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 "guilty" ...
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Louisiana Horror Movie
“Louisiana’s Horror Movie” grew out of our 2011 IRE award winning investigation “Hiding Behind the Badge”. That series ended with the guilty pleas of former Plaquemines Parish Sheriff Jiff Hingle and businessman Aaron Bennett. Through investigative determination, “Louisana’s Horror Movie” uncovered possible public corruption by a former FBI agent and looked at his questionable relationship with the Hingle. What led us to this discovery was a piece of “Hiding Behind the Badge” we felt had not been fully explored: the money Hingle made from the B.P. oil spill. Even after the initial stories were reported, we felt there was more there. So we kept digging. It wasn’t February of 2012 that we uncovered Hingle's ties to former FBI agent, Robert Isakson. We requested emails, looking for more information to connect the dots. We had to fight the current sheriff’s office for the emails and eventually got them. The emails helped us show an improper relationship between the Hingle and Isakson – now a businessman getting contracts from Plaquemines Parish. This series eventually launched another FBI investigation, this time with Isakson in the crosshairs.
Tags: FBI; FBI agents; corruption; broadcast
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Locked up
A USA TODAY investigation found that the U.S. Justice Department was using its legal authority to decide who gets locked up for how long in ways that reward the guilty and punish the innocent. Our examination found that government lawyers were trying to keep dozens of men who they conceded were “legally innocent” imprisoned anyway. We found that the Justice Department had kept accused sexual predators locked up for years past the end of their prison sentences on the basis of faulty psychological assessments. And exposed a brazen pay-to-snitch enterprise that illustrated how the government rewards its informants — often hardened criminals — with shorter prison sentences.
Tags: U.S. Justice Department; lawyers; sexual predators; criminals; prison sentences
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Campus Sexual Assaults: Few Tough Sanctions Imposed
Using data from the Department of Justice, the story examined how perpetrators of sexual assault on college campuses were punished if found guilty. The authors found that the majority of schools were not issuing tough sanctions against these perpetrators.
Tags: sexual assault; rape; campus; college; Department of Justice on Violence Against Women
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"Missoula shaken baby conviction relied on science, expert"
Three-month old Gabriel sustained and eventually died from severe neurological injuries from what investigators determined was "shaken baby syndrome." Gabriel's father, Robert J. Wilkes, was not the initial suspect. However, through the testimony of a child abuse expert from Minnesota and convincing circumstantial evidence, he was eventually found guilty.
Tags: child abuse; shaken baby; pediatrics; Rick Kaplan; National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse; American Academy of Pediatrics
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Pawlenty's Pardon
Jeremy Giefer was charged with raping his own daughter and then received a pardon for a 1993 sex-crime conviction for raping a 14-year-old -- the mother of his latest alleged victim. City Pages revealed that Giefer wanted the pardon so his wife could open a daycare center in his home. Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty chaired the board which granted the pardon.
Tags: Geifer; Pawlenty; rape; pardon; cleared; guilty; sex-crime
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"No Means No"
This investigation, part of a nationwide collaboration that was led by the Center for Public Integrity, revealed that University of Massachusetts-Amherst officials often failed to take disciplinary action against students accused or found guilty of sexual assault. Reporters found that in a four-year period, "240 sexual assaults" were reported "to campus security," and only "four students were expelled." This report also found that many women who reported the assault often dropped the accusation.
Tags: sexual assault; harassment; New England; Amherst; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; U.S. Department of Justice; database; public records request; Office of Violence against Women
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Justice in the Balance
The investigation documents the occurrences of federal prosecutors violating the law to win cases while the Justice Department looks the other way. Rarely are the prosecutors punished, and often times their abuses set guilty people free and put innocent people in jail.
Tags: Justice Department; prosecutor; federal prosecutor; violation; federal court
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Did these women molest two girls?
The series examines the evidence presented at the trials that convicted four women of sexually assaulting two girls in the 1990s. The story documents the lapses in police work, the flawed credibility of the accusers, a prosecutor's exploitation of anti-gay stereotypes and more.
Tags: guilty; innocent; sexual assault; trial; evidence
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Presumed Guilty
Over a ten year span, judges in Cuyahoga County, Ohio threw out more than 350 cases mid-trial because prosecutors did not present enough basic evidence. The results of the investigative series shows how the broken system allowed hundreds of defendants to walk free.
Tags: prosecutor; criminal defense; judges; prosecution; fair trial
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"Justice in the Balance"
USA Today started investigating the topic of potentially corrupt federal prosecutors after the case against Sen. Ted Stevens was dropped. Reporters looked at "tens of thousands"of "routine cases" that were filed in federal court to locate any mishandling of the proceedings. The outcome was startling. Federal prosecutors have "violated the law to win convictions," setting guilty people free and landing "innocent people in jail."
Tags: Ted Stevens; prosecutors; U.S. Justice Department; Nino Lyons; Lexis; PACER; database; FOIA