Source: https://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2020/03/
Timestamp: 2020-07-14 23:36:10
Document Index: 384134422

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 6', 'art 5', 'art 4', 'art 3', 'art 2', 'art 1']

the charles smith blog: March 2020
Walter Ogrod: Philadelphia: Likely Innocent and behind bars in a pandemic: (And other prisoners like him who are caught in the coronavirus era such as Rosa Jimenez (Texas) , Donald Lucas (Illinois), Jimmy Ates (Florida), and Christopher Smith (Cincinnati) and others): This likely innocent man, trapped on death row at huge risk because the prison authorities defied a judge's order requiring testing for the Coronavirus is not alone, Atlantic writer Barbara Bradley Hagarty reports..."Across the country, innocence lawyers are filing emergency petitions to get their clients released from prison before the virus can kill them. In the space of 24 hours, I heard from attorneys representing some two dozen clients in much the same legal position as Ogrod: A trial judge or appellate court had found credible proof of their innocence, their convictions were overturned, and the state was told to release them or give them a new trial. But now they are trapped in prison as their hearings are delayed, prosecutors appeal to higher courts, reviews are stalled, or the decisions sit on the desks of judges who could make the final determination. Attorneys say that hundreds more wrongly convicted people have cases lingering in various stages of litigation; those hearings will go to the back of the line, behind new criminal cases, once courts reopen."
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Once the virus gets inside prison doors, “it will go through the prison like a hot knife through butter,” said Rich, the Brown professor. Soon enough, transmission will run in the other direction. As prisoners are infected, they will infect the otherwise healthy staff, who return to their families."
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The coronavirus reveals characteristics of the judicial system that will prove lethal. The virus is lightning fast, while the judicial system is glacially slow. The virus is nimble and opportunistic; the system is ponderous, inflexible in its rules, slow to reverse its mistakes, and quick to attach large punishments to small crimes. Experts say that America will now see the price of mass incarceration, and that it will be catastrophically high, both for people in prisons and for the communities around them. “Prisons are almost perfectly designed to promote the transmission of communicable disease,” says Homer Venters, the former chief medical officer at New York City’s Rikers Island. Forget about social distancing: Prisoners eat together, use the same showers, work or watch television side by side, and often sleep in the same dorm room with dozens of other inmates. Forget about hygiene: Prisons are “incredibly filthy, unsanitary places,” Venters says, where there’s often no soap, much less the freedom for hand-washing. But what makes prisoners especially vulnerable to this virus is the years of medical neglect. That’s particularly true of those claiming their innocence, who generally spend 10, 20, 30, or 40 years behind bars before they’re vindicated. But Josiah “Jody” Rich, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Brown University, told me that the same applies to most inmates."
STORY: "Innocent prisoners are going to die of the virus," by Barbara Bradley Hagerty, published by The Atlantic on March 31, 2020. (Barbara Bradley Hagerty is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She is the author of Life Reimagined: The Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife.)
SUB-HEADING: When the machinery of justice is halted abruptly, some of the people trapped inside are not supposed to be there at all."
GIST: "While millions of americans shelter in place, one group simply cannot escape the coronavirus: prisoners. Among them are hundreds of people who have plausible claims that they are innocent, whose cases were working their way through the courts—until the coronavirus ground regular court business to a halt. What these stories reveal is the threat the virus poses to prisoners, both innocent and guilty, and to the wider population as a whole.
Multiply that by thousands of prisoners who are sure to become sick. “The epidemic is going to be already straining existing health-care systems,” Rich said. “They don’t need an influx of people coming from their local prisons.” Adds Potkin at the Innocence Project: “It’s unimaginable what’s about to happen.""
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/americas-innocent-prisoners-are-going-die-there/609133/?utm_medium=offsite&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=coronavirus-covid-19
Posted by Harold Levy at Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Joe Bryan: Texas: Great news (in rather bleak times). Finally. The former high school principal convicted by flawed blood splatter evidence is free - on parole. Kudos to ProPublica and investigative journalist Pamela Colloff for playing a huge role in his release and eventual exoneration which cannot come soon enough. HL. Here is Pamela Colloff's update to her 'Blood will tell" series readers. (Click on the link for Colloff's news story on Joe Bryan's release and what the future holds for him.)
BACKGROUND: "The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Joe Bryan parole for a seventh time on Friday, citing the brutal nature of the crime he stands convicted of — the 1985 shooting death of his wife, Mickey — in concluding that the 78-year-old “poses a continuing threat to public safety.” Bryan has twice been convicted of Mickey’s murder, which took place in their Clifton, Texas, home. Bryan, then a beloved high school principal, had been attending an education conference in Austin, 120 miles away, in the days surrounding the murder. He has always maintained that he was asleep in his hotel room at the time of the crime. His conviction, for which Bryan has spent 31 years in prison, rested largely on bloodstain-pattern analysis, a technique still in use throughout the criminal justice system, despite concerns about its reliability. At an evidentiary hearing last year in Comanche, Texas, Bryan’s attorneys presented new evidence that jurors who convicted him never heard — most notably, that the forensic testimony used to convict him was erroneous. “My conclusions were wrong,” retired police Detective Robert Thorman, who performed the bloodstain-pattern analysis in the case, wrote in a sworn affidavit submitted to the court. “Some of the techniques and methodology were incorrect. Therefore, some of my testimony was not correct.” Last July, before the hearing, the Texas Forensic Science Commission — which investigates complaints about the misuse of forensic testimony and evidence in criminal cases — announced that the blood-spatter analysis used to convict Bryan was “not accurate or scientifically supported.” In December, however, Judge Doug Shaver, who presided over the evidentiary hearing, recommended that Bryan’s conviction stand, and that he not be granted a new trial. Shaver adopted the prosecution’s findings in their entirety.'
Pamela Colloff: ProPublic: April 5, 2019: “Blood will tell."
UPDATE: From Pamela Coloff (ProPublica) to her readers (Blood will tell) series, published on March 31, 2020.
GIST: "Hi everyone: This morning, Joe Bryan was released from prison after 33 years behind bars. “Thank you, Father, for taking care of me,” he said, extending his hand toward the sky, his voice choking with emotion. “Hallelujah, praise Jesus!”
I was on the scene in Huntsville, Texas, along with his attorneys and his brother, with whom he will be living in Houston. My latest story details his release and what the future holds for him.
As you may recall, Joe was denied parole seven times since he first became eligible in 2007. It is unclear why the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles reversed course this month; its deliberations are confidential and exempt from state open-record laws. But its actions followed a concerted effort by his parole attorneys, Allen and Shea Place, and his family to win his release. His legal team now plans to file a federal appeal in the case in the hopes of exonerating him.
Read the story: 33 Years After Dubious Evidence Helped Convict Him, Joe Bryan Has Been Released on Parole
Thank you for following Joe’s case; I hope this update serves as good news in the midst of a difficult time for so many. Please stay healthy and safe."
Pamela Colloff"
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwHMZQqKMFfrznXNhGCwjLfdPst
Annie Dookhan: Sonja Farak: Netflix four part documentary drops tomorrow - April 1, 2020. Reviewer Sarah D. Bunting says their stories are "like true-crime catnip." .."Drug Scandal moves right along to that last critical element of a compelling true-crime narrative: the miscarriage of justice, which the miscarriers blandly assert was just a mistake, an oversight, or not a miscarriage at all. (The fact that much of the state's motivation to dissemble derived from a petty disdain for one particular defense attorney is both contemptible and sad... much like Farak's behavior itself.)
https://youtu.be/X4Hk1lOGWIA
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "I hadn't heard of the cases at the center of Drug Scandal before settling in for Carr's new four-parter on Netflix, which is odd in retrospect, because the story has a number of elements that are like true-crime-catnip. First of all, it's a scam/faker story in the Stephen Glass mold: Annie Dookhan, the first scientist to be unmasked, was a stereotypical "striver" (a very Edith Wharton way to describe this particular sort of frustrated overachiever, but one of the interviewees in Drug Scandal uses that exact word). Dookhan skipped procedures and mocked up results in order to look more productive than her colleagues, and even generated dummy emails in order to flirt by proxy with a handsome ADA, while dwelling in delusions of law-enforcement grandeur. Then there's the simultaneously enraging and pathetic addiction story at the center of the second unmasking: Sonja Farak, a good student and the first girl in her state to play high-school football. Farak wasn't faking results, but she was raiding the drug lockup — first the methamphetamine used for comparative testing at the lab, then evidence assigned to her for testing. Farak even made her own crack cocaine, and while she later claimed that she always tried to do a good job on the tests, the better to avoid detection, obviously any lab report she signed off during that period is suspect... and those lab reports were myriad."
REVIEW: "Netflix's engaging, enraging 'How to fix a drug scandal is like crime catnip," by Sarah D. Downing, published by Primetimer on March 31, 2020. (Primetimer editor-at-large Sarah D. Bunting knows a thing or two about true crime. She founded the true crime site The Blotter, and is the host of its weekly podcast, The Blotter Presents. Her new weekly column here on Primetimer is dedicated to all things true crime on TV.)
SUB_HEADING: "Two rogue lab techs plus tens of thousands of cases equals a criminal justice outrage.
GIST: "The "fix" in the title of Erin Lee Carr's latest documentary project, How To Fix A Drug Scandal, works on two different levels. One meaning is to repair — repairing the damage done to trial outcomes and reputations by two separate state-lab scientists in Massachusetts whose results were, at best, unreliable. The other definition of "to fix" is "to manipulate," to rig an outcome, as it seems various people in the Massachusetts prosecutorial system tried to do once it became clear they'd have to throw out tens of thousands of drug cases.
Drug Scandal is a worthwhile four hours spent covering a case that isn't as well known as it should be. Not only does it lend itself to Lifetime-movie fantasy-casting while you're watching, it's also well made; Erin Lee Carr is a very good director who's also exceptionally consistent in the quality of her output (see below), and Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) is one of the executive producers..."
https://www.primetimer.com/features/how-to-fix-a-drug-scandal-on-the-biggest-case-youve-never-heard-of
Julius Jones: Oklahoma: Commentator Nehemiah D. Frank (founder, director and executive editor of The Black Wall Street Times) expounds on "Julius Jones and Oklahoma’s miscarriage of justice." ..."After Texas and Virginia, Oklahoma ranks third in the nation in the number of executions since 1976. In 2015, the use of unauthorized lethal injection drugs resulted in the painful execution of an Oklahoma death row inmate, who, as he was dying, said, “My body is on fire.” State investigations and lawsuits were launched, halting all Oklahoma executions. Recently, the state announced it had a new and reliable source of lethal injection drugs, and it was ready to move forward on executions. It’s been half a decade since an execution has taken place in Oklahoma, buying time for death row inmates who feel wrongfully accused to file motions for retrials and clemency. Julius Jones, an Oklahoma death row inmate who’s fighting for his life, has filed for clemency. His story nearly mirrors the plot of Jamie Foxx’s the newly released film “Just Mercy,” based on the true story of Walter McMillian, a man unjustly placed on death row and later exonerated by American civil rights attorney and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson. Since 1981, 10 Oklahoma death row inmates, half of them African Americans, have been exonerated. Questions of official misconduct, perjury and false accusations are leading reasons the convictions have come under scrutiny."
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Julius’ story reveals a miscarriage of justice that circles around a bad friend and accomplice, America’s second deadliest prosecutor and inexperienced capital trial attorneys who missed multiple opportunities to present evidence in court that would have sealed the needed-doubt into the minds of the jury and granted Jones an acquittal. Megan Tobey described her brother’s killer as a black man wearing a cap with hair that stuck out from under it about one inch. Christopher Jordan, Jones’ high school basketball teammate and co-defendant, had cornrows at the time of his booking and trial. Days before the incident, Jones was arrested for petty theft. He had a low fade or buzz cut in his booking photo. That photo was never presented to the jury during his trial. Moreover, on the night of Paul Howell’s murder, Jones’ siblings, Antoinette and Antonio Jones, recalled that their brother was home with them — a 21-minute drive from the murder scene. His mother even recalls Julius being home when she arrived that evening. Like the McMillian case, none of the Jones family was called to testify regarding Julius Jones’ whereabouts. Jordan, who testified against Jones, was offered less prison time on charges. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, “False accusations or perjury by witnesses who are promised lenient treatment or other incentives in exchange for their testimony is one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions.” Jones’ fingerprints were never found on the vehicle, which was stolen from the crime scene. The only person on record describing the crime scene was Jordan."
COMMENTARY: "Julius Jones and Oklahoma’s miscarriage of justice, by Nehemiah D. Frank, published by OA.com on Feb 23, 2020. (Nehemiah D. Frank is founder, director and executive editor of The Black Wall Street Times and a member of the Tulsa World Community Advisory Board. Opinion pieces by community advisory board members appear in this space most weeks.)
PHOTO CAPTION: "Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt arrives at a press conference on Feb. 13 in Oklahoma City to announce plans for Oklahoma to resume executions by lethal injection."
GIST: "After Texas and Virginia, Oklahoma ranks third in the nation in the number of executions since 1976. In 2015, the use of unauthorized lethal injection drugs resulted in the painful execution of an Oklahoma death row inmate, who, as he was dying, said, “My body is on fire.” State investigations and lawsuits were launched, halting all Oklahoma executions. Recently, the state announced it had a new and reliable source of lethal injection drugs, and it was ready to move forward on executions. It’s been half a decade since an execution has taken place in Oklahoma, buying time for death row inmates who feel wrongfully accused to file motions for retrials and clemency. Julius Jones, an Oklahoma death row inmate who’s fighting for his life, has filed for clemency. His story nearly mirrors the plot of Jamie Foxx’s the newly released film “Just Mercy,” based on the true story of Walter McMillian, a man unjustly placed on death row and later exonerated by American civil rights attorney and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson. Since 1981, 10 Oklahoma death row inmates, half of them African Americans, have been exonerated. Questions of official misconduct, perjury and false accusations are leading reasons the convictions have come under scrutiny. Julius’ story reveals a miscarriage of justice that circles around a bad friend and accomplice, America’s second deadliest prosecutor and inexperienced capital trial attorneys who missed multiple opportunities to present evidence in court that would have sealed the needed-doubt into the minds of the jury and granted Jones an acquittal. Megan Tobey described her brother’s killer as a black man wearing a cap with hair that stuck out from under it about one inch. Christopher Jordan, Jones’ high school basketball teammate and co-defendant, had cornrows at the time of his booking and trial. Days before the incident, Jones was arrested for petty theft. He had a low fade or buzz cut in his booking photo. That photo was never presented to the jury during his trial. Moreover, on the night of Paul Howell’s murder, Jones’ siblings, Antoinette and Antonio Jones, recalled that their brother was home with them — a 21-minute drive from the murder scene. His mother even recalls Julius being home when she arrived that evening. Like the McMillian case, none of the Jones family was called to testify regarding Julius Jones’ whereabouts. Jordan, who testified against Jones, was offered less prison time on charges. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, “False accusations or perjury by witnesses who are promised lenient treatment or other incentives in exchange for their testimony is one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions.” Jones’ fingerprints were never found on the vehicle, which was stolen from the crime scene. The only person on record describing the crime scene was Jordan. Jones’ case has gained national attention. Tweets from iconic celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and John Legend have brought needed attention to the case. A letter by Bryan Stevenson and another by U.S. Rep. Kendra Horn to Gov. Kevin Stitt encourages the governor to consider clemency for Jones. Recently, Metropolitan Baptist Church and All Souls Unitarian Church held screenings of ABC’s “The Last Defense,” featuring Academy Award and Emmy-winning actress Viola Davis, coupled with letter-writing campaigns. Since 1973, 1,512 people have been executed in the U.S. and 166 people have been exonerated and released from death row, according to the Equal Justice Initiative. “For every nine people executed, one person on death row has been exonerated,” a fact that underscores the high probability of error in capital cases. Stitt proved that he can be a champion of criminal justice reform when he commuted the sentences of 450 inmates in November. It is my personal opinion that it would be a horrible miscarriage of justice — for Jones and the murder victim Paul Howell — if Stitt didn’t offer Jones clemency."
https://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/columnists/nehemiah-d-frank-julius-jones-and-oklahoma-s-miscarriage-of/article_6745493d-090a-5340-a1a7-6dfb71d88eef.html
Read 'The terrifying case of Julius Jones, by Kratina Baker, published by medium.com at the link below for the prosecutor's connection with controversial forensic scientist Joyce Gilchrist: (Really neat read too. HL); "Over his career, District Attorney of Oklahoma County, Bob Macy sent 54 people to death row, more than any other district attorney in the United States. Prosecutorial misconduct was discovered in approximately one-third of Macy’s death penalty cases and the courts have reversed nearly half of his death sentences. Macy was forced to retire in 2001 in the wake of a scandal involving a forensic scientist by the name of Joyce Gilchrist, who it was discovered had been falsifying evidence in a number of cases. Three people Macy helped convict were exonerated and freed from death row and it is likely that others were executed before their innocence could be proven. According to a Harvard Law School study, Bob Macy sent more people to death row than any other individual district attorney in the United States,” Macy has ruined the lives of many of Oklahoman citizens-particularly African American citizens and was unapologetic for it."
https://medium.com/@freepaperspodcast/the-terrifying-case-of-julius-jones-878fec81e50f
Technology: Tele-forensic interviewing: Interviewing children suspected of having been abused during the pandemic: (Oh, oh. I sense something very troubling in what you are about to read - although the proponents admittedly are well-intentioned.) It's an article headed, 'Researchers Aid Child Witnesses With Tele-Forensic Interviewing' by Montclair State professors Jason Dickinson (Department of Psychology) and Nicole Lytle (Department of Social Work and Child Advocacy), published by 'Forensic' on March 30, 2020...What troubles me most: Although the article is centered around a study conducted by a body called, 'the National Science Foundation on tele-forensic interviewing' - described as a process that involves eliciting eyewitness testimony from children using tele-technology - there is no consideration of the need to consider the due process rights of persons caught in the criminal and civil court processes, let alone for their right to a fair (public) trial. My second big worry: Bring it on for the emergency - and then watch it stay forever. Does that sound forever? Read on. HL. PS: I would welcome any comments for possible publishing at hlevy15@gmail.com. HL)...
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Our original goal was to determine if this was an effective alternative to face-to-face interviewing when interviewers and children couldn’t connect because of geographic distances,” says Dickinson. “Given the pandemic, our work has taken on a more pressing context and we’re now working with professionals from around the country on how to implement interviewing protocols using this technology,” adds Dickinson. “Protecting children and investigating claims of abuse has to go on, and right now the field is struggling with how to do that in a way that is safe and effective.”
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Professionals shared their concerns, which ranged from broad questions to queries focusing on the smallest details. Topics included: ensuring that children are interviewed in a safe environment (e.g., not in the family home in an intrafamilial case); protecting the privacy of children; minimizing suggestive influences; and capturing the nuances of interviewing in a virtual environment. Practical concerns included choosing the best technology for recording and ensuring its authenticity, disinfecting the room where the child is being interviewed, and getting children and support staff to interview locations without exposing them to infection. The group outlined recommendations in a document published by the National Children’s Alliance titled “Emergency Tele-Forensic Interview Guidelines.” This week, the guidelines were distributed to over 800 Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) nationwide."
STORY: "Researchers Aid Child Witnesses With Tele-Forensic Interviewing," published by The Forensic Magazine on March 30, 2020.
GIST: "Given shelter-in-place orders and quarantines related to the COVID-19 outbreak, experts are expecting to see significant increases in child abuse cases as domestic violence rates rise in the coming weeks and months.
Lytle adds, “Our study found that tele-interviewing does not reduce the quality or accuracy of children’s testimony, which provides legal cover for helping professionals as they start to conduct tele-forensic interviews. We’re fortunate that we had the study’s results in hand when the pandemic struck and were able to help translate the findings into practice.""
The entire story can be read at: "The move to technology could cut costs, speed trial timelines and provide more access to rural areas when things return to normal. “It is forcing some of this technology in areas we should already have it,” said Duffie Stone of the National District Attorneys Association. Nina Ginsberg of the National Association of Defense Lawyers said video-conferencing “should be very temporary, and only with the defendant’s consent. People have the right to a public trial.”https://www.forensicmag.com/562526-Researchers-Aid-Child-Witnesses-With-Tele-Forensic-Interviewing.
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: (For article below on how courts are turning to technology during the crisis). "The move to technology could cut costs, speed trial timelines and provide more access to rural areas when things return to normal. “It is forcing some of this technology in areas we should already have it,” said Duffie Stone of the National District Attorneys Association. Nina Ginsberg of the National Association of Defense Lawyers said video-conferencing “should be very temporary, and only with the defendant’s consent. People have the right to a public trial.”
To learn how courts are turning to technology during the crisis, check out this story published by "The Crime Report" on March 30, 2020 at the link below: "The coronavirus pandemic has forced courts to abandon traditions and embrace long-resisted technology allowing legal work even if courtrooms are empty. The effort has frayed personal connections that build trust among lawyers and judges and challenged the idea that defendants have a right to confront accusers, the Wall Street Journal reports. A Florida attorney learned her trial in three days would be held via a video-conferencing technology she had never used. A Texas judge emptied a courtroom to allow a defendant to talk privately with his attorney by phone. A New York City judge declared a mistrial over an attorney’s coughing while questioning a witness by speakerphone. Judges are holding trials over Zoom, the online video-conference service, and attorneys are questioning witnesses or making oral arguments by phone. Defendants are pleading guilty without entering court. The measures are necessary to provide a resolution for defendants stuck in jail, protect domestic-violence victims in immediate danger and avoid a crippling backlog when courts reopen. The move to technology could cut costs, speed trial timelines and provide more access to rural areas when things return to normal. “It is forcing some of this technology in areas we should already have it,” said Duffie Stone of the National District Attorneys Association. Nina Ginsberg of the National Association of Defense Lawyers said video-conferencing “should be very temporary, and only with the defendant’s consent. People have the right to a public trial.” Defendants can be formally charged, have bail hearings and enter guilty pleas by video conference from jail. At San Antonio’s Bexar County courthouse, people mill about in 25 courtrooms daily, said District Attorney Joe Gonzales. To reduce crowds, some judges use video-conferencing. “Even some of our judges that may be old school are willing to learn,” he said.""
https://thecrimereport.org/2020/03/30/courts-turn-to-technology-during-coronavirus-crisis/
Posted by Harold Levy at Monday, March 30, 2020
Walter Ogrod: Philadelphia: Publisher's Note: It's not just the fact that Walter Ogrod is 'likely innocent', that makes him of interest to this Blog. It is also the fact that he, like any other prisoner who suspects he or she may have the Coronavirus ('likely innocent' or whatever) has a constitutional right to testing and treatment (which Ogrod is being denied by the prison system in spite of a court order. (A point which cannot be made loud enough). (As Prof. Judith Resnik notes on Bloomberg law in a commentary headed, "Protecting prisoners in pandemics is a constitutional must." (HL)
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: " Recently, Walter Ogrod, a Pennsylvania prisoner, exhibited the high fever and troubled breathing that are signatures of Covid-19. That news is, sad to say, not surprising. Within days, lawyers ran to court. He won, lost, and is trying again to get emergency relief for testing and treatment. Ogrod’s case is not a one-off. In New York, as of March 26, 116 people held in that city’s jails have asked for release because they are particularly vulnerable to getting the virus. Similar cases are being filed across the country. Instead of fighting them, prison officials ought to acknowledge they have a constitutional obligation to help mitigate the risks. Protecting prisoners from pandemics is not just a “should” or an “ought” but a “must”—as a matter of U.S. constitutional law."
COMMENTARY: Protecting prisoners in pandemics is a constitutional must, by Prof. Judith Resnik, published by Bloomberg Law on March 30, 2020. (Judith Resnik is the Arthur Liman Professor of Law at Yale Law School where she teaches about federalism, procedure, courts, prisons, equality, and citizenship. She is also the author of the essay “(Un)Constitutional Punishments.)
SUB-HEADING: "Judith Resnik, Arthur Liman Professor of Law at Yale Law School, says putting constitutional obligations into practice for the prison population—for Covid-19 and other diseases—is daunting. Yet there are ways to lower the risks, and we have guideposts."
GIST: "Recently, Walter Ogrod, a Pennsylvania prisoner, exhibited the high fever and troubled breathing that are signatures of Covid-19. That news is, sad to say, not surprising. Within days, lawyers ran to court. He won, lost, and is trying again to get emergency relief for testing and treatment.
None of us can afford to be indifferent to this serious and known medical need. Failing to do so not only violates the constitutional mandate to try to protect prisoners but also puts at risk the people who work in prison and the communities to which they return."
Walter Ogrod: Philadelphia: Likely Innocent and be...
Joe Bryan: Texas: Great news (in rather bleak tim...
Annie Dookhan: Sonja Farak: Netflix four part docu...
Julius Jones: Oklahoma: Commentator Nehemiah D. Fr...
Technology: Tele-forensic interviewing: Interviewi...
Walter Ogrod: Philadelphia: Publisher's Note: It's...
Annie Dookhan: Sonja Farak: Netflix four-part seri...
Walter Ogrod: Philadelphia: Who is this likely inn...
Tainted experts: A Canadian lawyer writing about ...
Jasmine Eskew: Montana: False confession: Anatomy ...
Homebound series: Part Two: Innocence Project off...
Homebound series: Part One : A timely gift! Innoc...
West Memphis Three: New Two Day TV production scr...
Chris Tapp: Idaho: False confession. A marvellou...
Technology: A new twist: "Lie detectors have alway...
Walter Ogrod: Pennsylvania: (Disgusting, if not ...
The death penalty: How it faces a new foe: The Cor...
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi: Also known as 'The Lockerbi...
Cherrell Harrington: Pennsylvania: This mother ha...
Central Park Five: Major (Very Welcome) Developmen...
On your home screen (hopefully soon) series: (Part...
On your home screen series: (Part Three): Greg Kel...
Idaho: Chris Tapp; False confessions: Major (Welco...
Tommy Zeigler: Florida: Significant (Unfortunate)...
Jeremy Puckett: California: Jailhouse witness: An ...
Former high school principal Joe D. Bryan: Texas: ...
On your home screen series: (Part Two): 'The Innoc...
Joyce Milgaard: Obituary: One of my personal heroe...
Walter Ogrod: Death Row: Pennsylvania: (Very Welco...
On your home screen series: Part One: Sonja Farak;...
Lamonte McIntyre; Rosie McIntyre: Kansas: A truly ...
Clayton Allison: Alaska: A father who was release...
Elvis Brooks: Concealment of exculpatory fingerpri...
Jose Maysonet: Illinois; Stand by for a really n...
Stanley Wrice: False confession case. 'Coerced' co...
Johnny Lee Gates: Georgia: Major (Welcome) Develo...
Lamonte McIntyre and Rosie McIntyre: Kansas: (Th...
Kerry Robinson: Georgia: Major (Welcome Developmen...
Famed (discredited?) Forensic Scientist Henry Lee:...
Technology: Note from publisher: I told you so! T...
Rigoberto Avila Jr: Disturbing Development: The Te...
Patrick Pursley; Illinois: Obsolete ballistics, ...
DNA testing: Florida: Major (Welcome) Bi-Partisan...
Teina Pora. New Zealand: Foetal Alcohol Spectrum D...
Child abuse pediatricians: (Part Three): Dr. Bar...
Jailhouse informants: Boston Globe: "Jailhouse inf...
Paul Hildwin: Florida: Major (Welcome) Development...
Lawrence Callanan: Missouri: How do prosecutors ge...
Child abuse pediatricians: (Part Two)...(Mandator...
Child abuse pediatricians. (Part One): Dr. Barba...
Shelby Herchak: Another disturbing 'autopsy' sto...
Walter Ogrod: Philadelphia: Major Development: A ...
James Dailey: Death Row: Florida. Major Setback: "...
Ronald Cotton: North Carolina: Flawed eyewitness i...
Myon Burrell: California: Major Development: Majo...
Flawed forensics: (Part 6): Radley Balko points to...
Flawed forensics: (Part 5): Why do some criminal...
Flawed forensics: (Part 4): Former FBI agent and d...
Lamar Johnson: Missouri: Criminal legal system re...
Flawed Forensics: (Part 3); Bill Richards: Califo...
Alfred Chestnut, Andrew Stewart Jr. and Ransom Wat...
Flawed forensics: ( Part 2): Scientific validity ...
Bradley Robert Edwards: Australia: Claremont kill...
Bradley Roberts Edwards. Australia: Contaminatio...
Flawed forensics: (Part 1): Why Is Courtroom Sci...
Joseph Kopera: Maryland: Allegations of forgery...
Ashley and Albert Debelbot: Ohio: Major (Welcome)...
Technology: Super power facial recognition tool: F...