Rust in the Wheels of Justice

New Orleans.
Really Scary:
As the city’s criminal justice system slowly gears back up after Hurricane Katrina, as many as 500 defendants, mostly in drug, theft and assault cases, have been freed because of problems with evidence, including difficulty in finding the witnesses who have moved away.

Law-enforcement officials say a few of those who were freed could potentially be violent, a cause for concern in a city battling a surge in drug-related killings. And some judges say that missing witnesses and damaged evidence, like spoiled DNA samples and rusted guns, will almost certainly lead to more acquittals, even in cases of murder, rape and armed robbery.

Whole article

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Color Change Paint Job

Image
I spotted another car with one of those awesome paint jobs that change colors are you drive past. I used to see one with a different set of hues parked in from of a local vinyl liner pool company here in Gulf Shores. This is what I'd like on my VW Thing, but I want coral and peach shades so it look like a woman's fingernail polish rack at the nail salon. Anyone know anything about this type of paint job ? What is it called ? What's it cost. Where do you go to get it ?
Read more

Class distinctions and social networking sites

Interesting read: An excerpt: A month ago, the military banned MySpace but not Facebook. This was a very interesting move because the division in the military reflects the division in high schools. Soldiers are on MySpace; officers are on Facebook. Facebook is extremely popular in the military, but it's not the SNS of choice for 18-year old soldiers, a group that is primarily from poorer, less educated communities. They are using MySpace. The officers, many of whom have already received college training, are using Facebook. The military ban appears to replicate the class divisions that exist throughout the military. I can't help but wonder if the reason for this goes beyond the purported concerns that those in the military are leaking information or spending too much time online or soaking up too much bandwidth with their MySpace usage. The entire article
Read more

Is It Just ME?

Two odd phrases keep popping up in print that just seem weird to me. Here is one: "I am absolutely appalled that another computer containing the personal information of veterans has gone missing ," said Sen. Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican. Why not say "is missing" ? Doesn't "has gone" imply some action on the part of the computer? And our local newspaper recently had headlines that said: "City looks to buy land on Ft. Morgan Road" Is "looks to buy" an accepted English phrase for "considers" or similar? Maybe it is, but both of those phrases sound rather like Granny Clampett to me. Your opinion?
Read more