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
Tennis player and coach Bob Hewitt is a member of the
International Tennis Hall of Fame who has held all the men's doubles and mixed doubles Grand Slam titles. Hewitt, who was
born in Australia but became a South African citizen by marriage, also captained the 1974 South African Davis Cup champion team.
The Boston Globe reports that Hewitt's lengthy coaching career in the US and South Africa has long been accompanied by allegations that Hewitt sexually abused
his female students, mostly adolescents but one as young as 10. Hewitt denies the charges.
posted by catlet
on Aug 29, 2011 -
13 comments
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick recently decided that the state would not participate in a federal program to deport illegal immigrants accused of crimes. Several Republican state Representatives have been very vocal about opposing Patrick's decision. One is
Ryan Fattman (really), who says that
all illegal immigrants should be deported. When asked if a woman who was raped and beaten on the street should fear deportation, Fattman
replied, "“My thought is that if someone is here illegally, they should be afraid to come forward."
[more inside]
posted by waitingtoderail
on Jun 11, 2011 -
47 comments
Rick Hill was vacationing in Hawaii. So was Joe Parker. The two lived within one town of each other in Massachusetts, but discovered on that Hawaiian beach, when Joe offered to take a picture of Rick with his fiancee, that they have the same father.
posted by zizzle
on Apr 28, 2011 -
32 comments
The dark red
fishing shack on Bearskin Neck wharf in the artists' colony
Rockport, Massachusetts "is one of the most famous buildings in the world and instantly recognizable to any student of art or art history."
America's most-painted building received its name in an impulsive exclamation by famed illustrator, etcher and art teacher Lester Hornby. Its name?
Motif No. 1 "One day when a student brought for criticism a pencil drawing of the house, Hornby exclaimed, 'What-Motif No 1 again!' It has been that ever since."
[more inside]
posted by ericb
on Apr 6, 2011 -
24 comments
What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince? Six teens remained charged--
down from the original nine--in the death of Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide after
bullying at school. Legal writer Emily Bazelon of Slate.com continues her investigation of the case with a new three part series:
I've wrestled with how much of this information to publish. Phoebe's family has suffered terribly. But when the D.A. charged kids with causing Phoebe's death and threatened them with prison, she invited an inquiry into other potential causes. The whole story is a lot more complicated than anyone has publicly allowed for. [more inside]
posted by availablelight
on Jul 20, 2010 -
103 comments
The FBI has released their extensive files on US Senator Edward M. Kennedy to the public, covering their relationship with him between 1961 and 1985. The seven files, totaling more than 2,200 pages of documents
reveal (among other things,) the perhaps unsurprising news that the late Senator
received "scores" of
death threats from radical groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, “Minutemen” organizations, and the National Socialist White People’s Party. The release was initiated by a Freedom of Information Act Request from
Judicial Watch on May 3, 2010, (Complaint
pdf) but the FBI gave the Senator's family the
"rare opportunity" to raise objections before releasing the file.
posted by zarq
on Jun 14, 2010 -
20 comments
The
Fore River Shipyard was in service between 1886 and 1985, first under the management of the Fore River Ship and Engine Building Company, then Bethlehem Steel, and finally General Dynamics. She helped to close out the age of sail with the construction of the
largest sailing vessel in history without any kind of engine. Besides providing a substantial number of liberty ships, surface warships of various classes, and submarines during WWII, it may also be the source of the
"Kilroy was here" graffiti.
[more inside]
posted by rmd1023
on Nov 4, 2009 -
3 comments
Two years since Massachusetts instituted major statewide
healthcare reform, the
statistics are coming in.
340,000 residents, roughly half the state's previously uninsured, are now insured. The state says that
95% of its population is now covered, based on Department of Revenue estimates. However, a large portion of them are enrolled through state-subsidized insurance programs, and those program's rate of enrollment have far
outpaced estimates. This has led lawmakers to forsee a budget
shortfall. Premiums and co-pays are going
up, cigarette taxes have
increased, and a
cost control proposal is making its way through the legislature. Assessments
have been all over the map.
posted by Weebot
on Jul 2, 2008 -
79 comments
Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town.
posted by swift
on Jun 19, 2008 -
209 comments
Massachusetts is about to pass a "nearly" universal health care plan. It's an ambitious and innovative piece of public policy that mixes tax incentives to insure yourself if you can afford it to direct government subsidies to health care insurers to help cover the poor. Businesses will be fined if they are not going to cover their workers. It still does not cover escalating costs or malpractice wildness. And, it still will leave 5% uncovered. Nor, is it the plan specifically endorsed by
Physicians for a National Health Plan (who favor a single payer system) or the
AMA (who favor much greater reform of insurance providers). Still, it's a start from making us "the only industrialized nation in the world" to not, well you know.....
posted by narebuc
on Apr 5, 2006 -
71 comments
Know Thy Neighbor --playing hardball with those who sign a petition amending Massachusetts' Constitution to end same-sex marriage there. All who sign it will have their names and addresses posted on the site. It's the brainchild of Thomas Lang and Alexander Westerhoff, one of the first gay couples married in Massachusetts.
A little more here, including this: ...altering the state Constitution is a big deal, and if the backers of this (or any) constitutional amendment can't find 66,000 Massachusetts residents who feel strongly enough about doing so that they're willing to make their support public, then maybe the measure shouldn't be on the ballot after all. ...
posted by amberglow
on Sep 9, 2005 -
227 comments
Republican Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney - a likely contender for the Presidential Race in 2008 - pulls out the "
gay marriage" card in two recent speeches: one in
South Carolina; the other in
Utah. Forget the fact that Romney seems to be spending most of his tenure as governor traveling outside the state, campaigning and not dealing with the affairs of the State, but he has now
flip-flopped on his stance...and now continues the use of "gay marriage" and "civil unions" as a divisive political ploy on a national stage.
posted by ericb
on Feb 26, 2005 -
26 comments
Gay divorce Well, if the track record of straight marriages is any indication, this was bound to happen sooner or later. "Less than seven months after same-sex couples began tying the knot in Massachusetts, the state is seeing ts first gay divorces."
posted by livingsanctuary
on Dec 10, 2004 -
20 comments
The Freeloader Registry. When an employer pays low wages and doesn't provide health care benefits, its employees often end up getting free care through state and federal programs. How much does this cost you, and which companies benefit from the practice? A new Massachusetts state law will provide detailed information about top corporate welchers. (This follows recent discussion of the topic in the context of
Wal-Mart.)
Via
Good Jobs First.
posted by alms
on Aug 6, 2004 -
21 comments
Gay Marriage Opponents See Fight Getting Tougher ...or from a liberal view: "Whoo hoo!" The Boston Globe has a good article about the 'setback' that is about to happen to society on May 17th. No, not Brown vs. Board of Education's 50th Anniversary, but the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court's decision that gays and lesbians deserve equal marriage rights under the Mass. state constitution.
----
The Globe has an
exhaustive list of links and opinions from
both sides of the issue, including video clips, a full timeline of the Goodrich case, and even national news and opinions on the issue.
----
(This is my first FPP.)
posted by andreaazure
on May 14, 2004 -
19 comments
Mass. Rules In Favor Of Same-Sex Marriages. The highest court in Massachusetts has ruled that same-sex couples are legally entitled to wed under the state constitution, but stopped short of immediately allowing marriage licenses to be issued to the seven couples who challenged the law.
The court is giving the Legislature 180 days to "take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of this decision."
posted by Stynxno
on Nov 18, 2003 -
125 comments
