Conflicted Justice

Following a six-month investigation, Alan Maimon of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports on the "conflict system" in Clark County, Nev., in which private attorneys are assigned to poor defendants whom the public defender's office cannot represent due to conflicts of interest. An examination of every case the 30 contract defenders took to felony court in a recent 12-month period showed that the system suffers from a severe lack of standards and oversight that yield uneven justice and questionable government spending. In response to the newspaper's findings, a committee of judges has proposed dramatically overhauling the system. The entire series package can be viewed here.

Nancy Badertscher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on the conviction of Lynn Turner. Turner, already serving a life term for the murder of Randy Thompson, was given a 2nd conviction for the murder of her late husband, Glenn Turner. "Turner and Thompson initially were thought to have died of heart problems. But several months after Thompson died, questions raised by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution led authorities to investigate the deaths as homicides, with the common link being their love for Lynn Turner." Read a Q & A with Jane Hansen, the AJC staff writer who helped to unearth the facts of the case.

Brooks Egerton of The Dallas Morning News covered the release of Tyrone Brown "17 years after a single positive marijuana test while he was on probation led a Dallas judge to sentence him to life in prison." Brown's story drew national attention last year after The News ran a story on the inequity of justice in Texas courts. The story was picked up by ABC's 20/20 spawning a web campaign which led to Dallas County officials and the Texas parole board to recommend his sentence be terminated. As a result, Texas Gov. Rick Perry granted his first ever conditional pardon to Brown.

The Dallas Morning News has posted a page dedicated to its continuing investigation into sexual abuse at Texas juvenile detention centers. Records obtained by the paper showed that young inmates were being sexually assaulted, and nothing was done to stop it, despite complaints and reports by staffers at the West Texas State School. Included on the page is Web-only video and documents from the Texas Youth Commission's report on the West Texas State School.

Brandon Ortiz of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader analyzed court records to show that Kentucky's judicial retirement system will pay out at least $1.57 million this year to compensate retired judges who work part-time to ease court backlogs. That's far more than the $420,000 agreed to seven years ago. "That revelation raises questions about whether the program will hurt the judicial retirement fund's long-term health, thus requiring larger subsidies by the state in the future." The retirement system's director denied theHerald-Leader's request for detailed records of service credits that determine the judges' pensions. The paper is appealing the decision.

Chris Halsne of KIRO-Seattle used a computer analysis to locate more than 900 known child rapists and molesters living inside "school protection zones." Using mapping software, KIRO Team 7 Investigators plotted addresses of every school and every registered sex offender convicted of violating a child. Despite the fact that last June, state lawmakers ruled that convicted pedophiles must live at least 880 feet away from a school, the investigation located at least 100 convicted pedophiles living near schools. (IRE and NICAR contributed to the data analysis for this story.)

Reporter John Diedrich of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed the Milwaukee police department is inadequate in its tracking of the use of force. The article documented the record of an officer who was with the department for just three years but racked up a record of using force and attracted complaints far in excess of fellow officers. In three of the cases, the officer hit people with a flashlight. The department says it knew about this officer but did nothing. The story also showed Milwaukee

A computer-assisted investigation by Steve Daniels of WTVD-Raleigh, Durham and Fayetteville (N.C.) compared data from the state court system with data from the state prison system to find that "only 30 percent of people facing child pornography charges in North Carolina between 2003 and mid-December have been sentenced to prison time. Twenty-six percent have been sentenced to probation only." The Attorney General of North Carolina blames lax child pornography laws and has called for the legislature to pass more stringent legislation.

Dave Fehling of KHOU_Houston reports on the city's burglary trends. "Analyzing raw numbers from the last two years, a special mapping program found five hot spots." Further analysis of the data showed that the hot spots covered a higher concentration of apartment complexes, where it is easier for unfamiliar faces to move around unnoticed. The IRE and NICAR Database Library assisted with data analysis and mapping for this story.

Geoff Davidian of Milwaukee Magazine identified Wisconsin judges who frequently try cases involving companies in which they hold investments. Davidian analyzed all civil cases in Milwaukee from the beginning of 2004 through the first eight months of 2006 and checked them against the financial interest statements filed by the judges with the Wisconsin Ethics Board. The results show 202 cases in which judges had a financial conflict, including 54 cases involving Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Michael J. Dwyer.