Sentencing Took Place In The Trial Of The Convicted Six LA Deputies (& More Trials Will Follow).
The six Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputies found guilty of obstruction of justice were sentenced to prison terms today. The LA Times article covering the story is here. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sentencing-la-county-sheriffs-officials-20140923-story.html. I anticipate that these sentences (which are appropriate but short) will be reduced should the deputies assist the DOJ in other prosecutions.
Renovate Justice -- An Examination Of Our Justice System, And What Needs To Change
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Disturbing Study Reveals Frequency Of False Rape Allegations, And The Need To Address Them
Rape is
clearly among the most heinous crimes imaginable. But allegations in a rape case need to be
subject to the same scrutiny as any crime, and pretending that false
allegations don’t exist can do far more damage than good. According to an article in “Slate”, 2% of
these claims could be unfounded. The
author, Cathy Young, states that “False rape accusations are a lightning rod
for a variety of reasons. Rape is a repugnant crime—and one for which the
evidence often relies on one person’s word against another’s. Moreover, in the
not-so-distant past, the belief that women routinely make up rape charges often
led to appalling treatment of victims. However, in challenging what author and
law professor Susan Estrich has called “the myth of the lying woman,” feminists
have been creating their own counter-myth: that of the woman who never lies….More
than a quarter-century ago, feminist legal theorist Catharine MacKinnon wrote
that “feminism is built on believing women’s accounts of sexual use and abuse
by men”; today, Jessica Valenti urges us to “believe victims en masse,” because
only then will we recognize the true prevalence of sexual assault. But a de
facto presumption of guilt in alleged sexual offenses is as dangerous as a
presumption of guilt in any crime, and for the same reasons: It upends the
foundations on which our system of justice rests and creates a risk of ruining
innocent lives.”
And the
results of such false allegations can be devastating. The article states that “Two years ago former
California high school football star Brian Banks, who had spent five years in
prison for raping his classmate Wanetta Gibson, was exonerated after Gibson
contacted him to apologize and admitted making up the attack. In 2009, New
Yorker William McCaffrey was released after serving four years of a 20-year
prison sentence for a rape his friend Biurny Peguero had made up to explain her
injuries from a fight with several women. In 2012 a Michigan man, James
Grissom, was freed after nearly 10 years in prison when the woman who accused
him, Sara Ylen, was caught making another false allegation (and faking cancer
to bilk money from insurance companies and sympathetic donors). Even without a
wrongful conviction, the consequences of a false accusation can be
devastating—from a terrifying middle-of-the-night arrest to lengthy pretrial
detention.” The full article is
here: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/09/false_rape_accusations_why_must_be_pretend_they_never_happen.single.html
NFL Has A History Of Lenience In Domestic Violence Cases
According
to an article in the NY Times, “Players charged with domestic violence routinely received considerably
lighter punishments than players accused of other offenses, like drug use or
drunken driving. Often, they were not punished at all.” The full story is here. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/sports/football/in-domestic-violence-cases-nfl-has-a-history-of-lenience.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
Court Finds State Negligent For Correction Officer’s Rape (and impregnating) of Inmate
According
to a story on the New York Law Journal, the state failed to take corrective
action following many disturbing accounts of repeated sexual assault claims of
a corrections officer. The entire story
can be read here: http://www.newyorklawjournal.com/home/id=1202670803576/Court-Finds-State-Negligent-for-Rape-of-Inmate-by-Guard?mcode=1202617075062&curindex=0&slreturn=20140821132125
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Another Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy Convicted By Jury In Case Of Hiding Inmate-FBI-Informant Anthony Brown From The FBI
After
only two hours of deliberation, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy James Sexton
became the seventh Sheriff’s Deputy convicted of obstruction of justice in the
case of FBI Informant Anthony Brown. The
Los Angeles Times Article is here:
Sexton
is the SEVENTH deputy to be convicted in this scandal. Approximately 21 deputies have been indicted,
with the trials of 14 to come, in addition to the trials of any other members
of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department who will be indicted in the future
based on information gained as part of cooperation agreements made with those
who have been found guilty.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Federal Prosecutors Launch Conviction Integrity Unit To Identify Wrongful Convictions
Wallach on Law, Fire & Gasoline, Part II --When The Mentally Ill Meet Police – The Need For CIT Training. Featuring Ret. Maj. C. Samuel Cochran, Dameion Perkins, Nathanial Hamilton, and Maria Hamilton
Wallach on Law, Fire & Gasoline, Part II -- When The Mentally Ill Meet Police – The
Need For CIT Training. Featuring Ret.
Maj. C. Samuel Cochran, Dameion
Perkins, Nathanial Hamilton, and Maria Hamilton.
In the wake of
the shootings of Ezell Ford and Dontre Hamilton, we look for answers as to how
to train officers to identify and respond to the needs of those challenged by
Mental Illness. We speak with Ret. Maj.
C. Samuel Cochran of the University of Memphis Crisis Intervention Team
program about how officers can be trained to respond to a crisis involving one
afflicted with mental illness and what those programs do. And to discuss why we
need to implement changes, we speak with the
family of Dontre Hamilton, who was killed by an officer in Red Arrow Park
in Milwaukee, and learn about him, and the Milwaukee Police Department’s
response to his killing. “Wallach On
Law” airs on Saturdays at 1:00 pm Eastern Time on AM radio stations and the episode is available on iTunes
and YouTube and can be also heard here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wallachlaw/2014/09/11/wallach-on-law-fire-gasoline-part-ii--when-the-mentally-ill-meet-police
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