by Jo Ellen Nott
The House Judiciary Committee and Weaponization Select Subcommittee headed by Ohio Republican Jim Jordan is actively investigating major banks for allegedly sharing Americans’ private financial information with the FBI. The committee alleges the banks shared this information without proper legal processes, thus raising concerns …
by Jo Ellen Nott
The Journal of Empirical Legal Studies published a ground-breaking study out of Cornell University that proves prosecutors question Black venire persons in a hard-to-detect, but significantly different way, than they question other potential jurors.
“Quantifying Disparate Questioning of Black and White Jurors in …
by Jo Ellen Nott
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021 after declaring a state of emergency in response to a rise in border crossings and fentanyl trafficking in southern Texas. As part of the $4.5 billion Texas spent in two years, the …
by Jo Ellen Nott
The Mississippi Supreme Court mandated on April 13, 2023, that poor criminal defendants must have an attorney throughout the entire criminal process. In re Miss. Rules of Crim. Procedure, 2023 Miss. LEXIS 103 (2023). The state high court made this decision to eliminate the …
by Jo Ellen Nott
In the July 2023 issue of the Forensic Chemistry journal, new research from West Virginia University (“WVU”) forensic scientists reveals that gunshot residue (“GSR”) behaves differently on skin, hair, and fabric depending on whether it contains organic or inorganic compounds. The WVU scientists …
by Jo Ellen Nott
In a stabbing case in The Hague, Netherlands, a suspect facing charges in the deadly incident denied his involvement. Wanting to prove his presence at the crime scene, the Dutch police turned to digital evidence and, more specifically, data from the suspect’s cellphone.
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by Jo Ellen Nott
Two faculty members at Georgia State University in Atlanta in the Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology wrote in the May 18, 2023, edition of Scientific American Technology Section that artificial-intelligence-powered facial recognition will lead to increased racial profiling. In their research, Thaddeus …
by Jo Ellen Nott
In a victory for the First Amendment, the Arizona Attorney General agreed to settle a lawsuit brought in August 2022 challenging a state law that banned recording police officers within eight feet. The law, HB2319, passed in the Arizona Senate on June 23, …
by Jo Ellen Nott
SoundThinking is a California-based tech company formerly known as ShotSpotter that sells systems to detect gunshot sounds and relay that information to law enforcement for follow-up. MarketBeat reports that the company has annual revenue of $81 million. Dayton, Ohio, will not be part …
by Jo Ellen Nott
On April 25, 2023, the Virginia Supreme Court issued an order refusing to hear the case of Michael L. Ledford, a man who was convicted of arson and first-degree murder in September 2000 when he was just 23 years old and the father of a baby boy.
Ledford was sentenced in 2001 to a total of 50 years based on a coerced confession obtained after five hours of high-pressure interrogation. After years of pro se petitions, hearings, and appeals, the high court of Virginia shut the door on a possible exoneration for Ledford. The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project with the pro bono help of law firm Baker Botts has represented Ledford since 2016.
The dry legal facts are merely the tip of the iceberg in the Ledford murder-arson conviction. Below the surface of that iceberg that shattered Ledford’s life at 23 lie a mountain of police and prosecutorial missteps that put an innocent man in prison for half a century. First and foremost, Ledford is autistic. He was diagnosed by a University of Virginia clinical and forensic psychologist as being “in the autistic spectrum or [having] a severe nonverbal learning disorder.”
On …
