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It’s been 20 years since I sat across a conference table from the attorney representing Robert Alton Harris, a double-murderer who had spent 13 years on California’s Death Row. The attorney hoped to make the case that, despite his crimes, Harris should be spared his scheduled date with the executioner. He related that the convicted murderer was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. That he was neglected as a child. That he was abused as an adolescent. I’m sorry, I told the attorney. Your client killed two boys. He deserves to pay the forfeit for taking innocent lives. And not long...

Imagine yourself a parent whose 22-year-old son was brutally murdered by three thugs, two of whom have lengthy criminal rap sheets. And imagine the trial of your son’s killers delayed not once, not twice, but three times over the past three and a half years, owing to the legal maneuvers of lawyers representing the accused. That’s the ordeal Pastor Ron Armstrong has endured. And today he makes his way to a Southern California courtroom – yet again – praying that his son’s killers will finally answer for their crime. Pastor Ron freely admits that his soul has been tormented since...

Despite ‘Castle Doctrine,’ defendant is convicted in slaying A PHILADELPHIA JUDGE said Wednesday he was convinced that a disabled, retired Marine was being attacked in the moments before he fatally stabbed a man last October, but he concluded that the stabbing was still a criminal act rather than self-defense. Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner then convicted Jonathan Lowe, 57, of voluntary manslaughter and possession of an instrument of crime. The judge found him not guilty of the more-serious charges of first- and third-degree murder. Lowe, who wears a pacemaker and has survived two strokes and two heart surgeries, could face...

South Korea unveils robotic prison guards, promises futuristic cavity searches To round out their drug-sniffing clone dog army, South Korean authorities are now experimenting with robotic prison guards. Lest you think these cyber-wardens will be equipped with gatling guns in the style of Robocop's ED-209, know that this alarm-equipped bot has more in common with the Death Star's delivery droids. Of course, the robots' responsibilities may expand as the technology improves. Explains Reuters of these security machines' potential uses: The robot has been designed to patrol a prison autonomously, but an IPad will allow manual control as well. The next...

Welcome To The World's Nicest Prison BASTOY, Norway (CNN) -- Jan Petter Vala, who is serving a prison sentence for murder, has hands the size of dinner plates and shoulders like those of an ox. In an alcoholic rage, he used his brutish strength to strangle his girlfriend to death a few years ago. On a recent Thursday, however, at this summer-camp-like island prison in southern Norway, where convicts hold keys to their rooms and there are no armed guards or fences, Vala used those same enormous hands to help bring life into the world. The 42-year-old murderer stood watch...

Longtime readers know that I personally oppose the death penalty, and that mine is a minority opinion around here — and I’m comfortable with that. If I wasn’t, I might look for moral support from one of the most hopelessly liberal states in the country, my native state of California. Surely, if one state would have an electorate opposed to the death penalty, it would be the one who keeps cluelessly electing Democrats in a near-one-party government despite thundering towards fiscal and economic collapse. Right?Wrong: By 2:1, CA Voters Back Death Penalty: 61% of registered voters from the state of...

Two US prisoners who have been held in solitary confinement for nearly 40 years should have their isolation ended immediately, Amnesty International said Tuesday. Albert Woodfox, 64, and Herman Wallace, 69, have been held in solitary at Louisiana State Penitentiary ever since they were convicted of murdering a prison guard in 1972, the London-based human rights group said. Their four-decade ordeal "is cruel and inhumane and a violation of the US's obligations under international law," said Guadalupe Marengo, Amnesty's Americas deputy director.

NPR's Carrie Johnson has learned that lawyer Nick Marsh took his own life over the weekend. Marsh was one of the lawyers who prosecuted former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens for corruption, a prosecution that failed amidst charges of misconduct. The Attorney General dropped that case, saying there were problems with sharing evidence with the defense. The judge in the case appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether the government had broken the law. Separately, the Justice department's Office of Professional Responsibility launched a probe of its own. The investigation had been going on for more than a year and a...

Kristin Ruggiero of New Hampshire figured it would be a slam dunk. The gambit worked like a charm during the divorce hearing; now she would bring the case to criminal court. Her husband Jeffrey, an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, was an incorrigible batterer, at least that’s what she led to the judge to believe. That got him convicted of criminal threatening, and she won custody of their 7-year-old daughter. But Kristin Ruggiero wasn’t finished. One day, the woman bragged to her startled ex, “I took all your money, I took your daughter, and now I’m going to take...

Late one night in March 1988, Officer Alan Wightman was patrolling Main Street in downtown Visalia (Tulare County) when he saw a Ford Fairmont speckled with raindrops approaching an intersection. Because the rain had stopped a few hours earlier, Wightman deduced that the car had been parked nearby, in an area where auto thefts and other crimes had been rampant. So he decided to follow it. The driver cruised along city streets and onto a short stretch of freeway, where he kept his speed at 40 miles an hour in a 55-mph zone. Wightman by then had checked the plates...

Kent Kiehl has studied hundreds of psychopaths. Kiehl is one of the world's leading investigators of psychopathy and a professor at the University of New Mexico. He says he can often see it in their eyes: There's an intensity in their stare, as if they're trying to pick up signals on how to respond. But the eyes are not an element of psychopathy, just a clue. Officially, Kiehl scores their pathology on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, which measures traits such as the inability to feel empathy or remorse, pathological lying, or impulsivity. "The scores range from zero to 40," Kiehl...

March 11) -- Anna Ayala will not be dining at a Wendy's restaurant anytime soon. The woman who gained infamy in 2005 when she planted a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili is out of prison. One of the conditions of her probation is that she never set foot in the fast-food chain again. In her first interview since her release, Ayala admitted to CBS affiliate KPIX-TV that she had cooked the finger in a bowl of chili and later transferred it into a Wendy's container. "I cooked it," she told KPIX. Ayala said that, following a Wendy's...

Tuscaloosa, Ala. – Every good Southerner knows there are only two religions in Alabama – football and football. This week, a new maxim emerged: When it comes to the state judicial system, there’s a lot of crimson hiding beneath those billowing black robes. Circuit Judge Dan King announced Wednesday he would grant a delay in the civil suit Traywick v. Energen Corporation, which was scheduled for trial Jan. 4 in Bessemer, Ala., a suburb of Birmingham. The reason? Energen’s defense attorneys want to attend the showdown between the University of Alabama and University of Texas at Austin, scheduled for Jan....

Doing Crime Without Time by: Anthony Kang, August 28, 2009 The rule of law is imperative in order for any nation and society to function, prosper, and survive. In regards to the law and order most appropriate and just for juvenile offenders under the age of 18, decisions about sentencing are delegated to the juvenile court systems for judgment and rehabilitation. Therefore, the 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision was highly scrutinized, as the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision banned capital punishment’s applicability against defendants who were held on trial for crimes they had originally committed under the age of 18....

Cruel to Be Kind? by: Brittany Fortier, August 27, 2009 One of the more controversial trends in the criminal justice system today is the lobbying effort currently underway to abolish life-without-parole for juvenile offenders. Anti-incarceration activists seek to extend the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roper v. Simmons, which prohibited the death penalty in the cases for juveniles. If they are successful, the “cruel and unusual punishment” analysis used in Roper will be applied to life-without-parole sentences. A panel of legal experts discussed this issue at the Heritage Foundation on August 17, 2009. Paul Wallace, Chief of Appeals at the Delaware...

Yesterday on MSNBC’s Hardball, Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan told Chris Matthews why he has called for a formal act of Congress telling Barack Obama to apologize for saying that Cambridge Police Sergeant Jim Crowley had “acted stupidly” in arresting Henry Louis Gates two weeks ago. (Snip) While apologizing to Crowley and to the Cambridge police would indeed be an appropriate thing for Obama to do, an act of far greater significance would be for him to retract another portion of his statement – his claim that the arrest of Gates was emblematic of the “long history in this...

Racism in the criminal-justice system is not a thing of the past, says Barack Obama, citing the recent arrest of black scholar Henry Louis Gates. (Snip) Yesterday President Obama spoke out about the incident: “I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us [in Gates’ position] would be pretty angry. Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And number three — what I think we know separate and apart from this incident — is that there is a long history in this...

Hip Hype Justice? by: Brittany Fortier, July 13, 2009 The ongoing debate concerning the disproportionate presence of African-Americans and other minorities in the criminal justice system has become crucial as the United States tries to find an approach to fund its prisons in an ailing economy. Paul Butler, a former prosecutor and author of the book Let’s Get Free: A Hip Hop Theory of Justice, spoke about this issue at the Center for American Progress (CAP) on July 1, 2009. He believes the criminal justice system needs to undergo major reform. “I didn’t go to law school to put anybody...

In Washington today and tomorrow, the DOJ's Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism (OVT) is briefing American family members of those murdered by terrorists, as well as those injured during terrorist attacks. The stated purpose of the briefing is to: ...[offer] those interested the opportunity to meet task force members, hear an overview of task force work, and express views about the policy questions the Detention Policy Task Force is studying. Please click on the link for the Detention Policy Task Force to see some of the questions that the task force is considering. ... For those unable...

LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- The "horrendous decision" that Daniel Wilson made 18 years ago came full circle this morning when he was executed for locking Carol Lutz in the trunk of her car and setting it on fire. Wilson, 39, died at 10:33 a.m. after receiving a lethal injection of drugs at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville.