McCurtain County is a rural county (pop. 31,000) in the southeast corner of Oklahoma. It became a focus of national news coverage when a hidden microphone picked up the sheriff, jail administrator, a sheriff’s investigator, and a county commissioner discussing lynching black people and murderi[...]
Posts Tagged ‘Police Corruption’
June 23rd, 2024 - 2:25 pm § in Law and Courts
Texas criminal justice screwed up again
I’ve never been to Texas, so I only have impressions of the place, mostly unfavorable. There’s the politics, of course, and a criminal justice system that’s downright frightening. Texas is the state most likely to execute an innocent person. There have been close calls, and at leas[...]
June 16th, 2024 - 3:21 pm § in Law and Courts
A psychiatric patient took the fall for a killer cop
A very confused psychiatric patient spent 43 years in prison for a murder committed by a cop. The only evidence against her was a string of rambling, incoherent, and frequently changing confessions, ultimately coerced by threatening her with the death penalty. Absolutely nothing tied her to the cr[...]
May 7th, 2024 - 4:50 pm § in Law and Courts
Book review: “The Innocent Man”
The Innocent Man by John Grisham (Wikipedia description here; on Amazon here) is that popular author’s only nonfiction book. Grisham writes pulp fiction with legal characters and plots. I don’t care much for his novels, but I’ve read a couple as a break from serious reading. I can[...]
February 24th, 2023 - 3:32 pm § in Law and Courts
What “beyond a reasonable doubt” really means
Two deer hunters were gunned down in rural Michigan in 1990. Jeff Titus, then 39, was a nearby property owner. Mere proximity to the crime scene made him a suspect. But no physical evidence linked him to the crime, and he was hunting 27 miles away when the murders occurred. Police cleared him. There[...]
November 3rd, 2021 - 7:26 pm § in Law and Courts
Cops are human like the rest of us
They have fathers, mothers, brothers, and boyfriends. They look out for their friends. Even if they have to lie, destroy evidence, and cover up for them. For example, Lt. Marcus Harper and Officer Ananias Carson III of the Tulsa police department tried to keep fellow officer Latoya Dythe out of trou[...]
July 16th, 2021 - 1:07 pm § in Law and Courts
Ex-deputy gets 12½ years for planting drugs
An ex-sheriff’s deputy who racked up drug arrests, apparently in hopes of getting promoted to the narcotics squad, by planting drugs during traffic stops was sentenced to 12½ years in prison by a Florida judge on Thursday, July 15, 2021. See story here and here. Zachary Wester’s wife an[...]
April 20th, 2015 - 1:22 pm § in Misc.
Tulsa’s make-believe cop goes on a PR offensive — and his lawyer bungles the facts
Bob Bates, using his family as props, went on teevee to dispute reports that his training records were falsified that emerged after he shot an unarmed fleeing suspect with his gun, killing him, instead of tasering him, allegedly by mistake. Bates’ lawyer, who sits beside him during his NBC Tod[...]
January 16th, 2015 - 10:31 pm § in Misc.
Holder Cracks Down On Forfeiture Abuses By Corrupt Police Agencies
“Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without warrants or criminal charges. Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizu[...]