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But to domestic violence victims, tales of an insensitive, intimidating and sometimes cold criminal justice system are all too real.
And the clock is ticking. Investigators are in a race against time to file charges before the statute of limitations expires on such cases — even the ones involving death.
The nation's largest probation department strapped GPS ankle monitors on the highest-risk of those convicts, expecting the satellite receivers to keep tabs on where they spent their days and nights, and therefore keep the public safe. Instead, agents are drowning in a flood of meaningless data, masking alarms that could signal real danger.
During the 26 years that James Preston spent incarcerated for murder, he always told his family that he didn't commit the crime.
Now, the FBI says their analyst's testimony about key hair evidence in the case exceeded the boundaries of science, raising the possibility that Preston, who died in custody, was wrongfully convicted if not, as his family believes, innocent.
"I sat with him as he passed away and I kissed him and I told him, I said, ‘I'll let everybody know that this is not right, this is not true, and you shouldn't be here,'" his brother, Erick Preston told WFXT-TV in Boston. "That's all they had from the FBI lab, a hair with ‘negroid features'… but he swayed it to make it look like it was my brother's."
The FBI's review of Preston's file is part of a nationwide effort by the Department of Justice and the FBI to re-examine the testimony of FBI forensic experts in serious cases like murder and rape, all done before the advent of DNA testing. More than 2,000 cases involving hair analysis are being reviewed.
Watch the report here.
The Associated Press originally sought the records for U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan after attacks against Japanese women raised political tensions there. They might now give weight to members of Congress who want to strip senior officers of their authority to decide whether serious crimes, including sexual assault cases, go to trial.
The AP analysis found the handling of allegations verged on the chaotic, with seemingly strong cases often reduced to lesser charges. In two rape cases, commanders overruled recommendations to court-martial and dropped the charges instead.
It's a suburb that commissioned an audit that ripped its Police Department's detective work, and then promoted the head of the detective bureau.
It's a community where officers can keep their guns and badges despite questionable conduct highlighted in scandal after scandal.
Less than two dozen of Virginia’s roughly 300 law enforcement agencies filed a required drug destruction report to the state’s Board of Pharmacy in 2012, according to a report by Richmond, Va. television station WRIC.
“Since the ABC 8 News investigation first aired in February 2013, the number of law enforcement agencies complying with the drug disposal law has more than tripled—from 19 in 2012 to 60 in 2013, but stills falls significantly short of 100 percent compliance,” according to the story.
The 4th Judicial Circuit, which consists of Duval, Clay and Nassau counties, dramatically leads the state in the number of juveniles incarcerated through a method called direct commitment. That’s usually a plea deal reached between a juvenile’s lawyer and the prosecutor. When juveniles agree to plea deals, they are often incarcerated without the chance to hear the evidence against them, examine police work or interview witnesses.
Wis. freeing more sex offenders from mental lockup | WisconsinWatch.org
Wisconsin officials have nearly quadrupled the number of offenders released from state custody after they were committed as sexually violent persons. The risks to residents are reasonable, officials say, because the state’s treatment programs are working and new data suggest these offenders are less likely to reoffend than previously thought.
The story is the first part of “Rethinking Sex Offenders,” a three-day series by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and Wisconsin Public Radio.
Mass. children under state protection die from abuse with alarming frequency | The New England Center for Investigative Reporting
Kadyn Hancock’s aunt said she repeatedly tried to warn state officials that the 13-month-old’s mother might hurt him. But no one heeded her pleas and Kadyn’s mother killed her baby in 2010. Last summer, child advocates questioned why social workers didn’t remove three-month-old Chase Gideika from his troubled home before he was brutally killed, allegedly by his mother’s boyfriend.
W. Va. environmental officials never saw Freedom's pollution control plans | The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection officials never reviewed two key pollution-prevention plans for the Freedom Industries tank farm before the Jan. 9 chemical leak that contaminated drinking water for 300,000 residents, according to interviews and documents obtained under the state's public-records law.
Law on police accountability in custody deaths goes unused | The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Of the 18 deaths in law enforcement custody from 2008 through 2012 in Milwaukee County, 12 were classified as suicide or natural. Officials at every level have used those rulings to absolve themselves of responsibility for prisoners' deaths, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found. In many cases, officials did not evaluate all of the circumstances surrounding the fatalities.
Fla. teens in trouble have decision to make: agree to time in a juvenile facility or roll the dice as an adult | The Florida-Times Union
The 4th Judicial Circuit, which consists of Duval, Clay and Nassau counties, dramatically leads the state in the number of juveniles incarcerated through a method called direct commitment. That’s usually a plea deal reached between a juvenile’s lawyer and the prosecutor. When juveniles agree to plea deals, they are often incarcerated without the chance to hear the evidence against them, examine police work or interview witnesses.
Law Doesn’t End Revolving Door on Capitol Hill | The New York Times
The experiences of the three Capitol Hill aides-turned-lobbyists — traced through interviews with political operatives and a review of public records — illustrate in new detail the gaping holes in rules governing Washington’s revolving door.
Federal ethics rules are intended to limit lobbying by former senior officials within one year after they leave the government. Yet even after the ethics rules were revised in 2007 following a lobbying scandal, more than 1,650 congressional aides have registered to lobby within a year of leaving Capitol Hill, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from LegiStorm, an online database that tracks congressional staff members and lobbying. At least half of those departing aides, the analysis shows, faced no restrictions at all.
Two Navy divers, out of reach | The Virginian-Pilot
A Navy jury last month found that a master diver failed to make sure proper safety procedures were followed during a training exercise that left two men dead. The Pilot pieced together an account of the dive using court testimony, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with unit members, witnesses and lawyers.
Wisconsin officials have nearly quadrupled the number of offenders released from state custody after they were committed as sexually violent persons. The risks to residents are reasonable, officials say, because the state’s treatment programs are working and new data suggest these offenders are less likely to reoffend than previously thought.
The story is the first part of “Rethinking Sex Offenders,” a three-day series by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and Wisconsin Public Radio.
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