Doctors question use of ‘excited delirium’ to explain deaths of suspects in police custody

Source: abajournal.com 2/13/24 [ACSOL note: We are posting this since this concept could be used to excuse hatred towards registrants] In October 2023, three Tacoma, Washington, police officers went on trial for the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who died after he was punched, put in a chokehold and tased during a confrontation with police. In December, a jury acquitted the officers of second-degree murder and manslaughter. One detail in the defense’s case may have influenced the jury: A paramedic at the scene testified that he believed…

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How Mandatory Minimums Perpetuate Mass Incarceration and What to Do About It

Source: sentencingproject.org 2/14/24 Eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing laws is essential to creating a more just and equitable criminal justice system. Eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing laws is essential to creating a more just and equitable criminal justice system. Widespread evidence shows that mandatory minimum sentences produce substantial harm with no overall benefit to crime control.1 Determined by lawmakers rather than judges, these sentences represent a uniquely American approach to sentencing that has accelerated prison growth. They constrain judicial discretion, deepen racial disparities in the criminal legal system, and cause far-reaching harm…

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The problem with criminal records: Discrepancies between state reports and private-sector background checks

Source: onlinelibrary.wiley 7/23/23 Abstract of paper: Criminal records are routinely used by employers and other institutional decision-makers who rely on their presumed fidelity to evaluate applicants. We analyze criminal records for a sample of 101 people, comparing official state reports, two sources of private-sector background checks (one regulated and one unregulated by federal law), and qualitative interviews. Based on our analysis, private-sector background checks are laden with false-positive and false-negative errors:60 percent and 50 percent of participants had at least one false-positive error on their regulated and unregulated background checks,…

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Editorial: Providing criminal defense is not a crime. So why do some demonize lawyers for it?

Source: latimes.com 2/13/24 Shortly after Claudine Gay stepped down as president of Harvard University last month, an interesting sidelight to her years as a university administrator emerged: As dean of the faculty of arts and sciences a few years earlier, Gay was involved in removing a law professor from his secondary role as the dean of a campus dormitory. The professor, Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., had caused an uproar on campus in 2019 when he joined the legal defense team of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who was accused of rape…

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