Saturday, May 29, 2010

The NYPD Tapes: Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct Uncensored!


Two years ago, a police officer in a Bedford-Stuyvesant precinct concerned about how the police were serving the community began recording his fellow officers on the job: he recorded EVERYTHING including roll calls, his precinct commander, street encounters with other officers and the public, and station talk and office banter. Made without the knowledge or approval of the NYPD, the tapes—made between June 1, 2008, and October 31, 2009, in the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant and obtained exclusively by the Village Voice—provide an unprecedented portrait of what it's like to work as a cop in New York City. An Excerpt from the Voice (full article here):
As a result, the tapes show, the rank-and-file NYPD street cop experiences enormous pressure in a strange catch-22: He or she is expected to maintain high "activity"—including stop-and-frisks—but, paradoxically, to record fewer actual crimes.

This pressure was accompanied by paranoia—from the precinct commander to the lieutenants to the sergeants to the line officers—of violating any of the seemingly endless bureaucratic rules and regulations that would bring in outside supervision.

The tapes also reveal the locker-room environment at the precinct. On a recording made in September, the subject being discussed at roll call is stationhouse graffiti (done by the cops themselves) and something called "cocking the memo book," a practical joke in which officers draw penises in each other's daily notebooks.


In one tape, precinct supervisors talk about a specific "numbers" quota, warn cops to pick up their numbers, or else, and complain about outside inspections. In another tape recorded in September 2009, pressure for "numbers" are discussed (summonses, arrests, stop and frisks and community visits) because it was the end of the month and activity reports had to be filed.

Friday, May 28, 2010

The Wrong Man

From The Atlantic by David Freed:

In the fall of 2001, a nation reeling from the horror of 9/11 was rocked by a series of deadly anthrax attacks. As the pressure to find a culprit mounted, the FBI, abetted by the media, found one. The wrong one. This is the story of how federal authorities blew the biggest anti-terror investigation of the past decade—and nearly destroyed an innocent man. Here, for the first time, the falsely accused, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, speaks out about his ordeal.


Image credit: Melissa Golden/Redux

The first anthrax attacks came days after the jetliner assaults of September 11, 2001. Postmarked Trenton, New Jersey, and believed to have been sent from a mailbox near Princeton University, the initial mailings went to NBC News, the New York Post, and the Florida-based publisher of several supermarket tabloids, including The Sun and The National Enquirer. Three weeks later, two more envelopes containing anthrax arrived at the Senate offices of Democrats Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, each bearing the handwritten return address of a nonexistent “Greendale School” in Franklin Park, New Jersey. Government mail service quickly shut down.

The letters accompanying the anthrax read like the work of a jihadist, suggesting that their author was an Arab extremist—or someone masquerading as one—yet also advised recipients to take antibiotics, implying that whoever had mailed them never really intended to harm anyone. But at least 17 people would fall ill and five would die—a photo editor at The Sun; two postal employees at a Washington, D.C., mail-processing center; a hospital stockroom clerk in Manhattan whose exposure to anthrax could never be fully explained; and a 94-year-old Connecticut widow whose mail apparently crossed paths with an anthrax letter somewhere in the labyrinth of the postal system. The attacks spawned a spate of hoax letters nationwide. Police were swamped with calls from citizens suddenly suspicious of their own mail.

Americans had good reason to fear. Inhaled anthrax bacteria devour the body from within. Anthrax infections typically begin with flu-like symptoms. Massive lesions soon form in the lungs and brain, as a few thousand bacilli propagate within days into literally trillions of voracious parasitic microbes. The final stages before death are excruciatingly painful.As their minds disintegrate, victims literally drown in their own fluids. If you were to peer through a microscope at a cross-section of an anthrax victim’s blood vessel at the moment of death, it would look, says Leonard A. Cole, an expert on bioterrorism at Rutgers University, “as though it were teeming with worms.”

The pressure on American law enforcement to find the perpetrator or perpetrators was enormous. Agents were compelled to consider any and all means of investigation. One such avenue involved Don Foster, a professor of English at Vassar College and a self-styled literary detective, who had achieved modest celebrity by examining punctuation and other linguistic fingerprints to identify Joe Klein, who was then a Newsweek columnist, as the author of the anonymously written 1996 political novel, Primary Colors. Foster had since consulted with the FBI on investigations of the Unabomber and Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park bombing, among other cases. Now he was asked to analyze the anthrax letters for insights as to who may have mailed them. Foster would detail his efforts two years later in a 9,500-word article for Vanity Fair.

Full article can be found here.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Microsoft Hotmail Legal Compliance

Custodian of Records
Microsoft Corporation Online Services
1065 La Avenida, SVC4/1120
Mountain View, CA 94043

Phone Number: 425-722-1299
Fax Number: 425-708-0096

Phone: 425-722-1299 (law enforcement)
(1 or 0 for emergencies only, or follow the prompts by service for non-emergencies and follow ups) FAX: 425-708-0096 (preferred service method)

Hewlett Packard Subpoena Compliance

Hewlett Packard Security Investigations
Phone Number: (508) 467-3798 Fax Number: (508) 467-3797
E-mail Address: security.investigations@hp.com

Google Legal Compliance

Google Inc.

Phone Number: 650-253-3425
Fax Number: 650-249-3429
E-mail Address: legal-support@google.com

Contact Name: Google Legal Investigations Support
Online Service Address: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Phone Number: 650-253-3425
Fax Number: 650-649-2939
E-mail Address: legal-support@google.com
Note(s): Custodian of Records Fax: 650-249-3429

Pauline Samson, Legal Assistant
Main phone number: 605.253.0000
Ed Choi, Legal Department
Main phone number: 650-253-4673

Online Service - Google: Search, GMail, Talk, YouTube, Blogger, AdWords, AdSense, Checkout, Orkut, Picasa, Sites, Groups, Docs, Maps, Earth, Video, Android and other Google Services.

YouTube LE Contact:
For International Law Enforcement Only:

The information you have requested is collected and maintained by Google Inc., a US company. As such, we ask that your request be directed to Google Inc. and through the proper legal channel. You may direct further communications to Google Inc. at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California, 94043, US, Phone: 650-253-3425, Fax: 650-469-0622, or by email at lis-global@google.com.

It is Google's policy to require formal legal process in accordance with U.S. law for disclosure of information related to any of our users. That said, we also cooperate with law enforcement investigations in other countries where valid legal process for disclosure of information is provided and such disclosure can be made in compliance with U.S. laws. Towards that end, for basic subscriber information (registration page and recent IP logs) we may accept an Order or Warrant signed by a judge or magistrate in your jurisdiction, or other valid and authenticated legal process. Please forward such process addressed to Google Inc. at the address and/or facsimile number provided above for evaluation. Content requests issued from a non-US government, we understand that such requests should be made in accordance with the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) or the letters rogatory process. We are not able to provide you with the specific requirements in your jurisdiction, but encourage you to contact counsel for guidance in this process.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

FedEx Subpoena Compliance

Contact Name: Security Office
Online Service Address: 3620 Hacks Cross Road, Bldg B, 3rd Floor Memphis, TN 38125-8800
Phone Number: 800-872-8025
Note(s): For FedEx Express subpoenas contact Tracey Ferrara: 901-434-8568.

For FedEx Ground or Home Delivery contact Janet Cleversy: 412-859-5830

ISP List

This site and ISP list is for law enforcement use and contains a variety of ISPs and similar information services, specifically, contacts at the legal departments for law enforcement service of subpoena, court orders, and search warrants.

The following database is updated when changes are received. Updates, corrections, and additions are always welcome — please send them to mailto:ISPlist%40search.org in the same format as the entries are made. Please note that all the updates come from law enforcement officers and investigators working in this field. If you find any inaccuracies, please contact the list maintainer at mailto:ISPlist@search.org to make the updates.

This list was originally maintained by James Nerlinger, Jr. at the defunct site http://forensics.web.org. Through agreement with Mr. Nerlinger, SEARCH has accepted the responsibility to maintain and update this valuable resource. This list has been an essential resource for law enforcement investigators since its inception. Through this list James Nerlinger has aided thousands of law enforcement officers in their investigations. SEARCH intends to continue this tradition of assisting law enforcement by maintaining the list as a resource for law enforcement investigations.

STEP Court

Monday, May 24, 2010

Intelligence-Led Operations Platform

i2’s technology empowers government agencies and private sector businesses to investigate, predict, disrupt and defeat the world’s most sophisticated criminal and terrorist activities. We enable our users to be more effective by providing not just information, but the insights to answer critical questions and take action.

i2 products are continually being enhanced to offer comprehensive solutions with the flexibility required to address challenges in the following areas:

Counter terrorism
Fusion Centers
Major investigations
Volume crime
Public order/ Major event management Organized crime
Neighborhood/community policing

General Inquiries
E: info.americas@i2group.com
T: +1-703-921-0195
Toll free: 888-546-5242

Friday, May 21, 2010

Guest Blogger: Sirchie Powder - Invisible Detection Powder

1) Many things react to a UV light. If you go to the Sirchie website, there is a manual about UV lights that lists many of the things that the lights react to. Included in the list is Vaseline (because it is petroleum based), cosmetics, waxes, and bodily fluids (including things like sweat stains on clothes) . This is extremely important (especially here in a tropical climate) because things like sweat glow, and we all know that even when it is cold, people in high stress situations sweat. Many products' reactions to UV light are similarly colored, so it is not necessarily clear what product is glowing. Also, different color Sirchie powders glow different colors. There is also dual wave length powder that glows 2 different colors depending on if a short wave UV light is used or a long wave UV light.

2) Photographs can easily be taken of the reaction that is seen in UV light. All that is needed is a camera that can have the flash turned off.

3) There are also specific wax crayons that are used to mark areas that react. This means that if powder is on a t-shirt, the area that glows can be marked and the t-shirt can be saved for evidence to later show exactly where the reactions occurred. This is stated in the fluorescent powder manual from Sirchie. The company suggests that it is done to preserve evidence. The manual also suggests that officers make clear notes of exactly what they saw.

4) Contamination - It is very fine powder--finer then baby powder. When you open or close the lid, a cloud of powder forms each time. The manual suggests gloves and protective clothing because it gets everywhere. One of the properties of the powder is that is has great adhesion qualities. This means that it is not easily wiped away and it will stick to whatever it can. And, the contamination is hard to see without the aid of a UV light. So, after a package is sealed, then it should be checked with a UV light, the officer's clothing should be checked for contamination since they are presumably going to later pick that box back up.

- Kathleen Wright, Investigator

Thursday, May 20, 2010

National White Collar Crime Center

The National White Collar Crime Center also known as NW3C is a congressionally funded non-profit corporation that trains state and local law enforcement agencies in how to combat emerging economic and cyber crime problems. NW3C provides information and research to the general public in the prevention of economic and cyber crime. In their partnership with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, NW3C assists Internet crime victims by relaying their reports to the appropriate authorities at local, state, and federal levels.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

National Drug Intelligence Center

The U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), established in 1993, is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice and a member of the Intelligence Community. The General Counterdrug Intelligence Plan, implemented in February 2000, designated NDIC as the nation's principal center for strategic domestic counterdrug intelligence. NDIC created HashKeeper, which is a tool of interest to Computer Forensics practitioners and is available free-of-charge to law enforcement, military, and other government agencies throughout the world. It is available to the public by sending a Freedom of Information Act request to NDIC.

The History of Bioterrorism: Anthrax

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Active U.S. Hate Groups

The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 932 active hate groups in the United States in 2009. Only organizations and their chapters known to be active during 2009 are included.

All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.

This list was compiled using hate group publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports.

Hate group activities can include criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing. Websites appearing to be merely the work of a single individual, rather than the publication of a group, are not included in this list. Listing here does not imply a group advocates or engages in violence or other criminal activity.

Map can be found here.

Center for Court Innovation

Center for Holistic Defense

The National Criminal Justice Association announced the launch of the Center for Holistic Defense in its Justice Bulletin, describing not only the groundbreaking work of The Bronx Defenders but highlighting our partnership with the Center for Court Innovation and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

The article explains furthermore that, "[w]ith funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the Center for Holistic Defense opened in January 2010 with an initial grant of $250,000 for an 18-month period. Danica Szarvas-Kidd, policy advisor for adjudication at the Bureau of Justice Assistance said, 'This project went through the peer review process and scored very competitively.The Bronx Defenders completed a compelling, well-written, and timely application.'"

Download a copy of the article here or visit the National Criminal Justice Association.

Nazi Lowriders

The Nazi Lowriders or NLR or "The Ride" are a white supremacist criminal organization primarily based in southern California, although it is believed to have spread to other states. They are affiliated with the larger and more notorious gang, the Aryan Brotherhood, and the Ku Klux Klan. Their main rivals are the Bloods, the Crips, Northern California Chicano gang members, e.g. Norteños, the Black Guerrilla Family, Nuestra Familia, Mara Salvatrucha, the Los Angeles crime family, the Russian Mafia, Friends Stand United, Jewish Defense League, Los Zetas, the Israeli mafia, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Members of the gang often display tattoos promoting White Supremacy beliefs such as SWP (Supreme White Power), White Pride, White Power, NLR, the swastika, 88 (Heil Hitler), SS, lightning bolts and other Nazi-related images. Also satanic tattoos (skulls and demons) are commonly used by White Supremacy groups as well as Vikings and other Germanic and Celtic images. NLR members may wear T-shirts printed with white power logos and bands and adopt the skinhead style of dress. Members often deny membership and claim the NLR stands for "never lose respect" or "no longer racist." Some Hispanic members have been accepted into the group, but according to one former member, "you must have at least half white blood, but no black blood."

The Anti-Defamation League's profile on the Nazi Lowriders can be found here.

Pentagon Tightens Supremacist Ban after Southern Poverty Law Center Urging

The Pentagon has revised its policy prohibiting active-duty personnel from participating in hate groups. As the SPLC pointed out for years, the previous policy allowed soldiers to engage in a range of supremacist activities. The revised regulations will finally allow the military to root out racial extremists like airman and neo-Nazi Robert Lee West

Full artice can be found here.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Interpreter as Investigator?


Federal Criminal Defense Investigation attended the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (NAJIT) Conference this weekend in Orlando to address a new and emerging field for interpreters, that of acting as interpreter/investigators. NAJIT a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the profession of judiciary interpretation and legal translation. More on the topic soon, but it did get us talking about ethical rules and guidelines for Interpreters. NAJIT has its own ethical code for court interpreters, and most courts do as well but what about this new role, especially within the confines of the indigent defense office which often hires a staff interpreter that also acts as an investigator? Here is something located on the fly after a long flight from the Utah Courts on this dual role: full discussion here.
Issue:

May an interpreter ethically accept investigative work with a contract public defender, even if the work subsequently requires testimony in court about the matter investigated?

Answers:

An interpreter may ethically serve as an investigator and testify in court. However, subsequent interpreting work may be limited.
By acting as an investigator, the interpreter performs a different role for the party that has contracted for the investigative services. As an investigator, the individual is aligned with the party seeking the investigative services. The investigator becomes an advocate for that party. If an interpreter performs investigative services for a contract public defender's office, the interpreter can not interpret in any future cases involving that public defender's office. The same would be true if the interpreter conducted investigative work on behalf of the prosecution. Having aligned with an adversarial party, in the biased role of an investigator, the interpreter could not then serve as an unbiased interpreter in a proceeding involving that party. The code thus does not prohibit an interpreter from becoming an investigator, but the code limits the interpreter's work after that time.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

FBI to Investigate Officers' Treatment of Latino Man

From the Seattle Times by Mike Carter:

The FBI will conduct a preliminary inquiry into the incident last month in which a Seattle police gang detective and a patrol officer kick a prone Latino man and use ethnically inflammatory language. The April 17 incident was videotaped by a freelance videographer and is the subject of an internal investigation by Seattle police.

The inquiry was requested by the U.S. Department of Justice, according to Special Agent Fred Gutt of the FBI's Seattle office. Gutt said such an inquiry is routine in cases where there may be a possible civil rights violation and could be followed by a full-blown investigation.

Todd Greenberg, the assistant U.S. Attorney who supervises the Seattle office's civil-rights division, declined to comment Monday.

In the video, the gang detective, Shandy Cobane, can be heard telling a man lying on a concrete sidewalk, "I'm going to beat the [expletive] Mexican piss out of you, homey. You feel me?"

Cobane, 44 and a 15-year veteran of the department, apologized for his language at a news event Friday night.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, Interim Police Chief John Diaz, the City Council and Latino groups have expressed concerns about the incident. The Seattle chapter of the NAACP has called a news conference for Tuesday in which it will ask the Justice Department to intervene and will ask the city Attorney's Office and King County Prosecutor's Office to treat the incident as a hate crime.

According to KIRO-TV, which said it got the video from a freelance videographer, Seattle police officers responded to the area near China Harbor restaurant after several nightclub patrons called 911 to report an armed robbery in the parking lot. The patrons apparently described the robbery suspects as Hispanic.

The victim was able to positively identify at least one of the suspects at the scene, a police report says. Police later arrested two of the four men -- one told officers he was from Mexico while the other said he was from El Salvador, according to the police report. A third man was interviewed and released at the scene, and the fourth man was not found.

It's unknown if the man released from the scene is the same man seen in the video.

The video, shot around 2 a.m., shows a group of officers detaining three men, who are lying on a sidewalk about a half-mile from the robbery scene.

After one of the men moves a hand to his face, it appears Cobane is trying to stop the movement with his boot but ends up kicking the man's head. The man can be seen reacting, his head briefly flinching upward. Moments later, a patrol officer is seen stepping on the back of the man's leg or knee.

It was later determined that the man and another detainee weren't involved in the armed robbery, KIRO reported. The officers help the man to his feet and sit him against a patrol car. The man, who has a scrape on his head, tells the videographer: "They knocked me down and kicked me in the head."

Monday, May 10, 2010

Litigation Support: Initial Discovery and 3rd Party Data Assessment Checklist

In cases involving large volumes of data in a variety of media and/or file formats produced as part of the discovery and/or third party data obtained through independent investigation, the trial team should contact the National Litigation Support team and together try to answer the questions below. The answers will direct the work flow and assist the trial team in further planning their strategy and budget.

1. Is there any way to estimate the total volume of the discovery production even though some of it may come later?

2. Will we be able to access all the data?

3. Is any of the data encrypted?

4. Are there specific types of documents that will be irrelevant to our case? (i.e. pictures, executable files, junk emails, etc.)

5. Are there specific types of documents that will be very important to our case? (i.e. emails authored by a particular person, documents created during a specific time period, specific document types such as bank records, etc.)

6. Are there both paper documents that have been scanned and native electronic files?

7. Should we objectively code the scanned documents so that they can be integrated into the native file data set for purposes of searching and organization?

8. Will there continue to be rolling discovery productions?

9. Do we need to look at the entire production?

10. Is there information that the government has not provided that needs to explicitly requested?

10a. In what format or formats do you want to request this information?

11. Is there information that is not under the government’s control that needs to be obtained from 3rd party sources?

11a. In what format or formats is that information currently maintained?

11b. Can you obtain the third party information in a forensically sound manner so as to ensure proper chain of custody?

12. Will the documents need to be shared among the Federal Defender Office, CJA Panel Attorneys and Retained Counsel?

13. Does the trial team already have an Evidence Review Platform in their office that could handle the amount and variety of discovery involved?

14. What is the timeline for completing the review?

Seattle Officer in Video Apologizes for Language

From the Seattle Times:

In a news conference Friday night, a tearful Seattle Police Det. Shandy Cobane apologized for his language to a suspect caught in a widely circulated video aired publicly for the first time Thursday night.

Shot around 2 a.m. on April 17, the video shows a group of officer detaining three men, who are lying on a sidewalk. After one of the men moves a hand to his face, it appears Cobane is trying to stop the movement with his boot but ends up kicking the man's head. He is heard saying: "I'm going to beat the [expletive] Mexican piss out of you homey. You feel me?"

"I know my words cut deep and were very hurtful. ... I am truly, truly sorry," Cobane told the assembled media.



Cobane said that as a 15-year veteran of the Seattle Police Department, he at no time envisioned that he would "do anything to bring such notoriety to my department. Sadly, I did."

He said his words that night were "offensive and unprofessional" and embarrassed himself and his colleagues.

He offered apologies to his colleagues to the Latino community and to Seattle.

He said his comments did not reflect who or what he was. But, "I accept full responsibility for my comments."

Interim Police Chief John Diaz said he appreciated Cobane coming forward with the remarks of his own volition, but that racial and ethnic slurs are unacceptable in the department and the internal investigation would continue.

The Seattle Police Department learned of the video a few days after the April 17 incident, according to interim Deputy Chief Nicholas Metz.

It was his understanding, Metz said, that an internal investigation was launched shortly after that.

But Cobane was not placed on administrative assignment until Friday, Metz said.

This is Your War on Drugs

From the Atlantic by Megan McArdle:

Andrew has already posted this, and I'm late to the game because I couldn't bring myself to watch it, but nonetheless, I feel compelled to remark. Yes, folks, this is your war on drugs:



After he watched it, my more temperate better half was literally shaking with anger. My anger is mixed with a sort of bleak despair that this sort of thing could happen in America, and worse, that so few people care. You shoot two dogs in front of a seven year old--who could have been killed by a stray round, and at the very least will carry this hideous recollection to the grave. And why? For misdemeanor pot possession?

No, say the police; they executed the warrant too late. Had they come earlier, undoubtedly they would have found . . . dealer sized amounts of pot.

This response is nonsensical. It's like hearing that they came too late to catch the family bootlegging cable. Sure it's illegal, and maybe it's even wrong. But "dealer-sized" pot possession isn't necessarily related to actual drug dealings--I have several friends right now who probably qualify, and I'm pretty sure they aren't going to do anything that merits a SWAT intervention, because those sorts of things can get you drummed right out of your Tuesday-night book club, not to mention how they'd take it at the Rotary.

But frankly I don't care if the owner of the pot was a drug dealer. For that matter, I do not care if he had a mountain of marijuana in his back yard in which he liked to roll around naked. It still wouldn't constitute a good reason for armed men to burst through his door without knocking, much less light up the family pets in front of the kid.

Have you ever had one of those arguments in a bar that start around eleven and wind up when the bartender kicks you out? It starts off on some perfectly reasonable topic, but as the hours and the drinks mount up, the participants are forced to stake out some clear logical positions, and in doing so, crawl farther and farther out along the limb they are defending . . . until suddenly you reach a point at which one of the debaters can either abandon their initial commitment, or endorse the slaughter of 30,000 Guatemalan orphans. And there's this long pause, and then he says, "Look, it's not like I want to kill those orphans . . . "

This is our nation's drug enforcement in a nutshell. We started out by banning the things. And people kept taking them. So we made the punishments more draconian. But people kept selling them. So we pushed the markets deep into black market territory, and got the predictable violence . . . and then we upped our game, turning drug squads into quasi-paramilitary raiders. Somewhere along the way, we got so focused on enforcing the law that we lost sight of the purpose of the law, which is to make life in America better.

I don't know how anyone can watch that video, and think to themselves, "Yes, this is definitely worth it to rid the world of the scourge of excess pizza consumption and dopey, giggly conversations about cartoons." Short of multiple homicide, I'm having trouble coming up with anything that justifies that kind of police action. And you know, I doubt the police could either. But they weren't busy trying to figure out if they were maximizing the welfare of their larger society. They were, in that most terrifying of phrases, just doing their jobs.

And in the end, that is our shame, not theirs.

Eric Holder: Hey, Let’s Change Miranda

From the National Review Online:

Attorney General Eric Holder says he is discussing with Congress possible modifications in the law where police are required to inform suspects of the right to remain silent.

The administration has been criticized for reading Miranda rights to the suspect in the Times Square bombing attempt and to the suspect in the Christmas Day attempt to blow up an airliner over Detroit.

Holder, speaking Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” said both suspects continued to talk to law enforcement after the Miranda warnings.

But he said the administration needs to consider at least modifying the public safety exception for reading a suspect his rights to ensure law enforcement can act with flexibility and within constitutional bounds.


Full article here.

Friday, May 7, 2010

DNA Tests Vindicate Ohio Man Convicted of Rape

AP - An Ohio man who spent nearly 30 years in prison is being released after new DNA tests showed he didn't rape an 11-year-old girl.

Raymond Towler had been serving a life sentence for the rape of a girl in a Cleveland park in 1981. Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) County Common Pleas Judge Eileen Gallagher choked back tears as she vacated the conviction on Wednesday and left the bench to shake Towler's hand at the defense table.

Prosecutors had asked the court to act immediately after receiving the test results Monday.

The Ohio Innocence Project, an organization that uses DNA evidence to clear people wrongfully convicted of crimes, says Towler has served the second-longest amount of time among prisoners in the U.S. who were eventually exonerated by DNA.

Senate Unanimously Passes FOIA Changes

From the ACLU:

The Senate unanimously passed legislation making much-needed changes to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Wednesday night. The bill, the Faster FOIA Act, creates an advisory panel to review backlogs of FOIA requests and recommend ways to streamline and expedite FOIA responses to Congress and the president.

The following can be attributed to Laura W. Murphy, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office:

“An accountable government is an effective government and the Faster FOIA Act will help to keep and hold our government accountable. FOIA is an invaluable tool that has led to greater government transparency and this bill will serve to strengthen that tool. As we have seen, sunshine is the best disinfectant and this bill will help to shine a few more rays into our government. We urge the House to follow the Senate’s lead and pass the Faster FOIA Act.”

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Is Justice Blind?

This question was posed to students in Spokane and Seattle in an essay contest sponsored by the WSBA Committee for Diversity

During May, communities throughout Washington state celebrate Law Day with naturalization ceremonies and public events bringing attention to the diversity of our communities. We also introduce the winners of the Washington State Bar Association Committee for Diversity (CFD) Outreach Essay Contest, in which high-school students were asked to write a 500-word essay answering the query, “Is justice blind?”

The CFD Outreach Essay Contest is a new project developed to promote awareness of the benefits of diversity in the legal profession. The project, which targeted high-school students on both sides of the state, was launched in May 2009 as a pilot spearheaded by the CFD Outreach Subcommittee. The purpose of the pilot program was to test the effectiveness of a contest format for outreach efforts aimed at high-school students who may not have considered a career in the law and who may have perspectives on the legal system that will help our profession attract the richly diverse population in our state. Another goal was to expose students to the many facets of a legal career and promote a discussion in their classes of how they, as young citizens, might promote “blind justice.”

The process turned out to be a learning experience for students, teachers, and CFD members, and perhaps a sobering wake-up call for WSBA members and all other members of the legal system who take it for granted that “blind justice” is accepted as a fundamental tenet of our society.

The Essay Contest

Two schools participated in the pilot: Cleveland High School in Seattle and Rogers High School in Spokane. They were selected because of their significantly diverse populations. Both schools have a diverse array of students including those from varied ethnic, socio-economic, and cultural backgrounds, as well as students with disabilities. For example, over 70 percent of the students at Rogers are on the federally subsidized lunch program for economically disadvantaged families. As explained by Pat Gibbons, English Department lead and instructional coach and contest liaison at Rogers, many of the students have health issues that affect their ability to learn. In addition, about 17 percent of students are in special education and 25 percent of students are members of ethnic minorities. Some of the students participating in the contest speak English as a second language. Only 30 percent of the students have computers at home, so many lack computer skills because of limited resources and exposure to technology. Teo Cadiente, the lead Cleveland High School teacher for the contest, has a demonstrated interest in social justice issues on behalf of his students. His course discusses social justice issues and he has actively participated in Seattle University School of Law’s Street Law Program.

Outreach Subcommittee members contacted the schools in May 2009. The teacher liaisons — Mr. Cadiente and Ms. Gibbons — enthusiastically embraced the project, which was proposed to them in time to incorporate the essay contest into the 2009–2010 school year lesson plans. The contest was rolled out to the students at the beginning of the school year, in August 2009, and the deadline was Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 19, 2010. The CFD received more than 100 essays from the two schools combined.

The contest asked the students to write a 500-word essay answering the query, “Is justice blind?” They were prompted to discuss whether justice is indeed blind, or whether such things as race, age, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, or other “minority” factors are taken into consideration in our legal system. If justice is not blind, they were asked, what changes are needed to make it so? The topic was discussed and the essays were written in English, history, and civics classes as part of the curriculum.

Although the essay prompt asked “Is justice blind?” the topic was presented as broad and encompassing by the teachers who tied in the essay with the curricula being taught in the various classes. Some students chose to take a stand for social justice rather than explore bias specifically in the legal system. All entrants were passionate in their views. Often, the concept of “blind justice,” a familiar metaphor for equality before the law, was interpreted literally by our young writers, i.e., justice does not see or serve those who are poor, of color, from a different culture, or young. However, the essay-contest students’ perspectives may also reflect that this concept may not equally apply in their lives — it is this disparity and the interest to promote equality that the CFD wanted to harness in order to build an interest in the legal profession.

The entire CFD membership and more than 20 volunteers from the WSBA Young Lawyers Division (WYLD) helped grade the essays, which were given scores in the following categories: thesis development and organization, personal link, word choice, voice and style, and grammar. The WYLD membership generously contributed an additional $500 in prize money, allowing the CFD to award a $500 first prize and $250 second prize at each school. Of the two first-place essayists, a grand prize winner was chosen, whose essay appears at the end of this article.

The winners were announced in March at ceremonies hosted by the respective schools. Students from the participating classes, teachers, parents, and WSBA representatives from the CFD and WYLD attended the ceremonies. Student photographers Tony Iszler, from Rogers, and Jazmine Calhoun, from Cleveland, contributed the photographs that accompany this article.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

FBI's "lnvestigative Kiosks" Allow Quick Data Extraction from Cell Phones

From Evidence Technology Magazine:

It seems that every day, manufacturers add features to the garden-variety cell phone that make these mobile devices increasingly valuable as items of evidence. Text messages, call logs, e-mails, photographs, videos-all of this data and more can be found on many cell phones today.

To help local, state, and federal law enforcement deal with an increased demand in analyzing cell-phone data, the FBI has been launching Cell Phone Investigative Kiosks (CPIKs) in FBI Field Offices and Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory (RCFL) locations across the country. The CPIK allows users to extract data from a cell phone, put it into a report, and burn the report onto a CD or DVD in as little as 30 minutes.

Kiosk users only need to have some familiarity with computers and are required to take a one-time only, hour-long training course. Assistance with the kiosks is also available on site at CPIK locations.

Each CPIK has two components: 1) a cell phone examination system that contains software and the necessary cables to download data; and 2) a photographic system that enables a user to take pictures of a cell phone's screen.

Users of the CPIK are able to:

  • Copy data from a cell phone to a computer hard drive
  • Examine data in a report format on the computer screen
  • Copy the report onto a portable device (such as a CD or DVD)
  • Copy the photographs onto a portable device (such as a CD or DVD)

While the CPIK is intended to be a preview tool-not equivalent to a full-scale cell-phone examination such as that performed by a certified examiner-any evidence produced using the tool is admissible in a court of law.

Non-FBI personnel may access the kiosks at their local RCFL. For CPIKs located at an FBI Field Office, non-FBI personnel must have an FBI escort at all times. To locate a CPIK near you and to learn more about the program, go to: www.rcfl.gov

The Original Prison Gangs

From Gangs or Us:

History and background: There are five original major prison gangs known as "Traditional Prison Gangs." These prison gangs, known for their violence, formed in the 1960's and 1970's in the California corrections system and were originally formed by inmates as a means to protect themselves from other groups and inmate predators. Most major prison gangs, also known as Security Threat Groups (STG) are found in the states of California, Arizona, Texas and Florida, but they are also in many other states where they have had a major impact on the state prison systems, They have also spread throughout the Federal Bureau of Prisons where they are known as "disruptive groups." In addition to the original prison gangs there are many other prison gangs. Some have similar names but in most cases, have no direct connection to the original gangs other than friendly alliances.

Joining the list of of the five traditional prison gangs is a group known as the "Ñetas", which originated in the Puerto Rico prison system and has spread to the United States. This group may be found in prison systems (primarily, the East Coast) that have a Puerto Rican or Hispanic inmate population.

These prison gangs, whether Black, Hispanic, or White gangs, are known for their viciousness and violence and use this reputation to maintain power and control over other inmates. The violence includes assaults and murders of inmates, correctional officers and persons outside of the prison walls.

The links below offer the viewer different perspectives on the history and backgrounds of the "traditional" prison gangs.

Traditional Prison Gangs - Security Threat Groups

The following links provide information about the original prison gangs. The information consists of the gang's histories, tattoos, symbols, rivals, enemies and more.


Aryan Brotherhood
Black Guerilla Family
La Nuestra Familia
Mexican Mafia
Texas Syndicate

Ñeta Association

Other Prison Gangs

Subsequent to the establishment of the original prison gangs, other inmates for their own reasons, began forming other similar prison gangs. Some of these gangs are sub-chapters or sub-sets of the original gangs and in many cases, they exist with the blessing of the original gang leadership. Others are copy-cat gangs, who, although similar in names, are bitter enemies.
Additional Prison Gang Information

An excellent source for prison gang information

White Prison Gangs - Gang Identification Task Force

Locked Down - Prison Gangs in Supermax

Pinta Bound
Go Forth and Sin No More
Debriefing

Gangs reach out of prison to commit crimes



Gangs

From the National Criminal Justice Reference Service:

"Once found principally in large cities, violent street gangs now affect public safety, community image, and quality of life in communities of all sizes in urban, suburban, and rural areas. No region of the United States is untouched by gangs. Gangs affect society at all levels, causing heightened fears for safety, violence, and economic costs" (2005 National Gang Threat Assessmet, National Alliance of Gang Investigators Associations, 2005).

Summary

Gangs are defined in many ways, and most definitions have similar components. One common definition of a gang is a group of three or more individuals who engage in criminal activity and identify themselves with a common name or sign.

According to respondents to a 1995 mail survey of 385 large municipal police agencies, gangs had expanded geographically over three years. Fifty-three percent of the 286 respondents "said serious gangs had migrated into their community, and 43 percent reported that gangs in their city had expanded to other jurisdictions, including suburban communities," Responding to Gangs: Evaluation and Research, National Institute of Justice, 2002). In another survey of 3,018 law enforcement agencies conducted in 2000, 95% of the 2,542 respondents "identified activity within one or more high schools in their jurisdictions. Ninety-one percent reported gang activity within one or more intermediate schools in their of jurisdictions" (Highlights of the 2000 National Youth Gang Survey, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2002)1.

Incarceration does little to disrupt the violent activities of gang-affiliated inmates.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons report, The Influence of Prison Gang Affiliation on Violence and Other Prison Misconduct (2001), indicates that gang affiliation increases the likelihood of prison violence and other forms of misconduct. The trouble does not end when gang members are released from confinement. According to Highlights of the 2001 National Youth Gang Survey (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2003), "sixty-three percent of gang-problem jurisdictions reported the return of gang members from confinement to their jurisdiction in 2001. More than two-thirds (69 percent) of these jurisdictions reported that gang members returning from confinement considerably affected their jurisdictions' gang problem in 2001. A large proportion of these jurisdictions reported that returning members noticeably contributed to an increase in violent crime (63 percent of respondents) and drug trafficking (68 percent) by local gangs."

In response to gang violence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) developed a National Gang Strategy in 1993. The strategy was designed to incorporate the investigative and prosecutorial practices that have proven successful in the Organized Crime/Drug Program National Strategy. Encouraging coordination and information sharing between Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies, the FBI is able to identify violent gang enterprises that pose a significant threat and to pursue these criminals with coordinated investigations that support successful prosecutions. These FBI pursuits are an essential component of the U.S. Department of Justice's overall Anti-Violence Crime Initiative (Federal Bureau of Investigation Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Section, 2002).

As a result of the Anti-Violence Crime Initiative, corrections, parole and probation, and law enforcement are developing strategies to work together and share information. "Police and corrections staff developed procedures to exchange information about offenders who are of particular interest to each of them. For example, police gang units may supply state prison officials with information about the gang affiliations and activities of offenders from their jurisdiction who are sent to prison. In exchange, prison officials may alert local police when gang-involved offenders are about to be released from prison, and describe their gang activities while confined" (Police-Corrections Partnerships, National Institute of Justice, 1999).

The effectiveness of multiagency coordination and integration between police, probation, parole, grassroots organizations, and corrections in controlling and redirecting serious and violent gang members has offered positive results, indicating that serious and violent gang crime can be controlled, if not reduced (Police-Corrections Partnerships, National Institute of Justice, 1999).

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A more recent, but limited, report on youth gang activity, Highlights of the 2007 National Youth Gang Survey, is available from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Familial DNA Software May Catch on in Catching Criminals

From the Denver Post:

Denver criminal investigators have connected a man to two car thefts through the DNA of a family member, a first in Denver and one of the only cases in the country solved using the controversial technique.

The Denver district attorney's office and Police Department used software that they designed to run DNA from the crime scenes through a DNA database of Denver felony convicts, Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said.

The search found a man whose DNA was a close but not exact match to DNA recovered from blood found at an auto burglary. Further investigation identified the man's brother as the suspect, and he later pleaded guilty.

"This is the first case we've actually solved and been able to bring charges using the familial DNA software," Morrissey said. "Our hope is the message will go out that we have this software and we're willing to help people who have difficult cases."

Familial DNA has been used in Great Britain to solve a handful of murders and other crimes, but in the United States it has been slow to catch on because of technological obstacles and ethical concerns.

"Because of the vastly uneven conviction rates in our country based on race and ethnicity, . . . you would be implicating a bunch of innocent people much more likely to be African-American and Hispanic. That should give us some pause," said David Lazer, an associate professor of public policy at Harvard who has written on the issue. "At the individual level, we should be concerned that those individuals who have relatives in the database who have no reason to be under enhanced surveillance based on their past behavior will become de facto a part of the database."

The suspect, Luis Jaimes-Tinajero, 21, pleaded guilty Sept. 10 to one count of criminal trespass for both thefts. He was sentenced to two years' probation and credited for the 54 days he had already served in Denver County Jail.

The case was part of a research project, Morrissey said. Investigators ran unidentified DNA samples from Denver crime scenes through a Denver convict database and found six potential familial matches. Five did not lead to suspects, but the sixth yielded the Jaimes-Tinajero case.

Investigators have run roughly 2,000 DNA samples through the state's database of 80,000 convicts, yielding 13 potential familial matches, including some of the same ones from the city database. They are still investigating those cases, Morrissey said.

Full artical at the Denver Post can be found here.