Sometimes, it seems like the police don’t follow evidence at all. They seem almost determined to identify a suspect. “Who looks good for this crime?” they might ask. They sometimes get tunnel vision, looking for evidence the suspect is guilty and dismissing evidence...
police misconduct
Is it better for the guilty to go free than to risk a wrongful incarceration?
One of the most well-known and frequently quoted legal maxims is this: it is “better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” That was written by Sir William Blackstone in 1765, but it is far from the first or only expression of the idea....
Richard Glossip didn’t do it and we know who did. Why is he on death row?
In January 1997, Justin Sneed murdered an Oklahoma motel owner named Barry Van Treese. He has admitted as much. In exchange for more favorable treatment, Sneed agreed to implicate and testify against Richard Glossip, the motel’s manager. The prosecution’s theory was...
Wrongfully convicted man sues Milwaukee for rights violations
Two months after Lavare Gould, 19, was killed in 2008, Milwaukee police had no suspect or leads. Then, a man who was arrested in an unrelated case claimed to have information about Gould’s case. The information was conflicting, but it implicated Ladarious Marshall,...
Illinois cops can no longer lie to people under 18
The state of Illinois was once called the “false confession capital of the United States,” according to the Innocence Project. It was after many false confessions came to light in high-profile exoneration cases. "In Illinois alone, there have been 100 wrongful...
3 more forensic labs around the country caught up in scandal
As a society, we must trust state forensic labs to accurately test evidence. They are supposed to be neutral, not agents for the prosecution or police. They have ethical standards. Too often, forensic labs have failed us. When they do, it can result in wrongful...
The IRS is buying and using location data without a warrant
In 2018’s Carpenter v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement is generally not entitled to use cell site location information unless it obtains a warrant for the information. This means that state and federal law enforcement agencies cannot...
Unrest in Kenosha highlights racial disparities in policing
Until recently, many people in Wisconsin may have assumed there was little or no problem in Wisconsin with racial disparities in policing. After a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake in the back recently, however, protests erupted in the city of 99,000. The...
Can police kill with impunity? The ‘qualified immunity’ doctrine
After the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, protests erupted around the globe. Protestors decried the use of excessive force in these cases and in a long list of others over the previous months, years and decades.As a...
After murder convictions overturned, 2 men face quarantine
There was never any physical evidence linking Kevin Harrington or George Clark to the 2002 killing of Michael Martin, but both were convicted of the murder. Now, after long journeys through a hostile criminal justice system, both men have been freed.They've entered a...