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Date	Fairness.com Resource	Read it at:
Apr 04, 2013	As economy flails, debtors' prisons thrive (MoneyWatch) QUOTE: Thousands of Americans are sent to jail not for committing a crime, but because they can't afford to pay for traffic tickets, medical bills and court fees. If that sounds like a debtors' prison, a legal relic which was abolished in this country in the 1830s, that's because it is. And courts and judges in states across the land are violating the Constitution by incarcerating people for being unable to pay such debts.	CBS News
Aug 25, 2011	In Britain, a Meeting on Limiting Social Media QUOTE: British officials and representatives of Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry met Thursday to discuss voluntary ways to limit or restrict the use of social media to combat crime and periods of civil unrest, while trying to dodge charges of hypocrisy and censorship that trailed Prime Minister David Cameron’s call to restrict use of the networks after this month’s riots.	New York Times
Jun 03, 2010	Russia Turns a Deaf Ear as Killing Cries for Justice QUOTE: Magomed Yevloyev was openly feuding with the region’s leader, Murat M. Zyazikov, when the two men happened to board the same flight from Moscow. Barely half an hour after the police escorted Mr. Yevloyev, 36, off the plane, he was dropped off at a hospital with an execution-style wound....Almost two years later, the case serves as a lesson in how the legal process can be strangled.	New York Times
May 22, 2010	Escape Attempt Led to Killings of Unarmed Inmates QUOTE: Haitian officials here say they did not use lethal force but rather found lifeless bodies when they entered the prison....But an investigation by The New York Times casts doubt on the official version of events...	New York Times
Aug 10, 2009	Iranian Officials Call for Arrest of Opposition Leaders QUOTE: Revolutionary Guard generals, top politicians and senior clerics have called for the arrest and punishment of opposition leaders, including defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi...	Washington Post
Jul 16, 2009	Chechen Rights Activist Is Slain: U.S. Urges Russia to Bring Estemirova's Killers to Justice QUOTE: Chechnya's most outspoken human rights activist was found shot to death hours after being kidnapped Wednesday, provoking international outrage and calls for renewed scrutiny of Russia's violent policies in the Caucasus.	Washington Post
Mar 11, 2009	Voting Rights Elude Some Florida Ex-Felons, Study Says QUOTE: Florida’s procedures for restoring voting rights to convicted felons are so cumbersome, bureaucratic and confusing that some ex-convicts are being denied their rights, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.	New York Times
Nov 08, 2008	Citing Workload, Public Lawyers Reject New Cases QUOTE: Public defenders’ offices in at least seven states are refusing to take on new cases or have sued to limit them, citing overwhelming workloads that they say undermine the constitutional right to counsel for the poor...in the most open revolt by public defenders in memory, many of the government-appointed lawyers say that state budget cuts and rising caseloads have pushed them to the breaking point.	New York Times
May 08, 2008	216 Held in Protests of Police Acquittals QUOTE: The protesters expressed outrage over a Queens judge’s decision on April 25 to acquit the three detectives — Michael Oliver, Gescard F. Isnora and Marc Cooper — over the November 2006 death of Mr. Bell, who died in a hail of police bullets outside a nightclub in Jamaica, Queens, hours before he was to have been married. Mr. Sharpton and his National Action Network coordinated the protests...	New York Times
May 07, 2008	As Executions Resume, So Do Questions of Fairness QUOTE: fresh questions about whether states are supplying capital-murder defendants with adequate counsel, even as an execution on Tuesday night in Georgia ended a seven-month national suspension. In all three cases, North Carolina appeals courts found that evidence that would have favored the defendants was withheld from defense lawyers...	New York Times
May 06, 2008	Reports Find Racial Gap in Drug Arrests QUOTE: large disparities persist in the rate at which blacks and whites are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, even though the two races use illegal drugs at roughly equal rates. Two new reports, issued Monday by the Sentencing Project in Washington and by Human Rights Watch in New York, both say the racial disparities reflect, in large part, an overwhelming focus of law enforcement on drug use in low-income urban areas, with arrests and incarceration the main weapon.	New York Times
May 06, 2008	He's a Man, as Charged: But Should Emerging Brain Science Affect Courts' Handling of Young Defendants? QUOTE: The debate over whether kids should be tried and punished as adults has simmered for years. The discussion is intensifying, however, because of recent discoveries that the brain's prefrontal cortex, which governs reasoning, develops more slowly than the limbic system, where the emotions reside.	Washington Post
Apr 09, 2008	In Justice Shift, Corporate Deals Replace Trials QUOTE: Deferred prosecutions have become a favorite tool of the Bush administration. But some legal experts now wonder if the policy shift has led companies, in particular financial institutions now under investigation for their roles in the subprime mortgage debacle, to test the limits of corporate anti-fraud laws.	New York Times
Jan 26, 2008	In More Cases, Combat Trauma Is Taking the Stand QUOTE: [With the return of soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan], judges and juries are increasingly prodded to assess the role of combat trauma in their crimes and whether they deserve special treatment because of it. That idea has met with considerable resistance from prosecutors and judges leery of creating any class of offenders with distinct privileges.	New York Times
Jan 19, 2008	Genetic Bank Raises Issues of Practicality and Privacy QUOTE: ...officials at the New York Civil Liberties Union said that privacy issues aside, the [Mayor Michael Bloomberg's] proposal [that DNA samples be taken from all criminal suspects] would require turning the collection and analysis of DNA samples into a mass-production operation. That, said Donna Lieberman, the group’s executive director, would be an invitation to error, inefficiency and fraud.	New York Times
Dec 30, 2007	So Many Crimes, and Reasons to Not Cooperate QUOTE: discourage people from cooperating with the investigation of crimes — crimes committed against their own homes, their own neighbors, their own children....based on more than just fear of gang retaliation. It is also a consequence of their deep distrust of the local police and prosecutors and politicians.	New York Times
Nov 25, 2007	Vindicated by DNA, but a Lost Man on the Outside QUOTE: In September, [a former inmate] filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the police, the medical examiner, a prison guard and the governments of two counties, alleging that detectives falsified reports and coerced his confession, and that the prison guard groped and beat him. A separate lawsuit in the Court of Claims is planned seeking payment from the state for the wrongful incarceration.	New York Times
Nov 09, 2007	Doubts raised over 1999 murder conviction QUOTE: They allege that police used deceptive investigative tactics and that prosecutors withheld key evidence that would have cast a kinder light on Masters, who is serving a life sentence.	CNN (Cable News Network)
Nov 06, 2007	‘Bad’ Legal Advice and the Death Penalty QUOTE: A federal appeals court eventually ruled that the lawyer’s advice reflected such bad judgment as to fall below the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of the effective assistance of counsel. On Monday, the Supreme Court announced that it would use the case to decide how appellate courts are to evaluate claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in plea negotiations.	New York Times
Oct 21, 2007	Scam Czars: What’s Russian for ‘Hacker’? QUOTE: The security firms have not received much assistance from the Russian government, which seems to show little interest in a crackdown, as if officials privately take some pleasure in knowing that their compatriots are tormenting millions of people in the West.	New York Times
Oct 20, 2007	Criminal Element QUOTE: Reyes found that the rise and fall of lead-exposure rates seemed to match the arc of violent crime, but with a 20-year lag — just long enough for children exposed to the highest levels of lead in 1973 to reach their most violence-prone years in the early ’90s, when crime rates hit their peak.	New York Times
Oct 18, 2007	New York State Not Doing Enough to Prevent Wrongful Convictions, Report Says QUOTE: The report sheds a harsh light on what it calls the state’s lackluster record of instituting rules intended to prevent wrongful convictions. For example, it says that although false confessions are the leading cause of wrongful convictions in New York, the state does not require law enforcement agencies to record interrogations, a requirement in nine other states.	New York Times
Oct 17, 2007	In Connecticut Prisons, a System Long on People, Short on Space QUOTE: The arrest in July of two parolees in the grisly murders of a mother and her two daughters in Cheshire, followed closely by a carjacking involving a parolee, touched off a wave of official responses that were intended to address flaws in the criminal justice system, but that also made crowded prisons even more crowded.	New York Times
Oct 14, 2007	A Violent Police Unit, on Film and in Rio’s Streets QUOTE: The movie, which opened nationwide on Friday but last week in Rio and São Paulo, has offered a rare look into the battalion, which is depicted as killing and torturing, seemingly at will. It is causing many Brazilians to reflect on what level of violence is acceptable from the police, especially in Rio, a city with a homicide rate more than six times higher than New York City’s.	New York Times
Sep 05, 2007	Ex-lab chief's work is under a microscope: Cases involving her testimony checked QUOTE: Gordon is accused of repeatedly signing sworn statements saying that she personally tested an ethanol-water solution used to make sure alcohol breath-test machines work properly -- even though another scientist apparently did the work.	Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Aug 31, 2007	Cities study victims' criminal past QUOTE: Victims' relatives say the focus on victims' backgrounds demeans the loss and desensitizes police and the community to violence.	USA TODAY
Jun 06, 2007	Secret Service Operative Moonlights as Identity Thief QUOTE: The case sheds light on some of the risks and ethical trade-offs involved in using criminals as informants.	Wired
May 14, 2007	In Juarez, Expiring Justice: Statute of Limitations Begins to Run Out in Murders of Hundreds of Women QUOTE: At a time when U.S. prosecutors are resurrecting Civil Rights-era murder cases -- some more than 40 years old -- Mexico is closing murder cases forever after 14 years. With each passing day, it appears likely that a legal technicality may end a quest to unravel a string of slayings that shocked the world.	Washington Post
Mar 09, 2007	The Brain on the Stand QUOTE: The influence of what some call neurolaw is clearly growing. Neuroscientific evidence has persuaded jurors to sentence defendants to life imprisonment rather than to death; .... Should courts be in the business of deciding when to mitigate someone’s criminal responsibility because his brain functions improperly, whether because of age, in-born defects or trauma? As we learn more about criminals’ brains, will we have to redefine our most basic ideas of justice?	New York Times
Feb 20, 2007	Supreme Court revisits how much leeway judges can have in sentencing: At issue is whether a set of Congressional guidelines or a judge's reasoned judgment should prevail. QUOTE: Instead of invalidating the entire guidelines system and leaving it to Congress to fix the problem, five justices agreed to craft a remedy to retain most of the guidelines. But the result has confused many judges across the country and caused federal appeals courts to rule in conflicting ways.	Christian Science Monitor
Feb 10, 2007	Sudden death: American support for the death penalty is diminishing—except on the Supreme Court QUOTE: Our newfound national queasiness over the death penalty extends from the methods of execution to growing fears that we're executing the wrong guys.	Slate
Jun 13, 2006	Justices Open Door For Injection Case: Inmate's Procedural Challenge Allowed QUOTE: The Supreme Court today expanded the ability of death row inmates to challenge their convictions in federal courts based on DNA evidence produced long after their trials.	Washington Post
Oct 04, 2005	Ex-Prosecutor Suspended For Misleading Trial Court: Ethics expert calls stiffness of penalty 'startling' QUOTE: ...court has suspended a former prosecutor for three years for lying to a judge about the whereabouts of a witness in a murder trial he was conducting three years ago.	Law.com
Jan 02, 2005	Sentencing by the Numbers QUOTE: Armed with the stats, you could predict the likelihood that a convicted drug dealer or thief standing before you would be arrested again in the near future if you let him go free...by penalizing offenders differently for the same crimes...the state has abandoned the idea that punishment is a form of ''just deserts'' for wrongdoing.	New York Times
Oct 03, 2004	Supreme Court to Consider Federal Sentencing Guidelines QUOTE: In that case, Blakely v. Washington, the court struck down Washington state's sentencing guidelines, which, like the federal guidelines, permit judges to boost sentences based on their own post-conviction fact-finding, rather than relying only on facts admitted by the defendant or found by a jury....Though the court said in Blakely that it did not address the federal guidelines, the similarities between Washington's system and the federal system were such that defense lawyers across the country immediately began bombarding courts with Blakely challenges to their clients' sentences.	Washington Post
Jun 30, 2003	Japan, US meet over GI justice QUOTE: Sensitive talks begin here this week over the rights of GIs accused of serious crimes while stationed in Japan.	Christian Science Monitor
May 06, 2003	New wing for women to open at men's prison QUOTE: Waikeria Prison can take 877 male inmates and the decision to convert one of the men's units for women has brought criticism from the Howard League for Penal Reform, which believes it is not suitable.	Stuff
Feb 07, 2003	Protecting a Gun Law, or a Family QUOTE: ...he had the right to shoot the guy in his house. But he had no right to have an illegal weapon.	New York Times
Feb 01, 2003	Report flap changed man's fate QUOTE: Johnson, 26, might have spent the rest of his life in prison had he not learned of changes in the autopsy reports that state how the motorist died.	Advocate, The (Louisiana)
Nov 07, 2002	Court Stays Execution of Mentally Ill Texan QUOTE: Mr. Colburn's case outraged mental health advocates who believe that people with severe mental illness should not be eligible for the death penalty.	New York Times
Nov 06, 2002	California's 3-Strikes Law Tested Again QUOTE: The Supreme Court's precedents have established that a sentence can be so disproportionate to the offense as to violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.	New York Times
Oct 29, 2002	Double Jeopardy and the Death Penalty QUOTE: ...a defendant who successfully appeals his conviction "wipes the slate clean." As a result, there is no double jeopardy bar to receiving an even harsher sentence upon retrial.	Law.com
Oct 18, 2002	Two Officers in Louima Case Will Not Face Charges Again QUOTE: The new decisions mean that the two officers, Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder — whose convictions for conspiracy to obstruct justice in the case were overturned by a federal appeals court in February — no longer face any possibility of criminal charges.	New York Times
Oct 16, 2002	On Trial in Illinois: The Death Penalty: Review Board Faces Basic Issues in Clemency Hearings for 142 Inmates QUOTE: ...launched an unprecedented and controversial series of back-to-back clemency hearings for most of the state's 159 death row inmates in a system that has been described as so flawed that it risks executing an innocent man.	Washington Post
Sep 23, 2002	Louima Case Closed, Not Resolved QUOTE: ...Schwarz has publicly said he would never admit any part in the assault itself. The unusual solution was an agreement that Mr. Schwarz would not be able to continue to proclaim publicly that he is innocent.	New York Times
Sep 20, 2002	Murder Charges Are Dropped in Motorcycle Gang Fight QUOTE: Prosecutors dropped murder charges today against a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle club, saying he may have been justified in firing the shot that killed a member of a rival club...	New York Times
Sep 13, 2002	Florida death-penalty battle rages over sentencing QUOTE: ...[the US Supreme Court] ruled for the first time that a capital defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to have a jury determine the applicability of a death sentence.	Christian Science Monitor
Aug 30, 2002	3 Justices Call for Reviewing Death Sentences for Juveniles QUOTE: "Given the apparent consensus that exists among the states and in the international community against the execution of a capital sentence imposed on a juvenile offender," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the dissent, "I think it would be appropriate to revisit the issue at the earliest opportunity."	New York Times
Aug 15, 2002	An Imaginary Homicide QUOTE: If you are going to charge three defendants with capital murder for killing a newborn, do you have an obligation to show that the baby really was killed?	New York Times
Aug 04, 2002	After Sept. 11, a Legal Battle Over Limits of Civil Liberty QUOTE: The roundup that followed the [9/11] attacks....has produced few if any law enforcement coups....has provoked a sprawling legal battle, now being waged in federal courthouses around the country, that experts say has begun to redefine the delicate balance between individual liberties and national security.	New York Times

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