This past August a murder charge was dismissed against Nga Truong, a young mother who had confessed to Worcester, MA Police interrogators in 2008 that she had smothered and killed her 13 month-old baby, Khyle. A judge later concluded that confession was coerced -- extracted in part by police "deception," "trickery and implied promises" -- and the case was dropped.
(pdf). Her case raises questions: What coercive power do detectives have who are driven to extract confessions? Under what circumstances might someone admit to a crime they have not committed?
WBUR (Boston's NPR station) investigated Truong's case and has an extensive report, Anatomy of a Bad Confession: Part
One and
Two [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Dec 10, 2011 -
28 comments
Tomato: fruit or vegetable? In 1893, the US Supreme Court
unanimously ruled in Nix v. Hedden that the tomato is legally a vegetable and not a fruit, botanical definitions be damned. In 2001,
the European Union disagreed, saying that "tomatoes, the edible parts of rhubarb stalks, carrots, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, melons and water-melons are considered to be fruit".
[more inside]
posted by davidjmcgee
on Nov 17, 2011 -
91 comments
Yesterday, the Supreme court granted
certiorari to several of the challenges to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.
Here's a great roundup of several news stories. I like the
NPR story for a quick summary of the issues. The Court will hear a total of 5.5 hours of oral argument, and a decision is expected by the end of the current term, in June.
posted by insectosaurus
on Nov 15, 2011 -
77 comments
"When legal teams need to prove or disprove the authorship of key texts, they call in the forensic linguists. Scholars in the field have tackled the disputed origins of some prestigious works, from Shakespearean sonnets to the Federalist Papers."
Decoding Your E-Mail Personality
Ben Zimmer, of Language Log discusses the Facebook case and
forensic linguistics in the NY Times.
[more inside]
posted by iamkimiam
on Aug 2, 2011 -
13 comments
What is a photocopier? Ten pages of Ohio Supreme Court testimony where a Cuyahoga County, Ohio, office worker deliberately tries to muddy the waters in a deposition. Hilarity ensues.
"If you don't know what that means in an office setting, please tell the court you don't know what it means in an office setting to have a photocopying machine."
posted by Cool Papa Bell
on Mar 18, 2011 -
85 comments
A longitudinal study to be published in Jan 2011's Pediatrics (
abstract,
PDF of article) shows that GLBT youth are about 40 percent more likely to be punished by schools, police, and courts than their straight peers.
[more inside]
posted by hippybear
on Dec 7, 2010 -
27 comments
Today, June 28, 2010, marks the last day of the 2009-10 session of the Supreme Court of the United States. This day will mark a number of
historical events, not only in terms of the cases to be handed down.
[more inside]
posted by valkyryn
on Jun 28, 2010 -
193 comments
Baltasar Garzón is a Spanish judge known for his cases on human right abuses by south american dictatorships under international law, specially
the case against Augusto Pinochet. Now, after admitting a case against abuses during Franco's Era, he is facing
accusations by extreme right groups of deliberately ignoring the Amnesty Law of 1977, possibly questionable under the same universal jurisdiction that gained him international renown. In a controversial decision, the case
has been admitted by the Spanish Supreme Court, and so Garzón is facing the possibility of up to 20 years of suspension.
[more inside]
posted by valdesm
on Apr 14, 2010 -
14 comments
Dallas police were skeptical at first, nicknaming the program "Hug-a-Ho." Two years later, the
STAR Court ("strengthening, transition and recovery") is attracting attention from agencies and researchers nationwide, for its innovative approach to prostitute diversion.
"It's absolutely apparent when you work with these women that they're struggling with incredible issues of domestic violence, substance abuse, sexual violence. We want to help these women change their lives, and if we want to change what's happening, we have to change our approach."
posted by pineapple
on Jan 28, 2010 -
35 comments
In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that school officials violated an Arizona teenager's rights by strip-searching her for prescription-strength ibuprofen, declaring that U.S. educators cannot force children to remove their clothing unless student safety is at risk.
Clarence Thomas demurred, suggesting that panties would become the new drug underground.
posted by dejah420
on Jun 25, 2009 -
62 comments
NPR is reporting that
Supreme Court Justice David Souter will retire at the end of the current Court term, pending the approval of a replacement to be appointed by President Obama. Appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, Souter's replacement will presumably maintain the balance of ascribed "left-leaning" to "right-leaning" justices at 4-5, but will increase the number of justices on the bench appointed by a Democratic president to 3. At 69, Souter is in fact the youngest of the so-called "left-leaning" justices currently on the bench.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Apr 30, 2009 -
113 comments
A Magistrate Judge in the U.S. District Court in Vermont has ruled that a man allegedly caught with child pornography on his laptop need not reveal his PGP password (yes, authorities shut down the laptop and now can't get at the alleged porn) pursuant to the Fifth Amendment's protections against self incrimination. The decision is
here[PDF]. A decent write-up (from CNET of all places) is
here. This appears to be the first decision ever to directly address this issue, and many commentators had thought it would come out differently. The major question is whether revealing one's PGP key is "testimonial" or not. According to the
Supreme Court, giving up fingerprints or blood samples isn't, nor is standing for a lineup, nor is handing over the key to a safe, but if it's
combination safe, well maybe that's
different. Never let it be said that your Fifth Amendment rights are easy.
posted by The Bellman
on Dec 15, 2007 -
57 comments
It's the first Monday in October and time for Supreme Court Justices to compare liberals, unfavorably, to the Ku Klux Klan. In his new
memoir, released on the first day of the Supreme Court's 2007 term, Justice Clarence Thomas writes that he grew up fearing the KKK, but now knows he had
"been afraid of the wrong white people all along. My worst fears had come to pass not in Georgia but in Washington, D.C., where I was being pursued not by bigots in white robes but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony. " No small man, he also comments on Anita Hill's bad breath. Slate's spectacular legal columnist, Dahlia Lithwick, notes that
"in the few hundred pages of his new book, Thomas has managed to undo years of effort by his colleagues to depoliticize the judicial branch." As usual, only
Jon Stewart can make us laugh through the tears.
posted by The Bellman
on Oct 4, 2007 -
110 comments
A very big day for the Supreme Court. In
Morse v. Fredrick, the Court ruled that a school could suspend a child for holding up a "Bong HiTs for Jesus" banner. (Previous post
here). In
Hein v. Freedom from Religion, the Court held that taxpayers lacked standing to challenged Faith Based Initiatives (
previous discussions). In
Wilke v. Robbins, the Court held that land owners do not have Bivens claims if the federal government harasses landowners for easements. In
FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, the Court held that the portion of the campaign finance law which had blackout periods before elections on issue advocacy advertising was an unconstitutional restriction of speech (
other). This Thursday, the Justices will deliver their last opinions of the term, including
a death penalty case and the
school assignment cases. (Opinions are .pdfs)
posted by dios
on Jun 25, 2007 -
224 comments
