Tag: Criminal Justice System

National Registry of Exonerations

About the Registry

The National Registry of Exonerations is a project of the Newkirk Center for Science & Society at University of California Irvine, the University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law. It was founded in 2012 in conjunction with the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. The Registry provides detailed information about every known exoneration in the United States since 1989—cases in which a person was wrongly convicted of a crime and later cleared of all the charges based on new evidence of innocence. The Registry also maintains a more limited database of known exonerations prior to 1989.

The website for the National Registry of Exonerations is HERE

National Registry of Exonerations 2020 Annual Report is HERE

The New York State Trial Penalty: The Constitutional Right to Trial Under Attack

The ‘trial penalty’ refers to the substantial difference between the sentence offered in a plea offer prior to trial versus the sentence a defendant receives after trial. This penalty is now so severe and pervasive that it has virtually eliminated the constitutional right to a trial. To avoid the penalty, accused persons must surrender many other fundamental rights which are essential to a fair justice system.
Read on here …….

Get the publication HERE

Social Fabric: A New Model for Public Safety and Vital Neighborhoods

Overview

Should the police own safety? For the past forty years, localities across the country have responded with a resounding “yes,” as the primary response to crime has been to call upon the police and criminal justice system. That approach has come with harms, long understood in communities of color and further underscored last summer by the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death. These harms undermine the trust that should be the very foundation of any system of justice.

This paper argues that there is a different and more durable model, based on the oldest of ideas and eminently doable, especially in this moment of pandemic-straitened budgets: tight-knit communities, where residents are brought together through local institutions and have access to basic civic resources, are the places where safety thrives.

Find the FULL report and Executive Summary HERE

George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020

Vote NO to HR 1280 the ‘‘George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021’’

This HR 1280 ‘‘George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021’’ as a whole is disastrous to policing. There may be some provisions in the bill that could be positive but how HR 1280 was developed and in its current form it is detrimental to community safety and policing.

What happened to Mr. George Floyd is tragic and should never happen again. However, the process of calling for a change to 18,000 different police departments because of one single incident is a disservice to the citizens and it will negatively impact the type of policing the public receives. 

As of this date there has not been a determination as to what the factors caused the police response that led to the death of George Floyd. Still without a critical examination of all the factors that led to Mr. Floyd’s death legislatures have blindly submitted laws across the country to make changes in policing. This this process is akin to someone dying during a routine operation and Congress passing laws on how doctors should operate without a full review on the cause of death.  It doesn’t make sense.

Policing is local just like politics and crime is local. If changes to police must be made do so smartly and not because of few loud voices of radical criminals that created carnage in American streets.  Defund the police? That narrative is driven from various small groups and a news media that has an agenda to delegitimize law enforcement.  Hometown America isn’t looking to defund the police.  The best measure to understand the need for change in policing is to look back on 5-24-2020, where there were no calls for change in policing.

To back HR 2080 shows that you have no concern for the police and little concern for the citizens they protect.

www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr7120/BILLS-116hr7120pcs.pdf

Here is the LINK to the bill’s page

Illinois House Bill 3653: Criminal Justice Omnibus Bill

Illinois Police Reform Act

Summary of Provisions in Illinois House Bill 3653: Criminal Justice Omnibus Bill
Here is a nice summary of some of the provisions in the bill:
https://www.civicfed.org/iifs/blog/summary-provisions-illinois-house-bill-3653-criminal-justice-omnibus-bill

The bill can be found HERE
The history of the bill can be found here…… https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=3653&GAID=15&DocTypeID=HB&LegID=120371&SessionID=108&SpecSess=&Session=&GA=101

THE PARADOX OF “PROGRESSIVE PROSECUTION”

When Freddie Gray woke up on April 12, 2015, he surely did not know that he would soon enter a coma only to die a week later. That morning, he walked to breakfast in his old West Baltimore neighbor- hood with two of his best friends. The restaurant they wanted to visit was closed, however, so they left. At some point on the way home, they encountered police officers on bicycles.

harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/748-770_Online.pdf

“Progressive” Prosecutors Sabotage the Rule of Law, Raise Crime Rates, and Ignore Victims | The Heritage Foundation

Introduction

The American prosecutor occupies a unique role among lawyers. The prosecutor has a higher duty than other attorneys. His duty is to seek justice, not simply to obtain convictions.
— Read on www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/report/progressive-prosecutors-sabotage-the-rule-law-raise-crime-rates-and-ignore

Also look fo the link on the webpage to download the full report.