by Jo Ellen Nott
On November 12, 2022, the former police chief of Tampa, Florida, and her husband decided to ride out in their golf cart to pick up a take-out meal in their affluent suburb of Oldsmar, located on Tampa Bay. It was a decision Mary O’Connor would come ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On December 1, 2022, the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons made decisions on the 2,600 applications it received under Democratic Governor Tom Wolf’s PA Marijuana Pardon Project available during September 2022. The program’s aim was a “one-time, large-scale pardoning project for people with select minor, non-violent marijuana ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On November 29, 2022, the city of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors approved the use of killer robots for law enforcement. The San Francisco Police Department had previously petitioned for permission to deploy robots to kill suspects that law enforcement considers posing “a sufficient threat to ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
Public defenders and advocacy groups in New York City sent letters of concern to the city’s five district attorneys in 2021 about police testimony and investigations dating back several decades. The letters referenced cases in which the arresting officers’ criminal misconduct unknown at the time tainted ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On November 8, 2022, voters in Missouri passed a ballot initiative legalizing cannabis for recreational use after having approved marijuana for medical use four years earlier. Amendment 3, or Legal Missouri 2022, passed with 53% voter support. The medical marijuana initiative passed with 65% of the ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On August 18, 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) announced that his new election and security unit had arrested and was charging 20 people across the state with voting illegally in the 2020 election. Not surprisingly, the group was mostly comprised of Black man who had ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On November 11, 2022, three former Sharon Park police officers pleaded guilty to lesser charges in the death of an eight-year-old girl killed in the crossfire between them and two teenagers after a high school football game in August of 2021. The cops each pleaded guilty ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) issued a bombshell report on October 13, 2022, revealing that the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department “systematically violated criminal defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to counsel and Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law” ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On September 16, 2022, attorneys from the Civil Rights Clinic of the Georgetown University Law Center filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against Governor Greg Abbott (R) and the Texas Department of Safety in the case of Rohn M. Weatherly. Texas retroactively adjusted Weatherly’s ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On October 26, 2022, defendant Nicholas Rodean was sentenced to 240 days of home confinement for his participation in the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Rodean, 29, had been convicted in July 2022 of a felony and six misdemeanors in conjunction ...
