by Mark Wilson
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that a lower court improperly granted Puerto Rican prison officials’ summary judgment on a female guard’s gender discrimination claim.
Vilmarie Caraballo-Caraballo was hired as a guard by the Corrections Department of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ...
by Mark Wilson
An Ohio man who was convicted of a violent home invasion robbery on the basis of faulty eyewitness identifications was exonerated just minutes before being sentenced to a lengthy prison term.
On February 5, 2017, a man armed with a handgun confronted a 32-year-old woman in the ...
by Mark Wilson
"Once the lights go out, they grab you like a gang, and they forcibly throw you on the table and one officer ended up mounting me and pretty much riding me like a horse," said Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer Vito Degironimo. "I'm grabbed by other ...
"If you go to a shelter for #Irma and you have a warrant, we'll gladly escort you to the safe and secure shelter called the Polk County jail," warned Florida's Polk County Sheriff's Department Twitter Account as Category 5 Hurricane Irma made landfall on September 6, 2017. Minutes earlier, the ...
by Mark Wilson
A Bellaire, Texas woman was nearly killed in the privacy of her own home, by indiscriminate police gunfire. The officers were placed on paid administrative leave as three unarmed women were hospitalized for gunshot wounds.
Houston Police Department officers attempted to pull over a Cadillac SUV after ...
by Mark Wilson
"Giving defendants a lawyer, treating them with respect, and honoring the Constitution give them more confidence in what we’re trying to do,” observes Michigan District Court Judge Tom Boyd. “That starts with giving them the respect they deserve the minute they walk in the door.”
Sadly, that ...
by Mark Wilson
After spending 24 years behind bars for murder, Eric Kelley and Ralph Lee walked out of a New Jersey prison in November 2017. Weeks earlier, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Michael Portelli had vacated their convictions for the 1993 murder of a store clerk after new DNA ...
by Mark Wilson
The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld a post-conviction court’s judgment that a criminal defendant was denied effective assistance of trial counsel when his lawyer failed to object to an expert witness vouching for the credibility of the alleged victim’s sexual abuse claim. As such, the lower court ...
by Mark Wilson
"They just demonstrated they’re going to prosecute us, and the Supreme Court just demonstrated that they’re going to punish us,” said Michael Barrett, director of the Missouri public defender system, in response to the suspension of an overworked lawyer.
Karl William Hinkebein is a 21-year veteran of ...
by Mark Wilson
The Oregon Court of Appeals concluded that a prosecutor’s criticism of defense counsel during closing argument “crossed the boundary of permissible argument and prejudiced defendant’s right to a fair trial.”
Doug Brunnemer was tried on several Oregon domestic violence offenses. The State’s case was based largely on ...
