by Chuck Sharman
Thanks to misconduct that has tainted the testimony of three now-fired New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) cops, the resulting convictions of 60 people will be vacated and expunged after a judge agreed to a request by Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz on November 8, 2021. ...
by Chuck Sharman
The Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) on November 1, 2021, declined to consider a motion to force the federal government’s secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“FISC”) to publish its opinions. The decision not to grant a writ of certiorari drew a stinging dissent from Justices ...
by Chuck Sharman
The District Attorney for Los Angeles County announced on October 27, 2021, that a murder charge had been filed against a now-fired school resource officer (“SRO”) who fatally shot a young woman the month before. Calling the charge “a first step on the road to justice,” an ...
by Chuck Sharman
A California jury found a cop in a wealthy San Francisco suburb guilty of felony assault with a firearm in the fatal 2018 shooting of an unarmed mentally ill man during a response to a 911 call.
The jury deadlocked on a more serious felony charge of ...
by Chuck Sharman
A recently revealed FBI report provides detailed instruction to law enforcement on snooping through cell phone data, often without a search warrant, while also delving into similarly warrantless mining of social media sites for personal data.
Obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the nonprofit ...
by Chuck Sharman
An academic working paper released in mid-October 2021 found that police officers employed in public schools—typically known as School Resource Officers (“SROs”)—have zero success in reducing the number of school shootings. Still, they do cause an increase in suspensions and expulsions.
The paper, published by the Annenberg ...
by Chuck Sharman
A high-ranking official with the U.S. Marshals Service (“USMS”) is on paid leave. At the same time, the agency investigates a pair of allegations lobbed against him: that he had sex with a subordinate on his office sofa in July 2021 and that he also had ...
by Chuck Sharman
On September 1, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced it was implementing the first phase of its Body-Worn Camera (“BWC”) with federal agents in the Detroit and Phoenix field offices of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF”).
After the BWC program is ...
by Chuck Sharman
The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”)—parent agency of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the U.S. Marshals Service; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives—announced on September 14, 2021, that it was banning immediately the use of chokeholds and “carotid restraints” by ...
by Chuck Sharman
On August 23, 2021, in a decision that immediately enfranchised some 55,000 North Carolinians, a state court ruled that felons released from prison on supervision may not be barred from voting.
The 2-1 decision by the judges of Fifth Superior Court—with judges Lisa Bell and Keith Gregory ...
