In 2015, the Wisconsin Department of Justice announced that it would test the state's backlog of 6,800 unexamined sexual assault evidence kits. According to Attorney General Brad Schimel, the exhaustive project is nearly complete: Today, the DOJ announced that it has...
Month: May 2018
Indiscriminate school expulsion and prosecution of teens is wrong solution.
Teens charged with making terroristic threats after joke about school shooting goes public.Teen arrested after calling wrong number with prank school threatHeadlines like these are on the news almost every day as the country assesses how to effectively protect...
Why crime and punishment can be a bad match
Proponents of longer prison sentences argue they accomplish multiple objectives, including properly punishing a person who commits a crime, making it safer for the rest of society and serving as a deterrent to others who may commit similar crimes.Never mind that long...
243-year rape sentence dropped after flawed evidence revealed
A Junction City, Wisconsin, man has been free on bail since a Dane County judge overturned his conviction 11 months ago. Richard Beranek, now 59, was convicted in 1990 on charges of rape, battery and burglary, even though six witnesses testified that he was in North...
Police steered eyewitness ID, leading to wrongful conviction
When Francisco Carrillo, Jr., was falsely convicted of a fatal drive-by shooting, it was the result of an improper eyewitness identification. A Sheriff's deputy brought in the 15-year-old eyewitness, showed him a single photo and said it was their lead suspect.Showing...
Investigators misidentified another man as ‘Golden State Killer’
Recently, investigators in California arrested a suspect in the "Golden State Killer" case. Joseph James DeAngelo, a former police officer, is accused of murdering as many as 13 people and raping 50 women during the 1970s and 1980s. A key aspect of the case is how law...
Justice reform trend visible in district attorney primaries
District attorneys are among the most influential actors in the criminal justice system. They decide where to focus prosecutorial resources. They determine whether to charge the most serious provable offense or lesser offenses. They choose whether to stack charges,...
We need to guard against the risks of DNA evidence
We have written extensively on this blog and elsewhere about faulty forensic science contributing to wrongful convictions. Numerous instances of crime lab scandals between 2000 and 2008, including multiple instances of fraud and error, resulted in Congress funding an...