by Jo Ellen Nott
On June 17, 2024, Democratic Governor Wes Moore signed an executive order in Annapolis to issue more than 175,000 pardons for low-level marijuana convictions, seeking to rectify “historical wrongs” tied to marijuana enforcement. The pardons cover all simple marijuana possession charges and possession of drug paraphernalia ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
A ProPublica investigation published in May 2024 has uncovered significant reliability issues with the New York Police Department’s (“NYPD”) public database for tracking officer discipline. The investigation looked at over 1,000 daily snapshots of the database since 2021 and found 88 percent of the cases disappeared ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
A top FBI official is urging his agents to continue using a warrantless foreign surveillance program, Section 702, to justify the bureau’s surveillance powers. This program, which has been misused to target U.S. protesters, journalists, and a sitting member of Congress, was extended by lawmakers for ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
Martin Lucio Santillan, now 50 years old, was fully exonerated in the Frank Crowley Criminal Courts in Dallas, Texas, on March 22, 2023. His 25 years of wrongful imprisonment ended because Centurion Ministries believed his innocence after a simple interview in 2008.
When 21-year-old Damond Wittman ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
The National Institute of Justice (“NIJ”) published a paper titled “The Impact of False or Misleading Forensic Evidence on Wrongful Convictions,” providing grim facts and figures on one of the worst injustices in the criminal justice system – wrongful convictions.
As of 2023, The National Registry ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
A recent study by Binghamton University researchers offers hope for identifying victims of fires where traditional methods fail. Fire victims can be identified through dental records if the teeth are preserved and such records exist. DNA testing is often the only way to identify badly burned ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
A Colorado jury awarded a 78-year-old woman, Ruby Johnson, $3.76 million in damages on March 1, 2024, after a SWAT team raided her home based on a faulty phone tracking app and a misleading warrant. “The detective misled the court by portraying the phone pings ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
In a significant decision on May 16, 2024, the Justice Department of the Biden Administration proposed to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. This history-making shift, though not legalization, acknowledges the drug’s medicinal value and lower abuse potential.
The proposed rule, endorsed by Attorney ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
Dr. Robert Maher, electric and computer engineer who has researched and studied gunshot acoustics at the University of Montana, published the results of a two-year study on synchronizing and processing audio recordings of gunshots in 2018. His research was sponsored by a National Institute of Justice ...
by Jo Ellen Knott
DNA profiling has become the gold standard in forensic science since the first murder case was solved in England in 1987 by genetics professor Alec Jeffreys at the University of Leicester. Although Colin Pitchfork is not as notorious as Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer, it is a ...
