The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Jurisdiction" ...
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Grim Reapers
Maricopa County, Arizona, has faced economic hurdles in paying for representation of indigent defendants charged with capital crimes. In recent years, the county supplanted other jurisdictions as the unofficial “death penalty capital” of the United States. “Grim Reaper” describes how a prominent capital criminal-defense attorney committed serious ethical and potentially criminal violations over a period of five years, during which time he collected more than $2.4 million from the county, including payment for work that he never had performed. in the wake of publication, law enforcement initiated a still-ongoing criminal investigation (as did the State Bar of Arizona), and the county's presiding judge announced sweeping and immediate changes in how criminal-defense attorneys representing indigent clients would be vetted, selected and paid.
Tags: Crimes; charges; criminal justice system; capital crimes
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The Allure of Secure
The reporters looked at enforcement data President Obama's immigration enforcement policy from each jurisdiction. The investigation finds that almost half of the people were never charged with, or convicted of, the crimes for which they were arrested.
Tags: U.S. Immgiration and Customs Enforcement; immigrants; enforcement data
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Failure of Justice
The failed investigation of a police imposter who sexually assaulted at least 15 Apache teenagers serves as a window into the breakdown of law enforcement in Indian country. Native Americans suffer from disproportionate crime rates - especially sexual assaults - largely because of a dysfunctional criminal justice system. In this case, two men were falsely arrested and jailed; the real criminal got away and victims saw no justice. The government's own records, obtained through a federal lawsuit, demonstrate that the problem is systemic - a result of overlapping jurisdictions, mismanagement, lack of funding inadequate training and multiple other flaws.
Tags: Law Enforcement; Native American; Justice; Jurisdiction; Sexual Assault; Rape; Police; Imposter; Apache; Whiteriver; Indian Reservation
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The Cheaters
A 60-Minutes, Washington Post joint investigation found that a small group of people managed to cheat players out of more than 20 million dollars. And that no law enforcement agency in the world is pursing the case. Both playing and running an online gambling Web site is considered illegal in the United States. Than ban is almost impossible to enforce; the sites and the computers that run them are located offshore beyond U.S. jurisdiction.
Tags: internet gambling; poker; cheating; Absolute Poker; Mohawk nation; computer servers; scam; Ultimate Bet;
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Lawless Lands: The Crisis in Indian Country
"This four-part series uncovers the systemic failure of the federal judicial system to investigate and prosecute serious crime on America's Indian reservations and charts the cost of that failure to indigenous communities. The series presents the first detailed picture of the gap between reported crime, criminal investigation, and felony prosecution on American Indian lands under federal jurisdiction."
Tags: crime; Native Americans; federal government; Indian Affairs
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Dying For a Job
While workplace insurance boards across Canada claimed workplaces are safer, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation investigated workplace safety. They found that "the number of workplace deaths had increased by about 7 percent from 1993 to 2004." In addition, coroners' suggestions on making workplaces safer for workers have largely been ignored, and are "not shared from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in a manner that would help make their workplaces safer." The investigation also found that health care and social services workers were in more danger than others, "anywhere from six to 12 times more likely to file claims related to violence on the job, mainly from patients." This is higher than even the rate for police and security.
Tags: Worker's compensation; workplace safety; worker safety; labor laws; on-the-job injuries; Canadian workplaces
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Cybercrime Inc.
With increased on-line banking and money transactions comes an increase in cyber-crime. This comes from putting more emphasis on user convenience instead of security. Part of the increase in cyber-crime is also due to meth traffickers, adept at operating localized theft rings, joining forces with global cyber-crime rings. Also some groups, such as those in Russia, are making ordinary citizens unknowing mules to carry out reshipment and money laundering schemes. Law enforcement has been spotty due to cross-jurisdictional hurdles.
Tags: cyber crime; money laundering; meth; on-line banking; computer security; cyber crime rings; law enforcement
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School Felons
In this investigation of non-teaching school workers in Cleveland, Ohio, it was found that more than a dozen have felony records. Many were child molesters, drug dealers, and elderly abusers. It was also found that criminal background checks were done randomly...less than five hundred random checks a year...which meant over four thousand employees were not checked. As a result to this investigation, a computer program tracking criminal records in over 70 jurisdictions was donated and ex-con workers were fired.
Tags: school workers; ex-cons; child molesters; background checks; criminal records
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911 Tape Details Fatal Night
"When a heart attack dropped Jim Wagner on the floor of a Memphis pool hall, it took an ambulance half an hour to arrive." The Commercial Appeal investigated why it took so long for an ambulance to arrive despite more than a half-dozen people calling 911 to report the heart attack. They discovered 911 dispatchers had first sent ambulances to three wrong addresses, and that the EMS personnel involved "displayed a remarkable lack of familiarity of the section of town where Wagner died, a neighborhood recently annexed into the city." The paper used the state's open-records law to obtain the 911 tapes pertaining to the incident, and found "dispatchers were rudely dismissive of callers offering valuable information" and that "authorities in an adjacent jurisdiction refused to send an ambulance, even though the pool hall lay one block outside its jurisdiction." The 911 mapping system also appeared to have failed.
Tags: EMS; 911; emergency services; hospital; heart attack; cardiac; cardiac arrest; dispatch; fire; police; annex; death; fatal
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Freshmen-Fund Raising
Jonathan Salant of the Associated Press performed a computer-assisted analysis of PAC contributions to House freshmen, and found that the first-year lawmakers received more money from special interests under the jurisdiction of their committees than they received prior to their election. Using campaign finance disclosure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission and analyses done by the Center for Responsive Politics, the reporter built a database of 37 freshmen House members. It revealed that "all but two of the lawmakers got a larger percentage of their PAC money from the industries and unions under their panel's jurisdiction than they had received before getting their committee assignments." Said one source: "Committees are often where the action is."
Tags: contributions; freshmen; congress; federal election commission; FEC; CAR; special interests; PAC; political action committee; Ginny Brown-Waite; donations; center for responsive politics; database; data