Annals of American Injustice

14 Years on Death Row. $14 Million in Damages?
The model Electric Chair sitting on the desk of the New Orleans prosecutor Jim Williams seemed like a classic piece of Southern Gothic. But for John Thompson, it was all too real. "Seated" in the Electric Chair were photographs of five African American men that the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office had proudly sent to death row. Thompson's picture was dead center. The meaning was pretty clear, he recalls: "They were trying to kill me." Thompson spent 14 years on death...

Getting Off Death Row
In 1995, Shareef Cousin was sentenced to death at the age of 16 for a Crime he didn't commit. He served several years on death row in Louisiana's Angola Prison before his conviction was overturned. Now 28, Cousin is out of Prison and attending Morehouse College in Atlanta. He shared the story of his wrongful conviction in a Podcast he created as part of a competition that asked College Students for their perspectives on Capital Punishment. The Podcast competition was funded by the National...

Court seems skeptical on $14 million judgment
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed skeptical of a $14 million judgment given to a former death row inmate who accused New Orleans prosecutors of withholding evidence to help convict him of Murder. John Thompson, who at one point was only weeks away from being executed, successfully sued the District Attorney's office in New Orleans, arguing that former District Attorney Harry Connick showed deliberate indifference by not providing adequate training for assistant District...

Atlanta Police dispute 'most dangerous neighborhoods' list
Four parts of Atlanta, Georgia, made a list of the country's most dangerous neighborhoods. A report that placed four neighborhoods in Atlanta, Georgia, among the 25 most dangerousin the United States has not gone unnoticed by the Atlanta Police Department. On Thursday, the department cast doubt on the methodology behind the " Top 25 most dangerous neighborhoods ," and cautioned the publicagainst taking the report at face value. "We will not dispute that there are...

Atlanta Police dispute 'most dangerous neighborhoods' list
Four parts of Atlanta, Georgia, made a list of the country's most dangerous neighborhoods. A report that placed four neighborhoods in Atlanta, Georgia, among the 25 most dangerousin the United States has not gone unnoticed by the Atlanta Police Department. On Thursday, the department cast doubt on the methodology behind the " Top 25 most dangerous neighborhoods ," and cautioned the publicagainst taking the report at face value. "We will not dispute that there are...

ACLU Sues NC School District Over Students Nose Piercing
The School violated her constitution Right to express her ’sincerely held Religious belief’ by having her nose pierced.  The religion? The Church of Body Modification. Unh-huh. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union claims in a Lawsuit filed Wednesday that a North Carolina School violated the Constitutional Rights of a 14-year-old Student by suspending her for wearing a nose piercing. The Lawsuit from the state chapter of the ACLU seeks a court order allowing Arian

ACLU sues NC school over students nose piercing
Stumble This! The American Civil Liberties Union claims in a Lawsuit filed Wednesday that a North Carolina School violated the Constitutional Rights of a 14-year-old Student by suspending her for wearing a nose piercing. The Lawsuit from the state chapter of the ACLU seeks a court order allowing Ariana Iacono to return immediately to Clayton High School, which has kept her on suspension for four weeks since classes started. The complaint hinges on Iacono's claim that her nose piercing isn't jus...

McCarthy Called it; Judge Bars Key Witness in Civilian Terror Trial
The New York Times reports that a crucial witness in the Trial of confessed Embassy bomber Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani has been barred from testifying, minutes before the Trial was set to start this morning, because the witness was first identified during an overseas C.I.A. Interrogation of Ghailani. Ghailani is being tried in connection with the Al-Qaeda sponsored 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which left 224 dead. Prosecutors say the witness, Hussein Abebe, sold Mr. Ghailani...

More on America's Ongoing Civ-Mil Relations Crisis
Over at abumuqawama, Andrew Exum thinks some of us are making far too much out of the current crisis in civ-mil relations. He quotes a reader: How many of the people who think we have a serious civil-military problem because the Military is controlling Obama (or whatever word one wants to use) also a) complained when Shinseki spoke out about the Iraq War strategy, b) thought Rumsfeld was correct in general to ride roughshod over the generals in 2001-2003, and c) thought that the generals complai...

America's Secret or Secrets
< https://www.CNN.com/2010/WORLD/americas/10/01/us.Guatemala.Apology/index.html?hpt=T2 > It would have been better for the researchers to have burned this money than to do what was done; it was by no means money that was well spent. Egregious acts within the United States of America never bolster the trust or image of our country. The embedded articles mention that today safeguards are in place, which would prevent something like this from occurring; personally I have my doubts; evil and...

'BP interfered' with efforts to cap well
AP BP interfered with critical efforts to lower an undersea robot to try to close the device that failed to stop the massive Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill because of concerns over heat build-up from the burning Rig, a salvage firm executive says. The Testimony came from Doug Martin, president of Smit Salvage Americas, which was hired to help save the Deepwater Horizon after it exploded. He told a federal investigative panel that in the hours after the April 20 disaster, he thought it was important...

Judge delays hearing into whether a Texas man was wrongly executed in a disputed arson case
Austin, Texas — A Judge asked to re-examine Arson evidence used to convict a man executed for killing his three daughters postponed a hearing in the case on Wednesday, after prosecutors asked him to step aside. State District Judge Charles Baird delayed the hearing in the Cameron Todd Willingham case until Oct. 14, telling the court he wanted to give an Attorney for Willingham's family time to respond to prosecutors' request to have him removed. In the meantime, Baird may decide to recu...

Ohio man who killed girlfriend over ATM card is year's 8th execution, most in state history
LUCASVILLE, Ohio — An Ohio man who bludgeoned his girlfriend to death and then stole her ATM card to buy Crack Cocaine apologized to the woman's family before he died by Lethal Injection Wednesday. The sister of Michael Benge's Victim said she doubted his remorse. Benge's execution is Ohio's eighth Lethal Injection in 2010 — the most in a year since Ohio resumed Capital Punishment in 1999. The previous high since was seven in 2004. Ohio's highest number of executions occurred in...

Ken Buck Trips Up Over Abortion Measure
Denver — A conservative Republican trying to unseat a rookie Democratic senator in Colorado is scrambling to explain his position on Abortion in light of a ballot proposal to outlaw the procedure. Ken Buck, a Tea Party favorite challenging Sen. Michael Bennet, leads the Incumbent in several polls and has drawn the support of Abortion opponents for saying it should be illegal even in cases of Rape and Incest. Earlier this year, he endorsed a proposed amendment to the state constitution to...

Supreme Court Wary of Settlement for Brady Violations
The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared to doubt the reason for a $14 million judgment awarded to a death row inmate who claimed that New Orleans prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence in his Murder case, The Associated Press reported . Lawyers for John Thompson, who was convicted of a Murder he did not commit , successfully argued in a U.S. District Court that the state prosecutors assigned to his case were not adequately trained of their obligations under Brady v. Maryland , the 1963...

Saud Abdulaziz Bin Nasser Al Saud: Bandar Abdulaziz Was Not My Gay Lover
A picture made on February 19, 2010 through a tinted window of a police van shows a man believed to be Saud Bin Abdulaziz Bin Nasir Bin Abdulaziz al Saud, a Saudi Prince who was arrested at the five-star Landmark Hotel in Marylebone, on suspicion of murdering an assistant arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court, in London. Saud Bin Abdulaziz Bin Nasir Bin Abdulaziz al Saud, 33, is accused of killing Bandar Abdullah Abdulaziz, 32, police said. AFP PHOTO Carl Court (Photo credit should read Carl ...

Murder costs society -- about $17 million
Published: Oct. 6, 2010 at 6:32 PM AMES, Iowa, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Murder has a human cost, of course, but U.S. sociologists say there's a financial cost as well -- about $17 million per Murder. Researchers at Iowa State University calculated the costs of five crimes -- murder, Rape, armed Robbery, Aggravated Assault and Burglary -- in terms of the Victim costs, Criminal Justice system costs, lost Productivity estimates for both the Victim and the Criminal, and estimates on the public's resulting wi...

Murder costs society -- about $17 million
Published: Oct. 6, 2010 at 6:32 PM AMES, Iowa, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Murder has a human cost, of course, but U.S. sociologists say there's a financial cost as well -- about $17 million per Murder. Researchers at Iowa State University calculated the costs of five crimes -- murder, Rape, armed Robbery, Aggravated Assault and Burglary -- in terms of the Victim costs, Criminal Justice system costs, lost Productivity estimates for both the Victim and the Criminal, and estimates on the public's resulting wi...

OUTRAGEOUS! "15-year-old raped in court: Rapist gets probation, teen gets 12 months"..
"In 2005, 15-year-old Ashley was facing trial in Manhattan Family Court for lying to police after she told officers she didn't know who had assaulted her on the way to school. As she waited in the Court's holding area for her Court appearance, juvenile counselor Tony "Tyson" Simmons came up to the handcuffed girl, took her in an elevator to the building's basement, and raped her. Moments later, Ashley -- who's withholding her last name for fear of reprisal -- was in the courtroom being sentenced...

Oil industry has yet to adopt lessons of BP spill
New Orleans – Oil Industry and government Officials could get caught flat-footed again by another deep-water blowout in the coming months because they have yet to incorporate many of the lessons learned during the BP disaster, experts inside and outside the business tell The Associated Press. For one thing, it could be another year before a bigger, better cap-and-siphon containment system is developed to choke off leaks many thousands of feet below the surface. Also, existing skimmers st...

High court: Does father's pain trump free speech?
Albert Snyder, 55, talks about his son, Matthew, a Marine who was killed in Iraq, and about the upcoming Supreme Court case that will focus on a Lawsuit he filed against Rev. Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church for protesting his son's Funeral Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010, in York, Pa. The Court is set to decide whether members of a fundamentalist Church in Kansas who picketed Matthew's Funeral with signs bearing Anti-gay and anti-Catholic invective have a Constitutional Right to say what...

Supreme Court seems skeptical on $14 million judgment for exonerated inmate vs. New Orleans DA
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court may reconsider a $14 million judgment to a former death row inmate who accused New Orleans prosecutors of withholding evidence to help convict him of Murder. Justices seemed skeptical Tuesday when John Thompson argued that the District Attorney's office in New Orleans showed deliberate indifference by not doing specific training for employees on turning over evidence. Thompson came within weeks of being executed before he was acquitted in the killing of a...

Court seems skeptical on $14 million judgment
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court may reconsider a $14 million judgment to a former death row inmate who accused New Orleans prosecutors of withholding evidence to help convict him of Murder. Justices seemed skeptical Wednesday when John Thompson argued that the District Attorney's office in New Orleans showed deliberate indifference by not doing specific training for employees on turning over evidence. Thompson came within weeks of being executed before he was acquitted in the killing of...

Slay revenge or mistaken ID? Brooklyn man Kenroy Smith shot in the back
A Brooklyn man who held a series of odd jobs was shot to death in a flurry of bullets, leaving relatives to explain the Murder to his 2-year-old son. Kenroy Smith, 27, who had just played Video Games with a friend, was killed about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Flatbush Gardens apartment complex. Police said Smith spotted an armed man waiting for him in the lobby of the Foster Ave. building. He tried to sprint back up the stairs, but the gunman caught up to him and shot him in the back several time...

Va man indicted in Delaware man's death
ACCOMAC, VA. — An Accomack County man is facing capital Murder and other charges in the shooting death of a Delaware man that was made to look like a traffic accident. Virginia State Police say 23-year-old Brian Marquis Northan was indicted Monday in the death of 46-year-old Anthony W. Wilson of Fenton, Del. Northan faces capital Murder, Robbery and Firearms charges. State Police responded to a report of a vehicle crash in Accomac on June 24. A pickup truck had run off the road and hit ...