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Karen Heller: After 57 Years Behind Bars, a Juvenile Lifer Speaks

By Karen Heller

The Philadelphia Inquirer

That Friday night in February, Joe Ligon went drinking.

He tore through the neighborhood, South Philadelphia, with five other teenagers looking for money to buy wine. One boy carried two switchblades.

Something went wrong. By night's end, eight men had been knifed. There's no question Ligon was involved. He admits stabbing Clarence Belvey. Two men, Charles Pitts and Jackson Hamm, died before midnight.

Ligon was 15.

The lawyer instructed him to plead guilty to the murders at the one-day trial. Ligon was sentenced to life without possibility of parole.

In 1953.

Since then, the other defendants have been released or died.

Not Ligon.

He's lived the last 57 years in prison, four decades in Graterford.

In all those years, Ligon never spoke to a reporter.

Until now. When he starts, he cannot stop, and talks himself hoarse. Five hours, without break, a torrent.

He wants to tell his story, especially since May, when the U.S. Supreme Court, in Graham v. Florida, ruled that sentencing a juvenile to life in prison for a non-homicide without possibility of parole is unconstitutional. The decision now makes it likely that the courts will eventually strike down life in prison without the possibility of parole for juveniles charged with homicide.

The United States leads the world in juveniles sentenced to life without parole, a practice condemned by international human-rights groups.

Pennsylvania, with 473 such prisoners, a quarter of all inmates similarly sentenced, leads the nation.

And, in that group, Joe Ligon leads in length of time served.

"No one else was sentenced the way I was sentenced," Ligon said, sitting in a tiny corner room in the visitors area. "We went to court together. Here I am, and they are out."

He's a formal man, voluble, passionate yet never exhibiting anger. Trim, fit, 5-foot-8, his hair is white as down, the hairline retreating north. "I only have but six teeth left in my head."

Ligon entered prison when Eisenhower was in his first year, 10 presidencies ago.

In the trial transcript, defendants are identified as "colored." There are references to a pool hall, a saloon. Ligon attended Thomas Durham, where he was enrolled in the "O.B." program - "orthogenically backward."

On Dec. 18, 1953, when his freedom ended, "I couldn't read or write my own name. I'm one of those slow learners." Today, he reads at a third-grade level, his letters typed by fellow inmates to his dictation.

"I am more, or less, of a loner. I like to do things by myself. I'm not alone in this prison, but I like to be alone when I can. If you don't join a group, you can't get in trouble," he said Monday. "They called us the 'headhunter gang' at the trial, but I was never in no gang."

The son of an auto mechanic and a nurse, the second of four children, he had never been arrested. "I was a mama's boy. She wailed the night they took me."

Ligon's father was murdered in 1977. His younger brother, Jessie, was murdered in the 1960s. His mother passed in 1980. He still has two sisters, and a couple of nieces who come to visit, the last time on July 3.

Ligon refers to his former prisons the way other people speak of their schools: Huntingdon (where he pursued boxing, his true love), Western State, Eastern State, and, finally, Graterford, the massive 1929 concrete fortress up a hill from a farm and the Perkiomen Creek watershed at the edge of Montgomery County. He works there as a janitor. "I love to clean. There's no limit to it."

What is it like to spend 57 years in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes committed at age 15?

"I know what happened that night, how I was feeling, what I was thinking," he said, grasping his thin, immaculately groomed hands. "I don't have no chip on my shoulder. I'm not resentful. I don't show no bitterness. I'm bigger than that. I don't let things get the best of me. I don't take things too personally."

Still, he contends he had nothing to do with the stabbings of Charles Pitts, at 17th and Wharton, or Jackson Hamm, at Wharton and Capital. No witness put him at those crime scenes. He was arrested days before his codefendants, hours before the crime spree ended.

"I took the knife and hit him [Clarence Belvey] in the chest. That was at 16th and Federal. I did that. I did," Ligon said. "I regret that in the first place. I knew I had to do some time. Common sense told me that. I knew that when I stabbed that man."

Ligon, his voice a low scratch, said: "I've been able to deal with this situation because, in my mind and in my heart, I didn't kill somebody. If I had, that would have worried me to death. There's no way I could have done that and survived in here."

He says he's changed. Advocates for inmates like Ligon cite neuroscience demonstrating adolescents' inability to grasp the consequences of their actions. They also cite studies that show teenagers have a great capacity for change as they mature and become adults. They're more prone to being rehabilitated.

"For over 40 years, I've had no citations for misconduct," he said. "I haven't been in solitary confinement for over 50 years." He hasn't had a drink, he said, since Feb. 18, 1953.

In the late 1960s and early '70s, Ligon filed a post-conviction petition based, in part, on making a coerced confession for his guilty plea. Then, for more than three decades, he had no legal representation. Without a lawyer, he would surely live out his days in Graterford.

Pennsylvania spends an average $32,000 annually on each of its 51,000 inmates, far more on older inmates with health issues like Ligon, ironically at the age when they're at the lowest risk of committing violent crime.

Conservatively, it's cost $2 million to lock up Ligon for 57 years. That's without the price tags for a hernia repair and 37 treatments for prostate cancer.

In October 2006, Bradley S. Bridge of Philadelphia's Defender Association took Ligon's case after speaking to a lifers group in Graterford. That was the year after Roper v. Simmons, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled it unconstitutional to impose capital punishment on crimes committed as a juvenile.

Several cases in three separate courts are challenging incarcerating juveniles sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for homicide cases. Last year, State Rep. Kenyatta Johnson (D., Phila.) introduced legislation that would grant juvenile homicide lifers a chance at parole after age 31 if they've already served 15 years.

For Ligon, that moment would have occurred in 1969.

In three to four years, the practice of incarcerating juveniles in homicide cases without the possibility of parole "will be found unconstitutional," his lawyer Bridge said. "I firmly believe Joe Ligon will get out."

What it is like to have hope, after 57 years?

"The world ain't the same. I seen that on TV. I heard that on the radio. I hope I live long enough to see the world change," Ligon said. "One of my main concerns is that no one be ever again treated the way I was treated."

Immigration Consequences of Criminal Convictions

In Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S. Ct. 1473 (2010), the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires defense counsel to advise a noncitizen client of the risk of deportation arisingfrom a guilty plea. Defense counsel’s failure to so advise, or defense counsel’s misadvice regarding the immigration consequences of the plea, may constitute ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). The Court held specifically that when the risk of removal resulting from a guilty plea is “clear,” counsel must advise his or her client that “deportation [is] presumptively mandatory”; on the other hand, when that risk is less clear, counsel need only advise the defendant “that pending criminal charges may carry a risk of adverse immigration consequences.” Padilla, 130 S. Ct. at 1483. The Court acknowledged that a “[l]ack of clarity in the law . . . will affect the scope and nature of counsel’s advice.” Id. at 1483 n.10.

Full report can be found here.

Fingerprint Exonerates Deaf Texas Inmate

From CNN.com:

A deaf Texas man, who was imprisoned for years for a sexual crime, was exonerated and will be released Tuesday.

Stephen Brodie was convicted of the 1990 sexual assault of a 5-year-old girl largely based on his confession rather than physical evidence, CNN-affiliate KTXA reported.

But new evidence emerged -- a fingerprint at the crime scene from a different man who has since been convicted of a sexual crime against an underage teen.

On Monday, Brodie was in a Dallas courtroom where Judge Lena Lavario ruled that he will be released, the judge's clerk told CNN.

Brodie told KTXA that he was harassed by police and confessed to the crime to get them to leave him alone. At some points during the investigation, he was interrogated without a interpreter present, the affiliate reported.

"I felt like I was taken advantage of because I am deaf," Brodie told the affiliate in a jailhouse interview where he spoke through a sign language interpreter.

A spokesman for Richardson police, the department that arrested Brodie, told KTXA that the department did a thorough and competent investigation.

i2 - Analyst's Notebook 8.5

i2 - Intelligence-Led Operations Platform

Prosecutors' Conduct can Tip Justice Scales

By Brad Heath and Kevin McCoy, USA TODAY

The jurors who helped put Nino Lyons in jail for three years had every reason to think that he was a drug trafficker, and, until July, no reason to doubt that justice had been done.

For more than a week in 2001, the jurors listened to one witness after another, almost all of them prison inmates, describe how Lyons had sold them packages of cocaine. One said that Lyons, who ran clothing shops and nightclubs around Orlando, even tried to hire him to kill two drug suppliers.

But the federal prosecutors handling the case did not let the jury hear all the facts.

Instead, the prosecutors covered up evidence that could have discredited many of Lyons' accusers. They never revealed that a convict who claimed to have purchased hundreds of pounds of cocaine from Lyons struggled even to identify his photograph. And they hid the fact that prosecutors had promised to let others out of prison early in exchange for their cooperation.

Federal prosecutors are supposed to seek justice, not merely score convictions. But a USA TODAY investigation found that prosecutors repeatedly have violated that duty in courtrooms across the nation. The abuses have put innocent people in prison, set guilty people free and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees and sanctions.

Judges have warned for decades that misconduct by prosecutors threatens the Constitution's promise of a fair trial. Congress in 1997 enacted a law aimed at ending such abuses.

Yet USA TODAY documented 201 criminal cases in the years that followed in which judges determined that Justice Department prosecutors — the nation's most elite and powerful law enforcement officials — themselves violated laws or ethics rules.

In case after case during that time, judges blasted prosecutors for "flagrant" or "outrageous" misconduct. They caught some prosecutors hiding evidence, found others lying to judges and juries, and said others had broken plea bargains.

Such abuses, intentional or not, doubtless infect no more than a small fraction of the tens of thousands of criminal cases filed in the nation's federal courts each year. But the transgressions USA TODAY identified were so serious that, in each case, judges threw out charges, overturned convictions or rebuked prosecutors for misconduct. And each has the potential to tarnish the reputation of the prosecutors who do their jobs honorably.

In July, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell did more than overturn Lyons' conviction: He declared that Lyons was innocent.

Neither the Justice Department nor the lead prosecutor in the Lyons case, Bruce Hinshelwood, would explain the events that cost Lyons his home, his businesses and nearly three years of freedom. The department investigated Hinshelwood but refused to say whether he was punished; records obtained by USA TODAY show that the agency regulating Florida lawyers ordered him to attend a one-day ethics workshop, scheduled for Friday.

Asked about Presnell's ruling exonerating Lyons, Hinshelwood said only, "It is of no concern to me."

The circumstances of Lyons' conviction did trouble Presnell, who oversaw his trial nine years ago. Presnell savaged the Justice Department in a written order for "a concerted campaign of prosecutorial abuse" by attorneys who, he wrote, covered up evidence and let felons lie to the jury.

Records from the Justice Department's internal ethics watchdogs show the agency has investigated a growing number of complaints by judges about misconduct they observed. In 2001, the department investigated 42 such complaints; last year, 61.

The department will not reveal how many of those prosecutors were punished because, it said, doing so would violate their privacy rights. USA TODAY, drawing on state bar records, identified only one federal prosecutor who was barred even temporarily from practicing law for misconduct during the past 12 years.

Even high-profile cases have been affected. Last year, a judge in Washington, D.C. — saying the department could not be trusted to investigate its own prosecutors — launched his own probe of the attorneys who handled the corruption trial of former Alaska senator Ted Stevens. After a jury found Stevens guilty, the department admitted that prosecutors had hidden evidence, then dropped the charges. (Stevens died in an August plane crash.)

Stevens' lawyers question how misconduct could have tainted such a closely watched case — and what that might mean for routine prosecutions. "It's a frightening thought and calls into question the generally accepted belief that our system of justice performs at a high level and yields just results," said Brendan Sullivan, Stevens' attorney.

Pattern of 'glaring misconduct'

Unlike local prosecutors, who often toil daily in crowded courts to untangle routine burglaries and homicides, Justice Department attorneys handle many of the nation's most complex and consequential crimes.

With help from legal experts and former prosecutors, USA TODAY spent six months examining federal prosecutors' work, reviewing legal databases, department records and tens of thousands of pages of court filings. Although the true extent of misconduct by prosecutors will likely never be known, the assessment is the most complete yet of the scope and impact of those violations.

USA TODAY found a pattern of "serious, glaring misconduct," said Pace University law professor Bennett Gershman, an expert on misconduct by prosecutors. "It's systemic now, and … the system is not able to control this type of behavior. There is no accountability."

He and Alexander Bunin, the chief federal public defender in Albany, N.Y., called the newspaper's findings "the tip of the iceberg" because many more cases are tainted by misconduct than are found. In many cases, misconduct is exposed only because of vigilant scrutiny by defense attorneys and judges.

However frequently it happens, the consequences go to the heart of the justice system's promise of fairness:

• Innocent people are punished. In Arizona, a woman spent eight years in prison for her conviction in a 2000 bank robbery because the prosecution never told her that another woman —who matched her description almost exactly — had been charged with robbing banks in the area. In Washington, D.C., a court in 2005 threw out murder charges against two men who had spent two decades in prison for a murder they didn't commit, in part because prosecutors hid evidence that two others could have committed the crime.

They were among 47 cases USA TODAY documented in which defendants were either exonerated or set free after the violations surfaced.

Among the consequences of misconduct, wrongful convictions are the most serious, said former U.S. attorney general Dick Thornburgh. He said, "No civilized society should countenance such conduct or systems that failed to prevent it."

Even people who never spent a day in jail faced ruinous consequences: lost careers, lost savings and lost reputations. Last year, a federal appeals court wiped out Illinois businessman Charles Farinella's 2007 conviction for changing "best when purchased by" dates on bottles of salad dressing he sold to discount stores. The judges ruled that what he had done wasn't illegal and blasted lead prosecutor Juliet Sorensen for violations that robbed Farinella of a fair trial. Exoneration came too late to salvage his business or to help the 20 or so employees he had laid off.

"It's the United States government against one person," Farinella said in his first public comment on the case. "They beat you down because they are so powerful. They have trillions of dollars behind them. Even someone who's innocent doesn't have much of a chance."

Full article can be found here.

Article on Putting the NAS Report to Work

Here is an excellent article from the Wisconsin Lawyer September, 2010 edition authored by Amelia Bizzaro about putting the National Academy of Sciences Report to work in dealing with forensic evidence in cases. (Previously blogged about here, here, here and here). As Ms. Bizzaro notes, the NAS report is an effective tool for litigators dealing with forensic science. Here is an excerpt from the article (full article here):

The report questioned the reliability of most forensic science disciplines, with the exception of DNA-evidence research, noting that such research is the only discipline that “has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently and with a high degree of certainty support conclusions about individualization (more commonly known as matching of an unknown item of evidence to a specific known source).”1 Compared to DNA-evidence research, the report opines, several forensic science disciplines fall woefully short. “The simple reality is that the interpretation of forensic evidence is not always based on scientific studies to determine its validity.”2

On a national scale, the report’s findings and recommendations are slowly being implemented through legislation. The Senate Judiciary Committee made public a draft outline for legislation in response to the NAS Report. The legislation calls for the creation of the Forensics Science Commission (FSC), which would be made up of members appointed by the President based on recommendations from the NAS and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. If created, the FSC will be responsible for setting “rigorous standards for accreditation,” determining which disciplines require certification and the standards for such certification, developing a “comprehensive strategy for increasing and improving peer-reviewed scientific research related to the forensic science disciplines, including research addressing issues of accuracy, reliability, and validity in the various disciplines,” and establishing “standard protocols, methods, practices, quality assurance standards and reporting terminology for each applicable forensic science discipline in order to ensure the quality and integrity of the data generated.”3

Digital Discovery: Organizing Your Cases

CaseMap Introduction and Document Management from Digital Workflow CLE on Vimeo.

One emerging field for the investigator and attorney alike is organizing discovery and case information for litigation. The video above is part of the "Digital Workflow CLE" series that includes tools such as CaseMap. CaseMap is a table based method of organizing data that allows you to enter case documents and enter facts, issues, and track projects that need to get done. The Digital Workflow CLE site has an entire tutorial series for using CaseMap.

New Chapters in the Fingerprint Sourcebook

The National Institute of Justice has released three new chapters from the Fingerprint Sourcebook, a publication of the Department of Justice. The new chapters include Chapter 7, Latent Print Development, Chapter 8, The Preservation of Friction Ridge Information , and Chapter 15, Special Abilities and Vulnerabilities in Forensic Expertise. If you find yourself investigating a fingerprint case, this publication is a must read. For past posts on fingerprinting reliability issues, see postings here, here, here, here, and here.

North Carolina State Crime Lab Update

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper announced changes at the State Bureau of Investigation's crime lab. He named Gerald Arnold, former judge of the N.C. Court of Appeals, as the crime lab's interim director last week. This came after the the State Bureau of Investigation's crime lab was revealed to have some serious problems over the past twenty years of investigating cases as blogged about here and here. These stories about crime labs that are developing across the nation make clear that investigation and discovery are critical in any case involving crime lab results or analysis.

The News Observer reported more last week (full story here):

For 21 years, a key group of State Bureau of Investigation agents tasked with interpreting bloodstain patterns at crime scenes operated on their own, without leadership or written policies.
The News & Observer requested a copy of the bloodstain analysis policy in July. The Department of Justice, which oversees the SBI, provided it late last week. The policy was dated October 2009, eight weeks after the acquittal of a Clemmons dentist highlighted shoddy bloodstain analysis.

Eric Hooks, assistant SBI director, said it was the agency's first policy involving bloodstain pattern analysis.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Roy Cooper wouldn't discuss the lack of policy or bureau leadership, saying the unit was under investigation. Cooper said the group's work remains suspended until he's convinced that their work is scientific and unbiased.

"I was concerned about the potential of influence of prosecutors on the opinions of some SBI agents regarding this science," Cooper said.

10 Internship Opportunities for Criminal Justice Majors

This article was forwarded to me by Todd at Forensic Colleges, who runs a blog and website collecting information on forensic science and career opportunities. It looks like a great blog that has lots of information for people who are interested in criminal justice, investigation, and forensic science careers. Here is a repost of his article on Internship Opportunities he requested that we make available here. Of course I would add to his list criminal defense organizations, federal or state, also have many internship opportunities for the criminal justice major:

Internships are a great way of learning more about the field you are getting into or currently studying and provide experience to know if you are in the right field. Internships also create contacts and networking opportunities, and in some cases, gain credit for classes. There are a variety of different internships offered within a vast area of expertise. The following internships are great for Criminal Justice majors:

1. Police stations

Police stations are a great internship for students looking into police work or becoming an investigator or detective. While internship options will vary between forces, many police stations offer interns the opportunity to work with the several different components of the station. Most stations accept interns in front office work, shadowing a police officer (ride-alongs), and working with detectives.

2. Crime lab

Crime lab internships is a good way to learn more about forensic science. Technology in forensics is constantly changing so it is important to stay on top of the latest forensic testing methods and gadgets. Interning with a crime lab would teach and give you hands-on learning to evidence procedures, forensic testing, drug analysis and many other aspects of forensics.

3. US Border Patrol

The US Border Patrol is a federal law enforcement agency responsible for immigration and border law enforcement. Interning with this agency can help teach you immigrations laws and statistics as well as show and explain the many ways border patrol agents protect our borders, such as on foot, in the water, and at border checkpoints set up across the US.

4. Coast Guard

The Coast Guard is a national organization responsible for various services at sea, such as search and rescue, border control and maritime law enforcement. Interns with the Coast Guard take a public affairs role to promote accomplishments within the force. They also tend to put more focus on public service announcements, all of which are a good way to learn more about the organization.

5. Probation office

Interning at a probation office can show you the daily load and case management of a probation officer. It may also help to give you a better understanding of what consequences are given to certain offenders. Between meeting with their clients on probation, keeping track of them, and attending hearings, the life of a probation officer is usually kept pretty busy.

6. Law office

Taking an internship at a law office can help you better understand what attorneys and their paralegals interact with on a daily basis. From meeting with clients to drafting motions and petitions a law office internship offers great first-hand experience. There are several different laws that attorneys practice though so it is important to intern for one that you would like to gain more knowledge about.

7. County Courthouse

An internship at a county courthouse is very helpful for learning how the criminal justice system works. From filing cases to attending courtroom hearings and analyzing statistics, the courthouse offers a great way to interact with a variety of different people such as attorneys, judges and clerks to understand what their daily routines are.

8. Juvenile Detention Center

A juvenile detention center is a secured place where juveniles who have been into trouble are placed. Interning at a juvenile center would be helpful to learn how sentencing differs in juveniles and in adults. Since many of the juveniles assigned to the detention center are short stays, you could probably learn about a variety of different cases and offenders.

9. CPS

Child Protective Services is a government agency that exists in many states in the US and responds to reports or child neglect and abuse. While this job may not be for anyone, because of the conditions and abuse some children have had to endure, it is a good experience and could make you want to help children and teens who are put through the CPS system.

10. Non-profit organizations

Interning with a nonprofit organization can give you a better view of what hard work is put into these organizations. Non-profits are a crucial part of our society that provide help for a variety of different people and families going through different ordeals. Interning for a non-profit could help shed light on how many families and people really need help.

Mexico Gun Trafficking On Rise

Those working in criminal defense are all too familiar with illegal gun trafficking. No better way to get the feds attention than trading in illegal firearms. But an important question is where are those guns going and how are they being used. A new report by the University of San Diego indicates that massive quantities of U.S. weapons are being delivered to the cartels. U.S. efforts to stop the trafficking are having little effect.

The Washington Post carried a full story today (full article here):

According to authors Colby Goodman and Michel Marizco, at least 62,800 of the more than 80,000 firearms confiscated by Mexican authorities from December 2006 to February 2010 came from the United States. Guns are being smuggled across the border at a rate of up to 5,000 per year. The top two varieties are assault rifles: Romanian-made AK47s and clones of the Bushmaster AR-15. More than 2,000 police and federal agents are among the 28,000 killed in drug-related violence in the past four years. According to Mr. Goodman and Mr. Marizco, whose work was sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Center and the University of San Diego, just one gun store in Houston supplied 339 assault weapons, rifles and pistols to cartel buyers in just 15 months -- which were responsible for the deaths of 18 Mexican law enforcement officers and civilians.

ACLU and NACDL File Lawsuit Challenging Computer Searches

The ACLU has decided to attack an area of eroding civil rights: the laptop search at borders. On September 7th, the ACLU and NACDL filed a lawsuit challenging the Department of Homeland Security's policy that permits Border Agents to search laptop computers whether or not there has been any arrest or even probable cause. The ACLU has published materials on their website including the results of a FOIA request on how electronic media searches were conducted on travelers' computers, phones, and other electronic devices as well as the results of those searches.

Case law thus far has supported the warrantless seizure and search of laptop computers at borders. In one case from the Ninth Circuit, United States v. Arnold, the Court held that at international airports border search of a computer can take place without even reasonable suspicion of the traveler. In Arnold, Mr. Arnold was returning to LAX from the Philippines and was ordered to start up his laptop. Border agents found two pictures of nude women which led to a more extensive search of the laptop, ultimately producing child porn. The District Court suppressed the evidence obtained on the laptop, however, the Ninth Circuit overturned the decision and found the search was permissible due to being at the border.

Searches like the one in this case impact both the Fourth Amendment and the First Amendment. People's entire lives are kept on their computers. The issue is far from over with this new challenge by the ACLU and NACDL. Interestingly, a United States District Judge for the Northern District of California rejected the Government's argument that no warrant was necessary to look through the electronic files of an American citizen who was returning home from a trip to South Korea in United States v. Hanson. The facts of this case also turned on the delay: the Government argued that a six month delay in searching the computer was permitted because the property had not yet cleared customs into the United States.

For more on the ACLU and NACDL's lawsuit, clickhere.

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) today filed a lawsuit challenging the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) policy permitting border agents to search, copy and detain travelers' electronic devices at the border without reasonable suspicion. DHS asserts the right to look though the contents of a traveler's electronic devices – including laptops, cameras and cell phones – and to keep the devices or copy the contents in order to continue searching them once the traveler has been allowed to enter the U.S., regardless of whether the traveler is suspected of any wrongdoing.

"These days, almost everybody carries a cell phone or laptop when traveling, and almost everyone stores information they wouldn't want to share with government officials – from financial records to love letters to family photos," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "Innocent Americans should not be made to feel like the personal information they store on their laptops and cell phones is vulnerable to searches by government officials any time they travel out of the country."

Today's lawsuit was filed on behalf of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), whose members include television and still photographers, editors, students and representatives of the photojournalism industry; NACDL, which is a plaintiff as well as counsel on the case; and Pascal Abidor, a 26-year-old dual French-American citizen who had his laptop searched and confiscated at the Canadian border.

Abidor was travelling from Montreal to New York on an Amtrak train in May when he had his laptop searched and confiscated by Custom and Border Patrol officers. Abidor, an Islamic Studies Ph.D. student, was questioned, handcuffed, taken off the train and kept in a holding cell for several hours before being released without charge. When his laptop was returned 11 days later, there was evidence that many of his personal files, including research, photos and chats with his girlfriend, had been searched.

Liberation Prison Project

Resource for incarcerated client interested in Buddhism...

Liberation Prison Project offers spiritual advice and teachings, as well as books and materials, to people in prison interested in exploring, studying and practicing Buddhism. Lama

A Tibetan Buddhist organization and social services project affiliated with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, since 1996 the project has supported the Buddhist practice of over 20,000 prisoners.

Active mainly in the US and Australia, where we are established as nonprofit organizations in San Francisco and the Australian Blue Mountains, we also have branches in New Zealand, Spain, Mexico, Mongolia and Italy.

Creativity in Stillness

Presentation Zen is a great blog and book on the new and improved presentation. Garr Reynolds's books and blog are a breath of fresh air when looking for solutions to presenting information in dynamic new ways. Here is Garr Reynold's Blog Post on A John Cleese video on creativity...as it turns out, while our laptops and the constant hum of the universe can lead to ideas, Cleese suggests that slowing down is the key to being creative...He suggests we can generate creative ideas better by avoiding interruptions and being mindful of our mode of thinking. After all, the Kubla Khan was left unfinished because its' author, Samuel T. Coleridge, was interrupted during its' writing. As Cleese suggests, "We have to create boundaries of space and boundaries of time":

More from Presentation Zen (full article here):

There is some evidence that insights, for example, are best captured when we slow down, clear the noise and do not think about the problem at hand. In David Rock's book Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long, he says "Having insights involves hearing subtle signals and allowing loose connections to be made. This requires a quiet mind...." In a world that is always online and always connected, it's helpful to close your computer as much as possible. Remove the distractions. As Cleese says, "We don't know where we get our ideas from. We do know that we do not get them from our laptops."

Miranda-?

Excerpt from ABA Journal (full article here):

You have the right to remain silent. anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. And so on and so forth.

Just about every American can identify the Miranda rights; they are almost as familiar as the Pledge of Allegiance. But three U.S. Supreme Court decisions this term show that the court is continuing to slice off pieces of the famous 1966 criminal rights case, Miranda v. Arizona.

The high court ruled this term that a suspect's request for a lawyer is good for only 14 days after release from custody, that police do not explicitly have to tell suspects they have a right to counsel during an interrogation, and that criminal suspects must unambiguously announce to police that they wish to remain silent.

"These three cases indicate the court is not going to expand Miranda an inch, and if they can construe it to cut back slightly, they will," says Rory Little, a specialist in criminal and constitutional law at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

Historically, Miranda warnings have served as a procedural safeguard, articulated by the Warren court "to secure the privilege against self-incrimination," including the right to remain silent and the right to have counsel present during interrogations.

The court's conservative majority has been outspoken about its distaste for the case, and in at least two Miranda cases argued during this past term, they've drawn broad support from the rest of the court. In the process, say many civil rights advocates, the Roberts court has subverted Miranda's original intent.

"This term you had three Miranda cases. None of the cases comes out in favor of the defendant and in some sense that means they did not come out in favor of Miranda," Little says.

In February the court decided Florida v. Powell and Maryland v. Shatzer within one day of each other. In Powell the defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Powell appealed his conviction, arguing the written form of the Miranda warning used by Tampa, Fla., police was invalid because it did not explicitly indicate that he had a right to have an attorney during questioning.

The court disagreed, holding 7-2 that while Miranda requires a suspect "be warned prior to any questioning" and "that he has the right to the presence of an attorney," semantics aren't the issue. What's important, the court says, is whether the warning "reasonably" conveyed Miranda rights to a suspect.

"It's unreasonable to expect that a rote recitation of Miranda rights translates into meaningful understanding of those rights," says Chicago defense attorney Terence Campbell, a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "Custodial interrogations are, by their nature, intended to be intimidating and stressful, which can lead to false or coerced statements."

FIFTH AMENDMENT TIME LIMIT

Shatzer involved the interrogation and subsequent confession of an incarcerated man for the sexual abuse of his 3-year-old child. Shatzer had been interrogated three years before for the same crime and at that time had invoked his right to remain silent. At trial, Shatzer moved to suppress his confession, arguing that his invocation of his Fifth Amendment right years before was still applicable.

With Justice Antonin Scalia writing the opinion, a unanimous court held against Shatzer, and further articulated the seemingly arbitrary rule that the appropriate period of time for a person to be re-acclimated to normal life, and consequently free from the pressures of investigative custody, was two weeks.

"On the facts, no one was going to vote for Shatzer," Little says. "What's disturbing is the broader implications of the decision. When Scalia writes, he writes broadly in ways that can affect future cases. On the broad writing on Miranda [this term], the majority goes too far."

Berghuis v. Thompkins, the last Miranda case of the term, turned out to be the most contentious, as the more moderate justices took stock of the restrictions already implemented by the court.