Monday, November 22, 2010

2009 National Institute of Justice Report to Congress

With some remarkably honest statistical analysis, DOJ's National Institute of Justice 2009 Annual Report to Congress has a wealth of information for the criminal investigator and practitioner. With study results from Sex Offender Registration (studies show doesn't curb recidivism and researchers question cost of implementation (!)); forensic science in the U.S. (could be better); using DNA to clear the wrongly convicted (200 + freed and counting); improving reentry programs; and improving law enforcement technology. The report is worth a perusal as it gives a sense of what has been and will be funded for law enforcement as well as some helpful information that can be used in sentencing issues with information on courts and recidivism.

Viktor Bout Extradited

Viktor Bout, Extradited To U.S.: Read DEA Press Release here

After more than two years of legal proceedings, alleged international arms dealer Viktor Bout was extradited to the United States from Thailand on November 16 to stand trial on terrorism charges. Bout arrived in New York on a DEA charter plane and was brought to a high-security prison in Manhattan, where he will be held pending trial.

Bout has been accused of using a fleet of cargo airplanes to transport weapons and military equipment to various parts of the world. Specifically, between November 2007 and March 2008 Bout agreed to sell to the Colombian narco-terrorist organization Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), which is also the world’s largest supplier of cocaine, millions of dollars worth of weapons. Bout negotiated the sale to two confidential sources that were acquiring these weapons for the FARC, with the specific understanding that the weapons were to be used to attack U.S. helicopters in Colombia. These two confidential informants were in fact working with the DEA, and Bout was subsequently arrested.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Suffolk County Moving to Videotaped Interviews of Suspects

The best way to ensure reliability of police statements is videotaping. Now, Suffolk County Police have announced that they will begin videotaping interrogations. (Full article here).
Following a growing movement sweeping much of the nation and a high-profile case that attracted attention to the need to record suspects’ statements, Suffolk County is set to begin videotaping interrogations in homicide cases, a move many praised as a long-delayed step that could both protect the innocent and provide clearer proof of guilt.

County Executive Steve Levy and Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said police had installed a digital system that would make good on a pledge they made several years to begin taping these interrogations.

In a joint statement, the officials said the “new system should protect detectives from accusations of misconduct and from accusations of coerced confessions or misconstrued statements.”

But police departments’ use of video also could protect suspects whose statements are made under duress, taken out of context, exaggerated or altered, which many viewed as at least as important.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Electronic Crime Scene Investigation



The National Institute of Justice
has a number of publications that are handy for the criminal investigator. One particularly helpful publication is the guide pictured above: "Electronic Crime Scene Investigation: A Guide for First Responders." The Guide sets out guidelines that should be followed by law enforcement and other investigators to protect, recognize, collect, and preserve electronic evidence at the scene. The guide can help one review whether law enforcement followed correct protocol in gathering data from a crime scene. It also provides tips for anyone, properly trained, to collect electronic evidence without corrupting the evidence. When in doubt, always have a mirror image prepared of computers or other media to preserve its original condition when seized.

TSA Ejects Oceanside Man from Airport for Refusing Security Check


John Tyner won't be pheasant hunting in South Dakota with his father-in-law any time soon.

Tyner was simultaneously thrown out of San Diego International Airport on Saturday morning for refusing to submit to a security check and threatened with a civil suit and $10,000 fine if he left.

And he got the whole thing on his cell phone. Well, the audio at least.

The 31-year-old Oceanside software programmer was supposed to leave from Lindbergh Field on Saturday morning and until a TSA agent directed him toward one of the recently installed full-body scanners, Tyner seemed to be on his way.

Tyner balked.

He'd been reading about the scanners and didn't like them for a number of reasons, ranging from health concerns to "a huge invasion of privacy." He'd even checked the TSA website which indicated that San Diego did not have the machines, he said in a phone interview Saturday night.

"I was surprised to see them," said Tyner.

He also did something that may seem odd to some, manipulative to others but fortuitous to plenty of others for whom Tyner is becoming something of a folk hero: Tyner turned on his cell phone's video camera and placed it atop the luggage he sent through the x-ray machine.

He may not be the first traveler tossed from an airport for security reasons but he could well be the first to have the whole experience captured on his cell phone.

During the next half-hour, his cell phone recorded Tyner refusing to submit to a full body scan, opting for the traditional metal scanner and a basic "pat down" -- and then refusing to submit to a "groin check" by a TSA security guard.

He even told the guard, "You touch my junk and I'm going to have you arrested."

That threat triggered a code red of sorts as TSA agents, supervisors and eventually the local police gravitated to the spot where the reluctant traveler stood in his stocking feet, his cell phone sitting in the nearby bin (which he wasn't allowed to touch) picking up the audio.

According to TSA when the controversial body scanners were installed, travelers would have the option to request walking through the traditional metal detector it would be accompanied by a "pat down."

Why Tyner was targeted for a secondary pat down is unknown.

"I'm 6-foot-1, white with short brown hair," he said Saturday night. "I don't look like a terrorist."

Was he singled out for "punishment"?

Before Tyner was told he was getting a "groin check," a TSA agent is heard on the recording telling another agent "I had a problem with the passenger I was patting down. So I backed down. He was obnoxious."

Tyner is sure he was talking about someone else. On the whole, with a single final exception, he found the agents "professional if standoffish."

He did marvel that while his own situation was being deliberated, many passengers passed through the metal detector and on to their flights with no pat-down. "One guy even set off the alarm and they sent him through again without a pat-down," he said.

Once he threatened to have the TSA agent arrested though, events turned surreal.

A supervisor is heared re-explaining the groin check process to Tyner then adding "If you're not comfortable with that we can escort you back out and you don't have to fly today."

Tyner responded "OK, I don't understand how a sexual assault can be made a condition of my flying."

"This is not considered a sexual assault," replied the supervisor, calmly.

"It would be if you were not the government," said Tyner.

"By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights," countered the TSA supervisor.

"I think the government took them away after 9/11,' said Tyner.

"OK," came the reply.

More senior TSA administrators showed up, and one San Diego police officer. Tyner's personal information was taken down and then he was escorted out of the security area. After he put his shoes back.

His father-in-law, a 40 year retired deputy sheriff can be heard pleading in the back ground for some common sense.

Tyner went over to the American Airlines counter where an agent, to his amazement, refunded the price of his non-refundable ticket.

Before he could leave however he was again surrounded by TSA employees who told him he couldn't leave the security area. One, who kept insisting he was trying to help Tyner, told him that if he left he would be subject to a civil suit and a $10,000 fine.

Tyner asked if the agents who escorted him from the security area would also be sued and fined.

The same man who told Tyner he would be sued and fined if he left, also insisted that he did not tell him he couldn't leave.

So Tyner left.

Two hours later he wrote the whole experience up on his blog and posted the audio files to YouTube.

You could say it has gone viral.

By Saturday evening, 70,000 people had accessed the entry and 488 comments were posted to the blog item. Those comments are divided over Tyner's experience. "Only 5 percent say I'm an idiot," he said.

Far more applaud him for "standing up" to the security forces. Many more people share his disdain for how airport security is conducted.

"People generally are angry about what is going on," said Tyner, "but they don't know how to assert their rights....there is a general feeling that TSA is ineffective, out of control, over-reaching."

If Tyner has touched some undercurrent of resentment, he doesn't want to be the guy who leads the charge to overturn the machines. "I'm not so sure I'm the right person to start a movement," he said.

If he isn't, he can sound like he's auditioning for the job.

Tyner points out that every terrorist act on an airplane has been halted by passengers. "It's time to stop treating passengers like criminals and start treating them as assets," he said.




Blog post by John Tyner can be found here.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

How to Check Your Cell Phone for Bugs

British information security experts MWR InfoSecurity uncovered a flaw in the Palm Pre which allows for the bugging of conversations "anywhere in the world" while a general flaw in Android allows for the nicking of user passwords through the internet connection. Full article here.

Worried your cell phone might be bugged? Here is a step by step guide on how to debug it. A few simple tips to avoid cell phone bugging: don't allow people to use your phone, bugging apps can be downloaded in seconds, and don't allow leave your phone unattended-the SIM card can be switched out in seconds with a card that will allow listening in.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

The Stockdale Paradox


Some of the best lessons I’ve learned about personal development come from a book that isn’t aimed at the personal development market at all. It’s a book about business and leadership, called Good to Great. Author Jim Collins and his research team spent five years trying to identify the common factors that separated good (or briefly great) companies, from companies which were able to achieve and then sustain excellence for fifteen consecutive years or more. While reading, I realized that almost all the findings in the book could be applied on a personal level as well.
While I would highly recommend that you get your hands on this book and read it in its entirety, today I’d like to share a part of it that has stuck with me most: The Stockdale Paradox.

The Stockdale Paradox is named after admiral Jim Stockdale, who was a United States military officer help captive for eight years during the Vietnam War. Stockdale was tortured more than twenty times by his captors, and never had much reason to believe he would survive the prison camp and someday get to see his wife again. And yet, as Stockdale told Collins, he never lost faith during his ordeal: “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

Then comes the paradox: While Stockdale had remarkable faith in the unknowable, he noted that it was always the most optimistic of his prisonmates who failed to make it out of there alive. “They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

What the optimists failed to do was confront the reality of their situation. They preferred the ostrich approach, sticking their heads in the sand and hoping for the difficulties to go away. That self-delusion might have made it easier on them in the short-term, but when they were eventually forced to face reality, it had become too much and they couldn’t handle it.

Stockdale approached adversity with a very different mindset. He accepted the reality of his situation. He knew he was in hell, but, rather than bury his head in the sand, he stepped up and did everything he could to lift the morale and prolong the lives of his fellow prisoners. He created a tapping code so they could communicate with each other. He developed a milestone system that helped them deal with torture. And he sent intelligence information to his wife, hidden in the seemingly innocent letters he wrote.

Collins and his team observed a similar mindset in the good-to-great companies. They labeled it the Stockdale Paradox and described it like so:

You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties.

AND at the same time…

You must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
For me, the Stockdale Paradox carries an important lesson in personal development, a lesson in faith and honesty: Never doubt that you can achieve your goals, no matter how lofty they may be and no matter how many critics and naysayers you may have. But at the same time, always take honest stock of your current situation. Don’t lie to yourself for fear of short-term embarrassment or discomfort, because such deception will only come back to defeat you in the end.

Living the first half of this paradox is relatively easy, since optimism really isn’t that hard. You just choose to believe that it will all turn out for the best, and everything that happens to you is a means to that end. Simple as.

But optimism on its own can be a dangerous thing:

There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens. – Yvon Chouinard
So you need to embrace the second half of the Stockdale Paradox to really make strides. You must combine that optimism with brutal honesty and a willingness to take action.

Now of course, nobody likes admitting that they’re fat, that they’re broke, that they’ve chosen the wrong career or that their marriage is falling apart. But admitting such truths is an absolute necessity if you want to grow and improve. It might feel like you’re taking a few steps backward by doing so, but you can view that retreat as the pull-back on a sling shot: you’re just setting yourself up to make significant progress down the road.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Tarrant 'Bad-Juror List' can be Kept Private, Texas Attorney General Says

By Gene Trainor

The Tarrant County district attorney's office can keep its "bad-juror list" private, the Texas attorney general's office has decided.

Assistant Attorney General James Morris agreed with the district attorney's office that the document should be exempt from disclosure because it contains prosecutors' subjective impressions and is used in preparation for trials.

Morris cited a 1983 state open-records decision that "disclosure of prosecutors' subjective comments about former jurors would tend to indicate state's possible strategy in future prosecutions and in doing so would compromise state's effectiveness in prosecuting criminal matters."

But Fort Worth criminal defense attorney William Ray, who had requested the list, says that keeping it private "flies in the face of open government" and gives prosecutors an advantage.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys usually select a jury after voir dire, when they question potential jurors. Both sides can reject people who they believe could hurt their case. But some Tarrant County prosecutors keep a "bad-juror list" of people who had previously served on juries. The list includes why they should not serve again.

The debate centers on the public's right to know versus what constitutes "work product," often defined as the mental or subjective impression or opinions of an attorney or his investigator. Typically, work product is not subject to public review.

Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Ashley Fourt, who asked for the attorney general decision, said that Ray was asking for work product.

"I think the A.G. made the right decision," she said.

Ray said he asked for the list with prosecutors' comments and the list without prosecutors' comments. He said that Morris answered the first question, about the list with prosecutors' comments, but not the second, for the names alone. He said he sent a letter to the state asking that the second question be answered.

Thomas Kelley, press secretary for Attorney General Greg Abbott, said that the ruling, made in September, covers both questions.

Fourt outlined how the list gets created after she sent a letter to the state, dated June 30, asking that the list be kept private. After a criminal jury trial ends, prosecutors or their staff insert information about a "bad juror" into a word document, she wrote.

"When a jury panel is assembled for a pending criminal case, prosecutors will use this list to aid in jury selection," Fourt wrote.

Last year, Ray forced Tarrant County prosecutors to release a more general list of jurors and their verdict histories after filing a request that went to the attorney general. Fourt also fought last year's release.

Assistant Attorney General Leah Wingerson wrote that the more general list must be disclosed partly because Fourt did not explain "how or why releasing the juror history information would interfere with the detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime."

That list is available for purchase from the district attorney's office.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection Remains Widespread, According to New EJI Study.

Nearly 135 years after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to eliminate racial discrimination in jury selection, people of color continue to be excluded from jury service because of their race, especially in serious criminal trials and death penalty cases. EJI on June 1, 2010, released a new report, “Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy,” which is the most comprehensive study of racial bias in jury selection since the United States Supreme Court tried to limit the practice in Batson v. Kentuckyin 1986...

To read more of this summary of the report, click here.

To read the actual report, click here.

To watch the videos "Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy" or "Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: The Earl McGahee Case", click on the Youtube videos below:



Former Death Row Inmate Freed In Texas

Anthony Graves is free today after being wrongfully convicted of the murder of six people in Burleson County, Texas. The district attorney's office there dropped all capital murder charges against him on Thursday. NPR's Melissa Block talks to Pamela Colloff, senior editor of Texas Monthly, who wrote an exhaustive piece about the case.

Listen to the story at NPR.


DA Stands by Criticism Levied Against Public Defenders


District Attorney Martin Beeson said Wednesday that he stands by recent comments he made criticizing public defenders, as lawyers throughout Colorado condemned his statements.

Last week, after a meeting with the Pitkin County commissioners regarding his office’s 2011 budget, Beeson criticized the local defenders for some overzealous courtroom tactics and told the Aspen Daily News, “Public defenders are not defenders of the public. They are not serving the public good. They are taxpayer-funded attorneys for criminals.”

On Wednesday he said, “I stand by my statement. The so-called public defenders do not defend the public. The law enforcement defends the public. The prosecutors defend the public.”

He specifically referenced a Rifle police officer who was shot in the line of duty last week as an example of a public servant who defends the public. Public defenders, he said, “are government-funded defense attorneys and should be called just that, government-funded defense attorneys.”

His original comments came in response to a question about the state public defender’s funding, and appeared in an Oct. 22 article about the four-attorney Glenwood Springs public defender’s budget.

Since then, the comment has elicited some outraged responses from attorneys, including the head of the Colorado public defender’s office, the president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar and the Pitkin County attorney.

“The men and women that work for the [state public defender] work for the poor with little financial reward because they believe in the protections set forth in the Constitution by our founding fathers,” Colorado State Public Defender Douglas K. Wilson said via e-mail. “It is sad, and scary, that Mr. Beeson does not believe in the same principles.”

Beeson also had criticized local public defenders for excessively attempting to suppress incriminating evidence.

“It should be concerning to all, including other prosecutors, to hear a well-funded prosecutor indicate that providing effective representation to an accused makes his job too difficult,” Wilson said. “Our criminal justice system is based on the presumption of innocence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It appears Mr. Beeson does not believe in either. If that is the attitude of all elected district attorneys, then everyone’s liberty is at risk.”

Shawna Geiger, president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, called on Beeson to publicly retract his statements and said the comments “show a shocking disregard for the United States and Colorado Constitutions,” which guarantee an adequate criminal defense for the indigent.

“As a lawyer who has been charged with the defense of our state and federal Constitutions, Mr. Beeson should know how valuable a service the Colorado State Public Defender provides to our community,” Geiger wrote in a letter to the editor (see page 8). “He should disavow his statements and apologize.”

Beeson said Wednesday he won’t be doing that.

“As far as an apology, they will be waiting a long time,” he said. “If they correct the abuses their attorneys engage in, I will say ‘thank you.’”

Private defense attorney Tom Silverman has called for Beeson to resign.

Silverman is a former Vail prosecutor, Silt judge and one-time president of the Colorado Municipal Judge’s Association, who currently runs a private practice out of Glenwood Springs.

“The statement attributed to him is spectacularly ignorant and reflects an attitude toward the criminal justice system unworthy of a first-year law student, let alone a district attorney,” Silverman said of Beeson. “The DA is sworn to uphold the Constitution, not attack it. Apologize or resign.”

Tina Fang, who runs the Glenwood public defender’s office, which covers the same three-county district Beeson’s office does, said his characterization of their work, “demonstrates why, now more than ever, the public defender’s office must heed its mission to ensure that indigent people accused of crimes in this valley are provided the highest and most zealous level of representation money can’t buy.”

Pitkin County Attorney John Ely expressed dismay at Beeson’s comments on public defenders, and disappointment in the DA declining to cut 5 percent of his 2011 budget, which the county had requested from all of its departments.

“I didn’t think anybody thought that way anymore,” he said Tuesday.

The liberal Denver-based crime and politics blog at www.talkleft.com on Friday deemed Beeson’s criticisms their “Worst Prosecutor Comment of the Week.”

Beeson said Wednesday that, “Most private defense attorneys in this district are men and women of integrity.” But he criticized some lawyers for meritlessly accusing him and his office of prosecutorial misconduct, attacking victims of crimes at trial, and frustrating the DA’s efforts with superfluous motions to suppress evidence.

“These stock motions are filed without a thought,” he said. “They have no merit and it’s their standard operating procedure.”

He specifically referenced two specific cases as displaying patterns of abuse by the Glenwood-based public defender’s office.

In the first, public defenders Fang and Steve McCrohan, Beeson said, cruelly portrayed the victim of a violent rape in Aspen as someone who may have traded sex for cocaine. He said one juror told his office he was led to believe the victim was a “coke whore.” After the jury came back hung earlier this year, the alleged assailant and his defenders accepted a deal in which he pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault.

In the second, Fang and public defender Jim Conway rejected a plea offer Beeson made to a Rifle man accused of murdering his brother and then went through 15 months of pre-trial motions hearings, only to accept the guilty plea deal two days before the man’s trial was to begin last month.

Drawing out cases like those needlessly wastes untold amounts of taxpayer money through the cost of paying prosecutors, public defenders, judges, sheriff’s deputies and courthouse utilities, he said.

“Our charge is to pursue justice,” Beeson said. “They have just one goal in mind ... It is not in pursuit of justice or truth, it is in pursuit of a ‘W.’”

Asked if his complaints were with public defenders in general or with the aggressive techniques of Fang’s current team, Beeson said, “I’m not going to say if it is worse or better. I will say I had no problem with these behaviors from the government attorney’s office under [Fang’s predecessor] Greg Greer.

“This is more than just unprofessional in my belief,” he added.

Record Raids for DEA