’t do?”
(7 more reasons @ link)The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based... more
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FullDisclosureNetwrk — April 14, 2010 — Full Disclosure Network presents a four-minute preview of hour long interview recorded in the L A County Central Men's jail with political prisoner Richard I Fine who has never been charged or conviced of a crime but has been held in solitary, "Coercive Confinement" for over a year. Dr. Fine holds a PhD in International Law and was an anti-trust attorney with the DOJ in Washington D.C. before he was ordered to jail in civil contempt of court. Listen to him describe the corruption in L A County and the Justice System is a threat to our American Democratic process and to the nation. Then he reveals his simple solution to ridding the corruption from our government.
Category:FullDisclosureNetwrk — April 14, 2010 — Full Disclosure Network presents a... more
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Police patrol up until community policing reform was pretty much entirely reactionary. Police would sit in patrol cars and rapidly respond to calls for service. After responding and doing their thing, they would then leave. Proponents of community-oriented reform (mostly from the criminal justice/criminology research community, though also some police chiefs and politicians) believed that the professional model of policing (highly bureaucratic, centralized, using police cars, little community contact in order to avoid graft) was damaging communities.Police patrol up until community policing reform was pretty much entirely reactionary.... more
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Police patrol up until community policing reform was pretty much entirely reactionary. Police would sit in patrol cars and rapidly respond to calls for service. After responding and doing their thing, they would then leave. Proponents of community-oriented reform (mostly from the criminal justice/criminology research community, though also some police chiefs and politicians) believed that the professional model of policing (highly bureaucratic, centralized, using police cars, little community contact in order to avoid graft) was damaging communities.Police patrol up until community policing reform was pretty much entirely reactionary.... more
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The US justice department has reportedly opened an investigation into the investment bank Goldman Sachs over mortgage deals it allegedly finalised with knowledge of their high risk. The criminal investigation was begun in New York on Thursday raising the prospect of the firm or some of its employees being charged, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported.
The investigation follows the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing civil fraud charges against Goldman and one of its traders two weeks ago.
"Given the recent focus on the firm, we are not surprised by the report of an inquiry," a spokesman from Goldman said.
"We would fully co-operate with any requests for information."
The justice department's investigation reportedly stems from a referral from the SEC.
Information about mortgage-related securities was said by the SEC to have been hidden by the bank in transactions in 2006 and 2007.
'Investors misled'
The SEC said that the firm misled investors by not telling them that the securities had been selected by Paulson and Co, a Goldman hedge fund client, who was betting that the investments would fail.
Goldman and Fabrice Tourre, the trader said to be involved, deny the charges and have said that they will contest them in court.
Lloyd Blackfein, the CEO, and other Goldman employees were also questioned by a US senate subcommittee in Washington DC over trading the mortgage-related products when the US housing market broke down in 2007.
Congress is attempting to provide legislation to clean up and regulate the financial industry, after widespread criticism over banks' role in the global economic crisis.
The panel accused Goldman of inflating the housing bubble in the past ten years and then profiting from its collapse in 2007, highlighting the alleged incidents that surrounding complex mortgage deals that brought the SEC charges.
It also said the Wall Street giant helped to package toxic mortgages into bonds for fees from 2004 to 2007, and then repackaged those bonds into complex securities known as collateralised debt obligations, magnifying the risk from the mortgages.The US justice department has reportedly opened an investigation into the investment... more
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Shortly before six o’clock on the evening of December 19, 2008, a man standing outside his home in Lake Township, Ohio heard the whine of an engine in the sky above him.
Moments later two red lights broke through the low clouds, heading almost directly toward the ground. It was a light aircraft, and for a second, as it descended below the tree line, the man thought it would climb back up. Instead, there was a terrible thud, and the sky turned orange. When the fire crews arrived, they found the burning wreckage of a Piper Saratoga strewn across a vacant lot. The plane had narrowly missed a house, but the explosion was so intense that the home’s plastic siding was on fire. So was the grass. The pilot had been thrown from the plane and died instantly. Body parts and pieces of twisted metal were scattered everywhere. A prayer book lay open on the ground, its pages on fire.
The crash would have remained a private tragedy confined to the pages of the local press and the hearts of the pilot’s widow and four children, but within days the blogosphere was abuzz with rumors and conspiracy theories: The plane, it was said, had been sabotaged and the pilot murdered to cover up the GOP’s alleged theft of the Ohio vote in the 2004 presidential election. At the center of this plot was the Saratoga’s pilot, a prodigiously gifted IT expert named Michael Connell, whose altar boy charm and technical brilliance had made him the computer whiz of choice for the Republican Party. Left-wing Web sites openly referred to Connell as “Bush’s vote rigger” and claimed that his fingerprints were on all the most controversial elections in recent history. There were dark whispers of electronic pulses or sniper fire being used to bring down the plane—a black ops attack designed to keep him from testifying against his former cronies. Right-wing bloggers and talk show hosts derided such claims as the twisted delusions of liberal nut jobs and tinfoil hatters. The mainstream press sat on its hands.
But while the rumors, innuendos, and allegations continue to swirl through the ether, evidence has recently emerged that suggests the Ohio vote may have been hacked, and that Connell was involved.
More...Shortly before six o’clock on the evening of December 19, 2008, a man standing... more
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Register an account at http://www.change.org/ideas?order=top and vote for legalization and any other cause that you support! Obama will address the top-voted issues.
Google Moderator also has a similar poll going, and marijuana is popular in almost each category!
Edit: You'll have to copy/paste this because Current won't let the whole thing become a hyperlink.
http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=409fRegister an account at http://www.change.org/ideas?order=top and vote for legalization... more
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LITTLE ROCK — The state is required to subsidize defense expenses for a man accused of fatally shooting a soldier and wounding another outside a west Little Rock recruiting center, a Pulaski County Circuit judge ruled this morning.
After testimony from accused killer Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert trained in Yemen, Judge Herb Wright ruled that he was indigent and entitled to the funding despite being represented by a private attorney his parents hired. While on the stand, Muhammad told his attorney, Claiborne Ferguson, he had no financial means to pay for his defense on his own.
Muhammad is charged with capital murder, attempted capital murder and 10 counts of unlawful discharge of a weapon in the June 1 shooting that killed Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway and wounded Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville outside a west Little Rock recruiting center. He told reporters in a jailhouse interview that he shot the men in retaliation for the way the U.S. military treats Muslims in the Middle East.
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2010/jan/11/state-must-provide-accused-soldier-killer-funds-ju/LITTLE ROCK — The state is required to subsidize defense expenses for a man... more
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The ACLU's Racial Justice Program is committed to challenging the "school to prison pipeline," a disturbing national trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Many of these children have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse or neglect, and would benefit from additional educational and counseling services. Instead, they are isolated, punished and pushed out. "Zero-tolerance" policies criminalize minor infractions of school rules, while high-stakes testing programs encourage educators to push out low-performing students to improve their schools' overall test scores. Students of color are especially vulnerable to push-out trends and the discriminatory application of discipline.The ACLU's Racial Justice Program is committed to challenging the "school to... more
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"New figures meanwhile show the US prison population has reached an all-time high. According to the Justice Department, 2.3 million people were behind bars last year. The prison population continues to grow at less than one percent, down from an annual six percent growth during the previous decade."
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/10/headlines
(image taken from the Callifornia Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation websites "Prison Overcrowding Photos")"New figures meanwhile show the US prison population has reached an all-time... more
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The Army Times is reporting exclusively that an anonymous note threatening a massacre similar to the Nov. 5 attack at Fort Hood, Texas, was discovered Thursday -- along with a box of 20 hollow-point bullets -- in a motor pool area at Columbus' Fort Benning.
The discovery coincided with a visit from Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, who was in town for Officer Candidate School graduation. The threat prompted a criminal investigation and greater police presence on the Army base, the Army Times reports.
According to a witness on the scene, a box of 20 hollow-point shells and a handwritten note were found under the 197th Infantry Training Brigade.
“The note said ‘tell the commanding general to call off all charges or there will be a re-enactment of Fort Hood,’ ” a witness told Army Times. Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan is charged in the Nov. 5 shooting deaths of 13 fellow service members.
The newspaper, which serves an audience of Army personnel, active and retired, said military police acted quickly on the threat, cordoning off a 20-foot perimeter around the box.
“They’re talking with anyone with a pending [Uniform Code of Military Justice] charge and people who are getting chaptered out to see if they can find out who it is,” the witness told the Army Times.
Fort Benning officials refused comment on the specifics of the letter but confirmed “an ongoing investigation into a general threat at Fort Benning.”
“A suspicious package and note were found,” post spokeswoman Elsie Jackson said. “The soldier notified a noncommissioned officer, who alerted 911. The area was secured as is normal in these types of incidents.”
Soldiers in the unit are being questioned about the threat, the witness told the Army Times. The Kelley Hill area of Fort Benning was on lockdown for part of the day Friday, according to the witness, who noted an increase in military police patrols on the post.
The Fort Benning spokeswoman said “appropriate force protection measures are in place while an investigation is underway to determine if this is a viable threat.”The Army Times is reporting exclusively that an anonymous note threatening a massacre... more
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"On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider legislation designed to overhaul the nation’s criminal justice system by creating a commission to examine that system and make reform recommendations to Congress. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.)
One focus of the commission’s review, sponsors say, will necessarily be the sentencing policies surrounding the decades-old “war on drugs,” which critics argue has packed the nation’s prisons needlessly with non-violent offenders.
Some Republicans, however, are wary of taking any steps toward a legalization of drugs. And they’re lining up with amendments to prevent that from happening. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), for example, has been weighing a provision that would prevent the newly formed commission from even studying the effects that drug legalization would have on the criminal justice system.
“The point is, for them to do what we tell them to do,” Grassley said...."
http://washingtonindependent.com/66600/grassley-hoping-to-keep-medical-marijuana-illegal"On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider legislation designed... more
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Gouldsboro, Maine — Nathaniel Church, 19, was arrested Oct. 11 on charges of domestic assault and disorderly conduct, police said.
Police said a family member called to complain that Church was threatening to kill his dog, a pit bull that the caller said was very aggressive and had bitten Church the week before.
The caller told police Church was screaming, “Where’s my machete so I can kill the dog.”Gouldsboro, Maine — Nathaniel Church, 19, was arrested Oct. 11 on charges of... more
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New York; (October 21,2009) Joined by Civil Rights advocates, Sen. Eric T. Scheneiderman (D-Manhattan/Bronx) and Assm. Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) today unveiled legislation to help exornerate innocent people who are wrongfully convicted in cases that lack DNA evidence. The "Actual Innocence Act of 2009" establishes "actual innocence" as a lawful basis for vacating a prior conviction and removes certain roadblocks that can prevent the wrongfully convicted from presenting proof that conclusively establishes their innocence.
"New York is behind the curve when it comes to giving the courts an opportunity to reverse wrongful convictions in non-DNA cases. Experts have proven that DNA exonerations represent only a small fraction of all wrongful convictions, that's why innocence claims must be fully and fairly aired," said sponsor Sen. Eric T. Scheiderman, Chair of the Senate Codes Committee and member of Chief Justice Lippman's task force on wrongful convictions. "This 'actual inocence' legislation is about justice and fairness - it ensures that innocent people don't spend decades behind bars while the real criminals go free."
For wrongfully convicted individuals in these non-DNA cases - even when new evidence comes to light - New York State law offers only limited hope for relief by establishing procedural obstacles that can deprive them of having an innocence claim thoroughly heard. The tragic result - as demonstrated in hundreds of DNA exoneration cases throughout the country - is that an innocent person can spend years in jail while the real perpetrator is free to commit more crimes and terrorize countless victims.
"In many cases, those convicted of serious crimes do not have access to attorneys with the experience and expertise to help prove their innocence. This legislation levels the playing field and will ensure that in non-DNA cases, the wrongfully convicted will have a greater opportunity to prove that they were actually innocent," said Assm. Hakeem Jeffries, the bill's Assembly sponsor.
The Scheiderman/Jeffries bill (S.6234) creates a freestanding ground of "actual innocence" upon which a criminal court could grant a post-conviction motion to vacate its prior judgement of conviction. The motion can be granted only where a defendent is able to present "reliable and relevant" proof that "conclusively establishes" the defendant's actual innocence of the crime os which he or she was convicted.
To ensure that a defendent cannot benefit from prior inaction or delay aimed at "gaming" the system, the bill would specifically permit the court to deny relief where it determines that the defendent's failure to act was intentional.
"Prolonged and unnecessary incarceration of the innocent is detrimental to all - the wrongfully incarcerated, society, the criminal justice system and the victim. I can only hope that the proposed legislation ensures the others wrongly incarcerated like me, never have to suffer like I did in securing their freedom through the criminal justice system," said Marty Tankleff, who was wrongfully convicted for murder of his parents based on false confession.
"New York State's criminal justice system, like many other states,' has too often stressed the 'criminal' more than the 'justice,' sometimes resulting in innocent people being convicted and incarcerated. But, new tools are available to prove the innocence of the wrongly convicted, and I am proud to co-sponsor this legislation which will make them more fully available in New York State," said Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D-Manhattan). "If the bill provides for the exoneration of just one person it will be worth it."New York; (October 21,2009) Joined by Civil Rights advocates, Sen. Eric T.... more
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suspect will voluntarily answers questions for 4th day, even as u.s. intelligence officials played crucial role in intended terrosist attack.suspect will voluntarily answers questions for 4th day, even as u.s. intelligence... more
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