Author: rbchatelle

It all began last year when the victims, his own sons, realized what they had done. Nathan Hawkins was nine-years-old when he told police a story he made up. “At nine-years-old, I didn’t know what I was doing to be honest,” he told ABC4 in November. “I was able to make up horrific lies with… Continue reading The Justice Files: Exonerated Top Stories

(bigstock) “SVPA laws and practices refer to “mental abnormalities,” which sounds scientific. But the American Psychiatric Association has opposed such laws, citing their abuse of civil liberties and the use of unscientific ‘disorders’ as the basis for punishment. In practice, designation as a sexually violent predator (SVP) is not based on substantial scientific research, and… Continue reading Should Galen Baughman Spend His Life in Prison?

(innocence project) “While cases like these often feature wrongdoing by individual prosecutors and police officers, a new study suggests the problem is deeper. After analyzing 50 wrongful convictions and other investigative failures, Texas State criminologists Kim Rossmo and Joycelyn Pollock found that confirmation bias, reinforced by groupthink and strong incentives to quickly identify the perpetrators… Continue reading How Confirmation Bias Sends Innocent People to Prison

Photograph by Zora J Murff for The New York Times Yet like the system of wealth-based detention they are meant to help reform, ankle monitors often place poor people in special jeopardy. Across the country, defendants who have not been convicted of a crime are put on “offender funded” payment plans for monitors that sometimes… Continue reading Digital Jail: How Electronic Monitoring Drives Defendants Into Debt

“Laws punishing sex offenses are still becoming harsher and more exacting, even though reported sex crimes are declining—and in fact were already declining well before these laws were passed. In consequence, the numbers keep climbing: people convicted of sex offenses are a rapidly growing segment of the prison population—up to 30% in some states—while beyond… Continue reading Punished Enough?

“In 2006, advocates with the National Center for Reason and Justice got involved. The case was one of several they argued were involved with national hysteria around satanic ritual abuse.” The NCRJ is proud that we could play a part in correcting this injustice. Read the article by Paul Flahive from Texas Public Radio.

Please join us for an evening of learning and discussion about one of the most controversial issues in America today! Sex Panic and the Law: Reflections of an attorney on the front lines with Attorney John Swomley, of Swomley & Tennen, LLP  Monday, April 22 @ 6:30 pm Cambridge Friends Center 5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge,… Continue reading Come Hear Super Lawyer John Swomley

“Money is never going to give me back these 35 years of my life, there’s no money in this whole entire earth that can repay me for the time I lost, the people that I lost, I lost even my daughter, my children no grow up with me,” Rosario said. “And all that, they’re never… Continue reading Lawsuit: Police forced false confession in deadly fire

Photograph by Steven Hirsch / Reuters “There is now such a stigma attached to people accused of sexual misconduct that anyone who defends legal principles on their behalf risks being mistaken, in the public mind, for a defender of sexual violence. Lawyers have always been vilified for taking on unpopular clients, but, in the #MeToo… Continue reading Unpopular Speech in a Cold Climate