by Jo Ellen Nott
A bipartisan provision tucked into the recently signed National Defense Authorization Act of 2025 has opened new federal funding streams for law enforcement agencies seeking to expand their drone programs, a development hailed by police advocates but met with skepticism by civil liberties groups.
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by Jo Ellen Nott
A federal jury in New York awarded the estate of Darryl Boyd a record-breaking $80 million on November 19, 2025, for the more than 27 years he spent incarcerated following his wrongful 1977 murder conviction. Boyd, who died of pancreatic cancer in February 2025 …
by Jo Ellen Nott
Homeowners are often left financially devastated and without clear legal recourse after police raids cause extensive property damage, forcing them to bear costs that many say should be the public’s responsibility.
The case of Vicki Baker, whose Texas home was ruined by a …
by Jo Ellen Nott
Texas A&M AgriLife Research has developed a new forensic tool that could revolutionize how investigators estimate time of death. Researchers have devised a technique using infrared light and machine learning to determine the sex of blow fly larvae found on human remains, a critical …
by Jo Ellen Nott
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), backed by new legislation passed in July 2025 called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is engaging in a never-before-seen expansion of mass surveillance technology. This technology was originally intended to seek and find undocumented immigrants but now is …
by Jo Ellen Nott
The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) is facing scrutiny over its unauthorized practice of harvesting DNA from nearly 2,000 U.S. citizens, including children, and submitting their genetic profiles to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (“CODIS”), as reported by Wired. This large-scale expansion, which …
by Jo Ellen Nott
A Manhattan judge vacated the convictions of Brian Boles and Charles Collins for a 1994 Harlem murder, the Innocence Project reported. Judge Ruth Pickholz ended the nearly three-decade ordeal, which stemmed from a coerced and factually impossible confession from Brian Boles, who was just …
by Jo Ellen Nott
Police adoption of drone-as-first-responder (“DFR”) programs is increasing and now integrating with automated license plate reader (“ALPR”) technology to create a potent new form of surveillance, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”) reports. Companies like Flock Safety are marketing their drones, specifically the Aerodome, as …
A question posed by a child in a Curious Kids column in The Conversation, a nonprofit news website written by academics, led a biomedical engineer to a discovery that could aid forensic analysis at crime scenes involving water exposure.
Guy German, a biomedical engineer at Binghamton University in …
A groundbreaking adaptation of perovskite technology is poised to transform forensic analysis of gunshot residue (“GSR”), offering unprecedented speed and sensitivity. “Perovskite” refers to a class of materials with a specific crystal structure, named after the mineral calcium titanate, discovered by Russian mineralogist Lev Perovski. Traditional GSR analysis, which …
