Category Archives: US justice system

Ghislaine Maxwell lawyers say Scotty David should never have been on jury

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Attorneys reject explanation that Juror 50 ‘flew through’ screening questionnaire, which would have flagged he had been sexually abused

Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers have said the juror who did not disclose childhood sexual abuse provided a dubious explanation for the omission as they once again requested a new trial.

The juror, Scotty David, was questioned in court on 8 March about his lack of disclosure. David, who was Juror 50, told the judge, Alison Nathan, that he was distracted when he flew through a screening questionnaire for potential panelists.

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He was sent to prison for murder. Then his identical twin confessed

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Kevin Dugar claimed his innocence for years. A letter he received while incarcerated changed everything

Kevin Dugar got a letter from his brother.

It was fall 2013, and Kevin hadn’t seen his identical twin Karl in years – they were both serving time in different Illinois prisons. A murder conviction all but guaranteed Kevin, 36, would remain incarcerated well into his 70s.

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Robert Durst: how a murderer’s death keeps his victims from finding closure

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California law mandates that his conviction will be vacated and the charges over the murder of his missing first wife will be dismissed

In the final months of Robert Durst’s life, it seemed as if the walls were at last closing in on the disgraced multimillionaire and real estate heir. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a longtime friend in September, and shortly after, New York officials charged him with the murder of his missing first wife.

But his death in a California hospital on Monday has upended the cases against the 78-year-old. The murder case over the death of his ex-wife Kathleen McCormack Durst will come to a halt and, thanks to a legal technicality, the murder conviction for the killing of his friend Susan Berman will soon be voided.

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Prosecutors willing to drop Ghislaine Maxwell perjury charge if no retrial

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Prosecutors make offer ahead of sentencing in effort to bring swift closure for the victims as Maxwell’s team push for new trial

If Ghislaine Maxwell is not granted a retrial in her Manhattan federal court sex trafficking case, prosecutors are prepared to drop pending perjury counts when she is sentenced, they said in a 10 January letter.

Prosecutors said they were prepared to dismiss the perjury counts in an effort to bring swift closure for the victims and prevent them from being re-traumatized at a possible second trial.

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Justice prevailed in the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers. In America, that’s a shock

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The jury reached the right verdict – even as the criminal justice system did everything it could to exonerate the three men

It’s shocking that Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William Bryan were found guilty of murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia. Yet the shock doesn’t stem out of any miscarriage of justice. On the contrary, the jury in Glynn county deliberated and reached the correct decision. Stalking an innocent Black man, chasing him, cornering him, and then killing him must come with criminal consequences in this country, and each of the three murderers now faces the possibility of a life sentence.

But the shock is that justice was served in a case where it seemed the criminal justice system and substantial portions of media coverage were doing all they could to exonerate these men. In fact, everything about this case illustrates how difficult it is to get justice for Black people in this country, starting with how often Fox News and other media outlets referred to the case as “the Arbery trial”, as if Ahmaud Arbery were the perpetrator here and not the victim.

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Kyle Rittenhouse wasn’t convicted because, in America, white reasoning rules

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When white people find Black protesters scary, and white vigilantes heroic, where does that leave the legal concept of ‘reasonable belief’?

Before sending a Kenosha, Wisconsin, jury to deliberate if Kyle Rittenhouse is a murderer, Judge Bruce Schroeder informed Rittenhouse’s hand-picked jury that his fate rests on the “privilege” of self-defense.

We now know what the jury decided.

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Has Interpol become the long arm of oppressive regimes?

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Once used in the hunt for fugitive criminals, the global police agency’s most-wanted ‘red notice’ list now includes political refugees and dissidents

Flicking through the news one day in early 2015, Alexey Kharis, a California-based businessman and father of two, came across a startling announcement: Russia would request a global call for his arrest through the International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol.

“Oh, wow,” Kharis thought, shocked. All the 46-year-old knew about Interpol and its pursuit of the world’s most-wanted criminals was from novels and films. He tried to reassure himself that things would be OK and it was just an intimidatory tactic of the Russian authorities. Surely, he reasoned, the world’s largest police organisation had no reason to launch a hunt for him.

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Robert Durst sentenced to life in prison for murdering his friend Susan Berman

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The real estate heir had been convicted of first-degree murder last month as prosecutors argued he shot Berman in her home

Robert Durst, the real estate heir suspected in a string of killings over nearly four decades, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for murdering his friend and confidante Susan Berman.

A Los Angeles jury convicted Durst, 78, of first-degree murder last month for the 2000 killing. Prosecutors argued that Durst had shot Berman at point-blank range in her home to prevent her from telling police what she knew about the 1982 disappearance of Durst’s first wife, Kathie McCormack Durst. The verdict marked the first homicide conviction for Durst, who has been linked to the deaths of three people in three states.

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US halts all federal executions amid review of capital punishment

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Attorney general orders temporary pause following historic use of death penalty under Trump administration

The US attorney general has imposed a moratorium on all federal executions while the justice department reviews its policies and procedures on capital punishment. Civil rights and criminal justice advocates have been pushing for a halt following a wave of controversial executions under the Trump administration.

Citing the disproportionate impact of capital punishment on people of color, and deep controversy over the drugs used to put people to death, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, ordered a temporary pause on scheduling executions.

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27 years, prison and youth detention: how two friends survived a rotten penal system

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Wisconsin’s hardline criminal justice policies ensnared Hamid Abd-Al-Jabbar and David Thompson. Over decades, they helped each other find freedom

This story was originally published by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. Sign up for its newsletters here.

On a December afternoon in 2018, Hamid Abd-Al-Jabbar pulled into the parking lot of a McDonald’s on Milwaukee’s north side. Overhead, under the company’s iconic arches, the “M” was smashed out. A stretch of cracked pavement connected the restaurant to the headquarters of 414LIFE, the violence prevention nonprofit where he worked.

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Biden’s attorney general puts domestic terror and civil rights at top of agenda

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Analysis: Merrick Garland has made a clean break with Bill Barr, making domestic terrorism his ‘top priority’ winning won praise for his moves on civil and voting rights

The new attorney general, Merrick Garland, has signaled an ambitious agenda to fight domestic terrorism in America including white supremacists and hate crimes, while bolstering civil rights and voting rights, critical areas that got short shrift from the Trump administration, say ex-federal prosecutors and members of Congress.

The shift at the Department of Justice represents one of the most stark turnarounds under Joe Biden from the Trump era. Under the previous attorney general, Bill Barr, the justice department was often seen as at Trump’s beck and call, the former president accused of treating it as virtually his own legal service.

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Justice department to investigate Minneapolis policing practices

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  • Merrick Garland announces ‘pattern and practice’ investigation
  • Police use of force and possible discrimination to be scrutinized

The US justice department announced on Wednesday that it is launching a sweeping investigation into policing practices in Minneapolis, less than a day after a white former officer was convicted of murdering George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, there.

The investigation will examine the use of force by police officers, including force used during protests, and whether Minneapolis police engage in discriminatory practices, the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said in Washington DC on Wednesday morning.

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Engineer who stole trade secrets from Google among those pardoned by Trump

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Anthony Levandowski’s pardon had the support of billionaire Peter Thiel, who donated to Trump’s 2016 campaign

In his final hours of office, Donald Trump pardoned a former Google engineer who was convicted of stealing trade secrets from the company before taking up a new role with competitor Uber.

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‘A lifetime of torture’: the story of the woman Trump is rushing to execute

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Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on death row, was found guilty of an ‘especially heinous’ crime – but those who have looked deeply into her agonized life see it differently

Lisa Montgomery’s first experiences of sexual abuse occurred indirectly when she was three years old. She would lie in bed at night beside her beloved half-sister Diane, close enough to touch, while Diane, then eight, was being raped by their male babysitter.

At the age of 11, Montgomery learnt what it was like to be attacked herself. Her stepfather Jack, a “mean drunk” who regularly beat her and her mother, began raping her once or twice a week.

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Execution of only woman on US federal death row can go ahead, court rules

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Lisa Montgomery, who strangled a pregnant woman and cut her baby out of her belly, is set to be executed by lethal injection on 12 January

A US appeals court has cleared the way for the only woman on federal death row to be executed before president-elect Joe Biden takes office.

The ruling, handed down on Friday by a three-judge panel on the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, concluded that a lower court judge erred when he vacated Lisa Montgomery’s execution date in an order last week.

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US special forces veteran charged with spying for Moscow

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Prosecutors say Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 45, was recruited by the Russians as early as 1996

A former US army green beret living in northern Virginia has been arrested and charged with divulging military secrets about his unit’s activities during more than a decade of contacts with Russian intelligence.

Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 45, told Russian intelligence he considered himself a son of Russia, according to an indictment made public after his arrest on Friday.

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US drops charges against banker investigated by Daphne Caruana Galizia

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Family of murdered journalist call on Malta to prosecute Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejadin, whose Pilatus Bank was shut down for money laundering

The US department of justice has made an unusual decision to drop charges against a prominent Iranian banker who was convicted of bank fraud in March after prosecutors in New York said they did not have the resources to continue to prosecute the case on appeal.

The decision by the DOJ represents an extraordinary turn of events in an investigation that began in 2013 and was closely followed in Malta, where the defendant in the case controlled Pilatus Bank, which had ties to the country’s former prime minister, Joseph Muscat, and other top officials.

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FBI investigating Ahmaud Arbery shooting as possible hate crime, lawyer says

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Attorney for family of black jogger shot by white men says federal authorities are looking into prosecutors and police in case

The FBI is investigating the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a black jogger, by two white men as a possible hate crime, the Arbery family’s attorney said Monday, claiming that federal authorities had launched a criminal inquiry into two district attorneys and the police department involved in the case.

Lee Martin, who represents the family of Arbery, 25, whose 23 February killing in Brunswick, Georgia, was captured on a graphic video recording that sparked national outrage, said he met with officials from the Department of Justice last Thursday.

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Michael Flynn: judge pauses justice department effort to dismiss case

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Order paves way for legal experts to oppose Trump administration motion to exonerate former adviser

A federal judge has put the justice department’s decision to dismiss a criminal case against Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, on hold – opening the door for legal experts and other outside parties to oppose the administration’s motion to exonerate Flynn of lying to the FBI.

Judge Emmet Sullivan’s order is the latest development in the high-profile case, which has led critics, including Barack Obama and hundreds of former FBI and justice department officials, to question whether William Barr, the attorney general, was orchestrating favors for Trump.

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Georgia to consider charges in killing of unarmed black jogger as video emerges

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Prosecutors were reluctant to charge former police officer and son in shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery

A prosecutor in Georgia said on Tuesday he would ask a grand jury to decide if charges should be filed against a white former law enforcement officer and his son in the fatal shooting of an unarmed young black man as he ran through a small town.

The shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery outside Brunswick, Georgia, in February was captured on videotape and posted on social media on Tuesday, stirring outrage over the reluctance of prosecutors to file charges against Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis.

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