by Ed Lyon
In today’s world of technological marvels, electronic monitoring has far surpassed being useful merely to virtually imprison pretrial releasees and parolees. Nanotechnology has enabled parents to keep their children on an electronic tether while Big Brother sees a lot more than most people would ever believe — ...
by Ed Lyon
Peacefully sleeping the night away, grandmother Charlene Klein was rudely awakened by Allentown, Pennsylvania, cops beating on her door on May 2, 2016. A law-abiding citizen, she opened her front door in response to the Knights in Blue’s persistent pounding, only to find herself entering one ...
by Ed Lyon
Television crime dramas like Bones and CSI that depict sterile, efficient crime labs seem to be little more than good art imitating bad life as instance after instance of shoddy work and poor conditions from Wisconsin [CLN, March 2019, p.30] to Texas [CLN ...
by Ed Lyon
In the early 1970s, an armed team entered a Stockholm, Sweden, bank to rescue hostages being held by bank robbers, as well as to, hopefully, arrest the robbers.
To the rescuers’ shock and surprise, the hostages took up weapons with their captors to fight against ...
by Ed Lyon
Citizens encounter cops in many ways. Cops respond to emergencies, provide security at some public gatherings and private forums, direct traffic, and address children in schools. Aside from uniform colors and headgear styles, cops look pretty similar with their utility belts, shoulder patches, collar tabs, badges and ...
by Ed Lyon
A state-sponsored formal religion in the U.S. is forbidden by the nation’s Constitution. Regardless, one part of the country’s ethos closely approaches a level of worship. That part is freedom. Enshrined in the Pledge of Allegiance as “the land of the free,” the U.S. nonetheless incarcerates ...
by Ed Lyon
In August 2018, California’s legislature passed Senate Bill 10, designed to reform the state’s cash bail system. Cash bail is commonly associated by oppression of financially poor arrestees as a means to keep them incarcerated until they are tried, which far too often results in coerced guilty ...
by Ed Lyon
It has not been long since former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo was identified as the Golden State Killer suspect, a shadowy figure accused of raping and killing his way to infamy, holding a fair portion of California terrorized for decades.
As a former cop, authorities ...
by Ed Lyon
An extremely important and informative study concerning forensic comparison matches sponsored by The Royal Statistical Society was recently published. It represented cooperative efforts by attorney Dana M. Belger of the Innocence Project’s Strategic Litigation Unit, statisticians Bill Eddy and Robin Mejia of Carnegie Mellon University, and ...
by Ed Lyon
U.S. jurisprudence generally strives to avoid conflicting interests and even the appearance of impropriety. This practice apparently does not apply to the system of mayor’s courts in Ohio. Reminiscent of ancient Star Chamber of England, Ohio mayor’s court proceedings have no court reporters or even recorders ...
