As we celebrate our nation's Independence Day, it's appropriate to reflect not only on that which makes us proud to be Americans, but also on how we can hand down to our children and grandchildren a system of justice that honors the Founding Fathers and the...
Month: June 2017
Judge: Cruelty, isolation at WI juvenile prisons must change
The federal judge hearing the case on Wisconsin's juvenile prisons commented that Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, suffers less restrictive solitary confinement than do the juveniles confined at the Lincoln Hills School correctional facility in Irma.Youthful offenders...
Federal prosecutor seeks ‘therapeutic polygraphy’ for sex offender
In 2004, the American Psychological Association said that there's "little evidence that polygraph tests can accurately detect lies." There simply isn't sufficient proof that the physiological responses measured by the so-called "lie detector" machine are actually...
Discredited hair evidence: How many innocent people are behind bars?
Any person who duly reflects upon DNA-related stories that have prominently surfaced in media reports in recent years understands well the double-edged sword wielded by investigators who assert possession of unassailable truth conferred through science.Indeed, they...
A true insider’s view: federal judge excoriates mandatory minimums
We noted in a recent blog post that unanimity is far from assured in any litmus test or polling focused upon the logic and efficacy of so-called "mandatory minimum" federal sentencing rules and outcomes.There are proponents of that sentencing tool, to be sure, but it...
Vaunted eyewitness testimony: often wrong as can be
Many of our readers in Milwaukee and across Wisconsin have likely seen crime-tinged movies and television dramas -- in fact, scores of them -- where an individual steps up to save the day for state or federal prosecutors by confidently pointing out the guilty party...