Archives for articles tagged "Criminal Justice"

New Jersey to Abolish Death Penalty

The state of New Jersey is poised to repeal the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life in prison without parole. Read the New York Times article and CBS News report for more information.

• Do you agree with New Jersey’s decision to abolish capital punishment? Why or why not?
• Do you think other states should follow suit? Do you think they are likely to do so?

12-17-2007 |

Should a soldier be court-martialed for attempting suicide?

The Washington Post news report A Soldiers’ Officer tells the story of 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, who is currently facing the threat of a court-martial. Ms. Whiteside is accused of attempting suicide and endangering the life of another soldier while serving in Iraq and could receive a sentence of life in prison if she is tried and convicted.

• Read the news account and judge for yourself. Do you believe Elizabeth Whiteside should be court-martialed?

12-12-2007 |

criminal insanity

Last week, a couple of middle aged men went to a care home to meet an 85 year old lady called Jean Gambell. Soon afterwards she had a slight stroke, which it was thought may have been brought on by the reunion.

It is hardly surprising. Jean Gambell was meeting her brothers for the first time in 70 - yes that is not a typo, that is SEVENTY - years. As a teenager of 15, Jean had been incarcerated due to mental illness, as a result of her stealing a few small coins. The brothers allege that the coins were found later.

She was then in the system for an entire lifetime, losing contact with her family and by any reakoning completely wasting her life. Enough one would think, to send anyone over the edge of mental instability even if they were sane to start with. Yet the brothers found a frail old lady, who could identify them by name and showed remarkably little bitterness for her lot in life. More here.

Other than being entirely flabbergasted by the whole sorry tale, I would like to know:

• If there are other people who have been involuntarily detained for long periods of time.
• What it says about a society that it ‘loses’ the records of people in its’ care.
• What it says about us that we live in a society that can lock someone up for an entire lifetime for no crime, without remand or appeal.
• What it says about us that an 85 year old lady is sane enough to recognise relatives after 70 years, but she is not sane enough to be listened to when she is telling her story or come to that was so feeble minded at 15 that she was incarcerated on the dubious charge of stealing a few small coins.

Surely we should all be thoroughly ashamed that we live in a world where this could happen.

10-01-2007 |

In wrongful convictions, justice system turns up guilty

New York Times — In April, Jerry Miller, an Illinois man who served 24 years for a rape he did not commit, became the 200th American prisoner cleared by DNA evidence. His case, like the 199 others, represented a catastrophic failure of the criminal justice system.

When an airplane crashes, investigators pore over the wreckage to discover what went wrong and to learn from the experience. The justice system has not done anything similar.

But a new study does. Brandon Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia, has, for the first time, systematically examined the 200 cases, in which innocent people served an average of 12 years in prison. In each case, of course, the evidence used to convict them was at least flawed and often false - yet juries, trial judges and appellate courts failed to notice.

read the rest of the report

07-24-2007 |