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06/02/2006 - Judging Whether a Killer Is Sane Enough to Die
"Scott Panetti, a death row inmate in Texas, understands that the state says it intentends to execute him for the murder of his wife's parents." Read on in the New York Times.
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05/23/2006 - Judge Steps In for Poor Inmates Without Justice
"Hurricane Katrina took his house, his courtroom and, Judge Arthur L. Hunter Jr. says, his faith in the way his city treats poor people facing criminal charges." Read on in the New York Times.
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05/17/2006 - Build Reforms for Juveniles
"Among the many horrors of Hurricane Katrina was the failure to take proper care of juveniles in custody of the law." Read on in The Advocate.
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05/12/2006 - Indigent Office in for Nearly $3 Million
"The indigent defense attorneys office in New Orleans would get a two-year, $2.8 million federal grant under a proposal approved Thursday by the Louisiana Commission of Law Enforcement as the latest review of legal aid for poor defendants estimates it would take about $1 million to resurrect the troubled system for just the initial six months." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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05/10/2006 - Teenage Prisoners Describe Hurricane Horrors
"More than 100 teenagers held in detention during Hurricane Katrina endured horrific conditions in the storm’s aftermath, including standing for hours in filthy floodwater, having nothing to eat and drink for three to five days, and being forced to consume the waters as a result, according to a report released here Tuesday." Read on in the New York Times.
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05/09/2006 - Report Sees Little Justice for Poor in New Orleans
"For poor criminal defendants, “justice is simply unavailable” in New Orleans now, concludes a Justice Department report that calls for a major overhaul of the city’s public defender system." Read on in the Los Angeles Times.
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05/07/2006 - The Happy Death Box
"We are witnessing a strange new controversy in this country over whether lethal injection is too cruel and unusual to be used to kill unusually cruel people." Read on in the Washington Post.
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05/02/2006 - Judge Ends Oversight of Youth Jails
"In a sign that some of the changes at Louisiana’s juvenile prisons have taken hold, a federal judge Monday approved a request to end the federal oversight of what were once considered to be some of the worst youth facilities in the nation." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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04/24/2006 - Concerns About Pain Put Lethal Injection on Trial
"A flurry of litigation challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection has placed a spotlight on growing evidence that condemned inmates may not be properly anesthetized and therefore experience excruciating pain during executions." Read on in the Los Angeles Times.
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04/10/2006 - Transitioning Ex-Offedners into Jobs and Society
"These days many governors face a conundrum that is taxing their cost-cutting creativity. State revenues are climbing steadily, but the top line of growth is eclipsed by soaring Medicaid outlays, surging retirement obligations, declining state pension fund assets and, in some states, court-mandated increases in public school funding." Read on in the Washington Post.
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03/30/2006 - The Cost of Errant Justice
"A March 6 Post editorial lamented the District’s appallingly low homicide closure rate. Last year just 43 percent of all known homicides reported to the D.C police department resulted in persecution." Read on in the Washington Post.
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03/23/2006 - Katrina Adds to Public Defender Woes
"Although an injection of state financing is expected to help revive the broken public defender office in New Orleans, the system has lost significant leadership in the past week, with three members of the board that oversees the agency handing in their resignations." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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03/20/2006 - Gideon Plus 43: Indigent Defense Still Awaits Solution
"Hurricane-battered south Louisiana has become not just a mission ground for volunteers armed with hammers and nails, but for scores of law students around the country armed with legal pads and idealism." Read on in the Shreveport Times.
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03/18/2006 - Katrina Leaves Inmates in Limbo
"Jamario Alexander Jr., a 19-year-old from New Orleans busted long before Hurricane Katrina on a Hollygrove street corner, might as well have pleaded guilty to a first-time possession of marijuana charge when he had the chance in April 2005." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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03/10/2006 - Public Defense Absent, Group Says
"Thousands of Orleans Parish Prison inmates awaiting trial since before Hurricane Katrina are languishing in jails throughout the state, unable to even get through on the phone to a court-appointed attorney, according to a report released Thursday by a nonprofit advocacy group." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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03/08/2006 - Help Storm Refugees Find Shelter
"When hurricanes scattered to the winds tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents many landed on the soft soil of a nation eager to embrace them." Read on in The Christian Science Monitor.
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03/01/2006 - Request Positive for Indigent Defense Reform
"During the recently-ended special session in Baton Rouge, something remarkable happened. The Legislature passed a resolution asking the U.S. Congress to provide money to the state’s indigent defense system." Read on in the Shreveport Times.
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02/24/2006 - Tensions Rise Over Indigent Defense
"The status of more than 3,500 pre-Katrina criminal defendants sank deeper into limbo Thursday as an Orleans Parish Criminal Court judge and the state attorney general’s office butted heads over how to find money to pay the hurricane-decimated public defender’s office." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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02/14/2006 - Crisis in the Court
"The Orleans Parish Indigent Defender Program might have limped along indefinitely despite chronic underfunding and a crushing caseload, but it won’t survive Hurricane Katrina without fundamental change." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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02/11/2006 - Public Defender Cases in Limbo
"The New Orleans criminal justice system, severely crippled by Katrina, inched perilously close to a complete shutdown Friday when a district judge suspended all cases in his section assigned to the cash-starved and attorney-depleted public defender’s office, setting a legal precedent that probably would affect the entire criminal court." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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02/10/2006 - Supreme Court Puzzles Some With Mixed Answers on Lethal Injection
"In the past two weeks, the Supreme Court stopped two executions in Florida and allowed a lower court to halt another in Missouri – but the justices allowed three other death sentences, in Texas and Indiana, to proceed." Read on in the Washington Post.
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01/23/2006 - Inmates Say They Were Mistreated as Katrina's Floodwaters Rose
"In the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Department of Corrections evacuated thousands of inmates from the Orleans Parish Prison and scattered them throughout 37 facilities across Louisiana." Read on in New Orleans City Business.
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01/16/2006 - Prisoners Deserve Legal Help, Speedy Trials
"An appalling oversight by the Louisiana Department of Corrections in the wake of Hurricane Katrina has created a constitutional crisis in Louisiana." Read on in New Orleans City Business.
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01/13/2006 - The Death Penalty Doesn't Pay
"If the scheduled execution of Clarence Ray Allen goes forward on Jan. 16 – the day after his 76th birthday – he will be the oldest person executed in California since the death penalty was reinstated. But he will not be the first elderly, seriously ill inmate executed, nor will he be the last." Read on in the Los Angeles Times.
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01/09/2006 - When the Flood Ruined DNA Samples at NOPD Headquarters, It Washed Away Hope for Inmates Trying to Prove Their Innocence
"When word began filtering through the prison grapevines that Hurricane Katrina had inundated the vast basement evidence lockers at New Orleans Police Department headquarters and the criminal courthouse, hundreds of pretrial inmates quietly cheered." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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01/02/2006 - Changing Attitudes About the Death Penalty
"As 2005 gives way to 2006, the death penalty remains a major item of business on the Supreme Court’s docket." Read on in the Washington Post.
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01/02/2006 - Changing Attitudes About the Death Penalty
"As 2005 gives way to 2006, the death penalty remains a major item of business on the Supreme Court’s docket." Read on in the Washington Post.
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12/23/2005 - Inmates Freed After Months
"Michael Washington, 40, of Kenner, should have finished his jail sentence for writing two worthless checks more than a month ago. But instead, he was still locked up at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, defense attorneys said." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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12/21/2005 - Make Juvenile Justice a Priority
"Every cloud, it seems, has a silver lining. Though it may not be years before the total costs of hurricanes Katrina and Rita are tallied, the disaster may have indirectly moved one cause forward – the reinvention of juvenile justice in Louisiana. Unfortunately, state revenues could be insufficient to capitalize on this unlikely opportunity." Read on in the Shreveport Times.
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12/12/2005 - Schwarzenegger Rejects Williams' Bid for Clemency
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today rejected clemency for Stanley Tookie Williams, convicted murderer and one of the founders of the Crips." Read on in the Los Angeles Times.
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12/07/2005 - Judge Orders Many Inmates Be Released Without Bail
"Dozens of people arrested before Hurricane Katrina but never charged will be released without bail after months of imprisonment, Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Calvin Johnson ordered Tuesday." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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12/02/2005 - More in U.S. Expressing Doubts About Death Penalty
"Ruben Cantu is long gone, executed by Texas authorities in 1993 after he was convicted of murdering a man during a San Antonio robbery when he was 17 years old. To the end, Cantu insisted he had been framed, and now his co-defendant and sole surviving witness both say he was telling the truth." Read on in the Washington Post.
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11/29/2005 - Death Row: Does Personal Reform Count?
"Exactly 229 death-row inmates have been granted clemency since the United State reinstated capital punishment in 1976, and the list of reasons is short." Read on in The Christian Science Monitor.
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11/09/2005 - Prison Abuse Should Not Go Unpunished
"Louisiana’s special session is underway and one of Gov. Blanco’s 77 action items demands immediate attention. She called for limiting “liability of law enforcement agencies to prison detainees during emergencies and disasters.” The legislature has compiled and proposed House Bill 28." Read on in the Shreveport Times.
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11/09/2005 - Charge Suspects or Free Them, DA Urged
"With a docket of more than 2,000 criminal cases at a standstill since Katrina shut down New Orleans’ criminal court system, the Indigent Defender’s Office is demanding that one group of defendants be brought to court immediately or be granted freedom." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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11/04/2005 - A Trial for Justice
"Since Hurricane Katrina created havoc in the other two branches of government, it’s not surprising that the local court system is in turmoil as well. One early sign of trouble is that parishes hit hard by the storm have begun laying off public defenders – a step that could well slow down the justice system." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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11/02/2005 - Cupboard Bare for Poor's Legal Aid
"Jefferson Parish public defenders will lose half their salaries in two weeks and layoffs are possible in the coming months because the number of traffic citations, and main financing source for indigent defense in Louisiana, have dropped off dramatically since Hurricane Katrina." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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10/27/2005 - Capital Punishment Debate: Staring Death in the Face
"More than a month ago, Stanley “Tookie” Williams was presented with a Presidential honour for his work speaking out against gang culture from his very particular vantage point on California’s Death Row." Read on in The Independent.
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10/26/2005 - Measure Would Alter Federal Death Penalty System
"The House bill that would reauthorize the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law includes several little-noticed provisions that would dramatically transform the federal death penalty system, allowing smaller juries to decide on executions and giving prosecutors the ability to try again if a jury deadlocks on sentencing." Read on in the Washington Post.
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10/19/2005 - State Legal System Locked in Limbo
"It’s been more than seven weeks since Hurricane Katrina threw the state’s legal system into turmoil. Those who were behind bars in affected areas not find themselves trapped in a system that seems to have ceased functioning altogether." Read on in the Shreveport Times.
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10/15/2005 - Inmates Fighting for Their Freedom
"Defense attorneys in New Orleans are fighting to free inmates stuck behind bars – without convictions or hearings – in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which forced an evacuation from the parish prison days after the storm struck." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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10/14/2005 - Courts' Slow Recovery Begins at Train Station in New Orleans
"The inmates, bleary from trying to sleep on a fenced-in chunk of pavement outside the bus and train station in New Orleans, parade upstairs to the makeshift courtroom, their hands in white plastic cuffs." Read on in the New York Times.
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10/12/2005 - Concern Grows About Prison Evacuation Efforts
"State media really hasn’t noticed and Louisiana’s political establishment doesn’t particularly want it highlighted, but there’s growing concern about alleged events at Orleans Parish Prison as Hurricane Katrina came ashore." Read on in the Shreveport Times.
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10/03/2005 - Jailed for Life After Crimes as Teenagers
"About 9,700 American prisoners are serving life sentences for crimes they committed before they could vote, serve on a jury or gamble in a casino- in short, before they turned 18. More than a fifth have no chance for parole." Read on in the New York Times.
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08/26/2005 - Put the Bad Guys Away
"If the criminal justice system worked the way it should in New Orleans, the baddest of the bad guys would be locked up." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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08/23/2005 - Recognizing Wrongs
"The criminal justice system is not perfect. Sometimes guilt people are acquitted, and sometimes innocent people are convicted and sent to prison." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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08/23/2005 - An Irrevocable Error
"Sixty year ago, the state of Georgia executed a woman named Len Baker. Last week the state Board of Pardons and Paroles announced that it would posthumously pardon her. Officials said the execution was a “grievous error” in a case that cried out for mercy." Read on in the Washington Post.
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08/22/2005 - Justice Stevens Speaks
"In a recent speech in Chicago, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens offered some pointed words on the death penalty. Justice Stevens was giving an award named for the late Justice Thurgood Marshall to Abner K. Mikva, a former chief judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals." Read on in the Washington Post.
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08/19/2005 - Hands Off Habeas
"Proponents of the so-called Streamlined Procedures Act justify this radical piece of legislation by citing the supposedly intrusive scrutiny of federal courts of state capital convictions and the delays that ensue. So it is particularly instructive that chief justices of the nation’s state court system have voted overwhelmingly to urge Congress to slow down." Read on in the Washington Post.
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08/08/2005 - Stevens Cites 'Serious Flaws' In Use of Death Penalty
"Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens issued an unusually stinging criticism of capital punishment Saturday evening, telling the American Bar Assocation that he is disturbed by “serious flaws.”" Read on in the Washington Post.
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08/08/2005 - No Rush on Sentencing
"Ever since the Supreme Court threw the world of federal criminal sentencing into turmoil over the past year, there has been a real risk of a dangerous legislative response. The court declared unconstitutional the mandatory imposition of the federal sentencing guidelines, effectively freeing district judges around the country to use their discretion in imposing prison terms." Read on in the Washington Post.
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07/26/2005 - Prison Experts See Oppurtunity For Improvement
"Sister Antonia Maguire, a Catholic nun who works in a New York state prison, told a story about an inmate named Cathy who complained every day for a week that she felt sick. At the prison clinic, she was given medicine for a cold, and hot tea." Read on in the Washington Post.
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07/17/2005 - Evolution, If Not a Revolution
"There’s been plenty of talk about reforming Louisiana’s long-troubled juvenile justice system, but real changes haven’t come fast enough. For that reason, it was a concrete sign of progress last week when the state Office of Youth Development invited outsiders to visit a newly refurbished dormitory at the Bridge City Center for Youth." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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07/15/2005 - Juvenile Jail's New Dorm Unveiled
"Complete with blue curtains on the windows, wooden bunk beds and a set of comfortable couches surrounding a coffee table, the refurbished dormitory at Bridge City Center for Youth is distinctly different from the barracks-like atmosphere in the living areas of most of Louisiana’s youth prisons." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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07/11/2005 - Behind Bars
"Nobody believes that Louisianans are naturally more criminal than people born in other states. So it should concern everybody who lives here that Louisiana imprisons a higher percentage of its residents than every other state does." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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07/07/2005 - Pre-Release Interview Helps Inmates Get Jobs
"The true test of rehabilitation is that people who have served their time become productive members of society – taxpayers, even – upon release from prison. But getting a job and keeping it are tremendous challenges." Read on in the Shreveport Times.
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07/07/2005 - Accountability for All
"The justice system in Louisiana needs to be above reproach, and the state Supreme Court, to its credit, has ramped up its efforts to bring the system up to that standard. The court, which is in charge of policing the integrity of the legal profession in the state, in recent years has removed several judges for greed, incompetence and other failings, and it has sharply criticized the quality of representation for poor defendants." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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07/07/2005 - Snuffing Out Tobacco in Prisons
"California has just joined many other states and made its prisons smoke free. A ban on the use of tobacco by inmates, as well as by all correction officers, took effect on July 1." Read on in The Christian Science Monitor.
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07/02/2005 - Court Ordered to Revisit Ruling
"The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered Louisiana’s high court to revisit its 1999 decision to uphold a murder conviction that send a black Kenner man to death row, saying the state’s justices should reconsider their finding that race had no role during jury selection." Read on in the Times-Picayune.
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