crime

Cobb man convicted of murder may go free
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Members of John McNeil's family join the Cobb NAACP and others at the Cobb County Courthouse on Aug. 24, 2011, to protest the prison sentence of John McNeil, convicted for the shooting death of a white man who allegedly trespassed on McNeil's ...

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Colorado Democrats want gun manufacturers held liable for crimes committed ...
Fox News
“This is the most aggressive anti-gun legislation ever floated in the country,” Republican Sen. Greg Brophy told FoxNews.com Thursday. “To hold everybody in the entire chain of possession responsible for a crime committed by one person? The ...

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Daily Beast
Why Do Banks Get Away With Murder?
Daily Beast
Why Do Banks Get Away With Murder? Feb 7, 2013 3:15 PM EST. Big banks have copped to heinous crimes that have cost citizens billions of dollars. And it just keeps happening. Daniel Gross on why the madness never ends—and no one goes to jail. Like ...

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What follows is an excerpt from Disrobed: An Inside Look at the Life and Work of a Federal Trial Judge, a book where I try to explain life on the bench and the unknown parts of our legal system. Judge Frederic Block http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judge-frederic-block/

CHICAGO, Illinois – A young mother from Harvey was in trouble with police after lying about her baby being in her car when it was stolen on Chicago’s South Side.

Jeanette Holt, 25, has been charged with one count of felony disorderly conduct, police said.

CBS 2′s Dana Kozlov reports police rushed to a Chatham neighborhood daycare center around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, after Holt called 911 to report her 1997 Chevy Monte Carlo had been stolen with her 1-year-old son inside.

At least seven squad cars were put on alert to search the area.

Police conducted a massive search for the car, only to find out the child was not inside to begin with. He had been in daycare all along.

Police sources said the boy’s mother lied about the abduction because she wanted officers to look for her car.

“We arrested her as a result,” Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said. “And we need to do that when people make false claims like that, because it’s very serious, it endangers the public at large, and definitely our police officers who may be responding in a different fashion than just to take a report for a stolen vehicle.” Full Article

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Michelle Obama will attend Saturday's funeral for Hadiya Pendleton, the Chicago teen killed not long after performing at President Obama's inauguration, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Alongside Obama will be adviser Valerie Jarrett and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, also Chicagoans, reports the Tribune . No arrests have been made in the shooting,...

The baby needed a name. And, so, Detective Kerry Dalling gave him a name. She called him Baby Victor. Jon Leiberman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-leiberman/

Man gets 40 years for wife's murder
MiamiHerald.com
TAMPA, Fla. -- A Tampa Bay area man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for beating his wife to death. A Hillsborough County judge sentenced 46-year-old Lawrence Dickey on Thursday. A jury convicted him of second-degree murder in December.

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Smash, smash, SA-MASH! By now, the whole Internet has seen the local news interview with the man known only as Kai, a hitchhiker who stopped... Ross Luippold http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ross-luippold/

New Yorker (blog)
China's Anti-Corruption Campaign Pushes Luxury Undergroun
Forbes
Corruption raged in China under Hu and Wen, as the government lavished $4 trillion on big fiscal projects to sustain its GDP growth. State cronyism blossomed as airports, bridges and railroads sprang up.Tracking the rate of corruption is nearly ...
China Targets Corruption, Luxury Brands MournNew Yorker (blog)

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Washington Times
Patricia Cornwell: Crime writer takes stand at negligence trial
Washington Times
BOSTON (AP) — Crime writer Patricia Cornwell has taken the witness stand to testify in her lawsuit against her former financial management company. Miss Cornwell was on the stand Thursday morning in U.S. District Court in Boston. The author, best ...

Murder charge dropped in Miami Gardens self-defense case
MiamiHerald.com
Prosecutors on Thursday dropped a murder charge against a man who claimed self-defense in fatally shooting an armed teen during a June 2010 brawl in Miami Gardens. Travis Cooper, 28, had been charged with second-degree murder in the killing of ...

Christopher Dorner, the shooting suspect who allegedly went on a rampage and killed an officer on Thursday, wrote an online manifesto on his Facebook page... Andy Campbell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-campbell/

Chung Kim Update: Texas man accused in "dog poop double murder" claims ...
CBS News
(CBS) DALLAS - Chung Kim, a Dallas man accused of killing two neighbors on Monday in an argument about dog droppings, now claims he did it in self-defense, CBS DFW reports. Kim, 75, admits the shooting started with a long-standing argument over dog ...

CBS News
Christopher Dorner, ex-LAPD cop suspected in double murder, reportedly opens ...
CBS News
Police are on a manhunt Thursday morning for murder suspect Christopher Dorner, who is accused of shooting 28-year-old Monica Quan and 27-year-old Keith Lawrence to death in their car on Sunday. Riverside Lt. Guy Toussaint said officers were stopped ...
Former LA police officer sought in murder of women's basketball coachCBSSports.com
Ex-LAPD cop suspected in murder spreeHLNtv.com
3 bystanders reportedly shot by police during hunt for murder suspectFox News
FOX News Radio -Detroit Free Press -KARE
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Despite the formation of Anita Alvarez' Cook County Integrity Unit last year, prosecutors continue to resist claims of innocence in confession cases. Daniel Taylor and seven other juveniles were convicted of a Chicago area double murder 20 years ago, even though police records showed that Taylor was incarcerated at the time of the crime. Taylor was 17 years old when he was arrested for disorderly conduct and detained for more than four hours by Chicago police when the murders were committed at 8:45 p.m. on November 16, 1992.

Despite the prosecutions' unwillingness to accept that false confessions occur, especially among juveniles, Taylor has received support from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Illinois Attorney General's office.

Taylor's attorneys from the Center on Wrongful Conviction filed a petition Thursday with the Cook County Circuit Court that confirms there were five current and former police employees who have sworn the records accurately indicate that Taylor was locked up. It also claims that a prosecutor's notes and other documents supporting Taylor's innocence were withheld before trial.

Still, the prosecution remains more convinced by the confession than the police records. The Chicago Tribune reports:

"The evidence that prosecutors typically rely on - police officer statements, police reports, records - demonstrate that Daniel couldn't have committed the murders," said Karen Daniel, who is Taylor's lawyer and an attorney at Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions.

"Conviction integrity means not putting innocent people away, but also making sure that there's a fair and constitutional process. If these records weren't turned over to the defense, then Daniel Taylor's trial wasn't fair and constitutional, and Daniel's conviction has no integrity."

Allegedly, four of the juveniles were in an apartment when the shooting deaths occurred and the other four acted as lookouts. Police said all of them confessed and implicated each other. Taylor, who was taken into custody more than two weeks after the shootings, remembered being arrested the night of the murders. Although those records were presented at trial, Taylor was sentenced to life in prison and is still behind bars.

Read the full article.

Read Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn's blog about the case.

Read about the Cook County Conviction Integrity Unit.

Yahoo! News (blog)
Afghan corruption worth twice government revenue: report
Yahoo! News (blog)
KABUL (Reuters) - A figure equal to twice the Afghan government's domestic revenue - $3.9 billion - was gouged from the country by public sector corruption last year, a U.N. report said on Thursday. This amount is also roughly equal to the annual aid ...
Cost of corruption in Afghanistan nearly $4 billion – UN surveyUN News Centre
UN: Cost of Afghan corruption rose sharply last year, with half the population ...Washington Post
Corruption on the rise in Afghanistan3News NZ
Marketplace.org -BBC News
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Wellesley, Mass., went from a town renowned for its colleges and highly educated residents to a place where cops busted an alleged prostitution ring that operated out of a massage parlor. Phillip Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phillip-martin/

These days, it isn't that weird for a baby to have two mothers—but how about two mothers and a father? One 23-month-old girl now legally has just such a family, after a Miami-Dade judge approved a settlement in which her biological mother, her mother's wife (the two married in...

A mother's love knows no bounds, but Kimberly Margeson's love for her son may have shown no boundaries. New York State police say 54-year-old Margeson... The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-moye/