Once a criminal defendant has paid his or her debt to society there’s usually a mechanism available to allow them to clean the slate and start over. Record “expungement” varies from state to state, but most states offer some form of record clearance that allows a rehabilatated defendant to wipe the slate clean and claim […]

From the antipolygraph.org blog comes this story about 2 United States citizens of Pakistani descent being denied re-entry into the United States because of their refusal to submit to a polygraph examination. I find it amazing that this quackery remains a mainstay of law enforcement, particularly on something as important as terrorism investigation. Given how […]

We put them on planes and they help us to reconstruct what happened when things go terribly wrong. So it makes sense that black boxes would start appearing in automobiles; it fits thematically with the trend toward digitally memorializing all testimonial information in order to assure accurate reconstruction of disputed events.
Tell that to the New […]

I’ve been waiting to see signs of this and, after seeing airline security alert levels raised today, the stories are starting to emerge. Here’s a story about a technology that uses video cameras to scan luggage for suspicious items by monitoring the electromagnetic energy given off by different objects. So explosives can be theoretically be […]

This is really starting to worry me. Defendants have learned that if they attack their lawyers in front of the jury when the case isn’t going well, they can ask for a mistrial. What’s a judge going to do, let the jury that witnessed them attack their laywer in court carry on as if nothing […]

Another police beating was caught on video, this one resulting in the tragic death of what appears to be a completely innocent and mentally disabled shopper. The scene was captured by in-store surveillance cameras at a convenience store in Spokane, Washington. The decedent, Otto Zehm, is seen walking into the store and is immediately […]

It was bound to happen. With most police cars now equipped with laptop computers and real time online data access, it’s not surprising to see new technologies emerging to aid law enforcement in keeping an eye on, well, all of us. I’ve done ride-alongs with the Issaquah Police Department and I was surprised at how […]

If you don’t yet believe that individual liberties are being continually eroded, wait till you hear this one. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (otherwise known as the Future Supreme Court Justices of America), in its infinite wisdom, recently upheld an FCC regulation that requires providers of Voice Over IP […]

I’ve written here about defendants using technology to convict themselves, but this one takes the prize. Justin Barber is on trial in Florida for murdering his wife. He claims that a mugger accosted him and his wife as they walked along a beach, shooting them both. Unfortunately for Mr. Barber, forensic computer experts found evidence […]

I wrote about this case earlier and called the evidence against Father Robinson “flimsy”. It was enough, however, for the jury to find him Guilty, so I stand rebuked. Still, when you consider that they found male DNA not only on the nun’s underwear, but under her fingernails (strongly indicating a struggle with her […]