Author: rbchatelle

“Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins’ ongoing initiative to review untested rape kits revealed that Michael Phillips was innocent. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, this is the first time in the United States an exoneration of this nature has occurred…as a result of a district attorney’s systematic testing without active request by a… Continue reading A First of its Kind Exoneration

The NCRJ brought the San Antonio Four case to the Innocence Project of Texas. Working with Mike Ware and Keith Hampton was a terrific experience. We congratulate them on this well deserved award and we look forward to continue working with them. http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/%E2%80%9Ci-believe-it%E2%80%99s-heroic-calling%E2%80%9D

photo credit: Peter Chermayeff Few things gladden my heart as much as watching an innocent person walk free after many years of wrongful incarceration. I believe I’ve experienced this only four times. Yesterday, I watched Victor Rosario walk free after 32 years of wrongful incarceration. Victor’s sentence was voided on July 7th and a new… Continue reading Victor Rosario is Free!

A post from Simple Justice, a Criminal Defense Blog. The comments are worth reading as well.

Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project who has written the “book” on how to conduct post-conviction investigations, in a surprise move yesterday, submitted an affirmation supporting Jesse Friedman motion for a full-blown fact hearing seeking to overturn his 1998 guilty plea to molesting young boys in his Great Neck home. http://wiselawny.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/scheck-takes-a-different-tack-in-friedman-case/ The affirmation.

FROM: Lonnie Soury, Soury Communications, Inc. 212.414.5857, lsoury@aol.com For Immediate Release  JESSE FRIEDMAN SUES NASSAU COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY KATHLEEN RICE FOR DEFAMATION  Rice Knowingly Published False Materials Damaging to Jesse Friedman and Released Them to the New York Post and the New York Times  (Mineola, NY, Thursday, June 19, 2014) Jesse Friedman, who was wrongfully convicted… Continue reading Jesse Friedman Sues Nassau County DA

This article, by NCRJ director Emily Horowitz, addresses the past few decades of mass media coverage of crimes against children and the new laws, including the explosion of sex offender laws, aimed at protecting them, by placing rampant media coverage and extensive new legislation in a broader historical and social context, in an effort to… Continue reading “I was a child abuser!”: What we read when we read about child abuse

  NBC News did a long and fair piece on Sharie Keil, an activist in Missouri for Reform Sex Offender Laws, which the network describes as “a shame-free alliance of offenders and their families, supported by researchers and some advocates who helped pass stringent anti-abuse laws in the first place.” Of Keil, it says: She… Continue reading My son, the sex offender: NBC News

The Growth of Incarceration in the United States — a new report from the National Research Council —  argues that “the United States has gone far past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits and has reached a level where these high rates of incarceration themselves constitute… Continue reading New report: The high cost of incarceration

An editorial by NCRJ Advisor Dr. Susan Robbins. Dr, Robbins reviews the history of the DSM as psychiatry evolved from being psychoanalytically based towards a biomedical model. Robbins says “Each DSM revision attempted to add a patina of scientific discovery, despite the failure to empirically denonstrate major advances in either reliability or validity.” She also… Continue reading The DSM-5 and its Role in Social Work Assessment and Research