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The San Diego Union-Tribune – SAN DIEGO — County officials have been working for months to figure out how to deal with a state mandate that would send thousands of low-level criminals to jails rather than prison and require some parolees to be supervised locally. It was a difficult balancing act, the officials said, between working within the...

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By Scott Beaulieu – NBCConnecticut.com There is a new tool in the ongoing war on drugs and it comes from a forensic scientist at the University of New Haven. Heather Miller Coyle, an associate professor in the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences is setting up a national databank that will allow law enforcement...

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(AP) NEW YORK — The day Barbara Sheehan shot her husband to death, she said, she was trying to leave him. She had hidden cash because he often took her wallet. She had told him she wasn’t traveling with him to Florida. That made him angry, she said, so angry he threatened to kill her, which happened frequently...

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Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer- San Francisco Chronicle SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco district attorney’s office, which hired a specialist in DNA evidence to help bring unsolved murder and rape cases to trial, is now dealing with the fallout from its decision to keep secret an internal memo the veteran lawyer wrote about the Police Department’s DNA...

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Executive Committee Diana Becton, Presiding Judge Cynthia Belon, Health Services Philip Kader, Chief Probation Officer (Chair) Robin Lipetzky, Public Defender David Livingston, Sheriff-Coroner Chris Magnus, Chief, Richmond Police Department Mark A. Peterson, District Attorney Contra-Costa-CountyAB109 DRAFT-2011-Implementation-Plan 9-15-11 Read more: California – Contra Costa County – 2011/12 Public Safety Realignment Implementation Plan

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By Marissa Boyers Bluestine – Philadelphia Inquirer Witness misidentification is a leading cause of wrongful conviction, having contributed to 75 percent of the 273 convictions that have been disproved by DNA evidence nationwide, and nine of Pennsylvania’s 11 such convictions. The problem got worldwide attention with this week’s execution in Georgia of Troy Davis, which went forward even...

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Businesses use many different advertising methods, like passing out handbills to pedestrians, or posting ads on public signs or street poles. But is posting flyers legal? It depends. Unfortunately, there's no simple answer to that question. Many cities have enacted municipal codes that govern whether or not you can post advertisements. Depending on which city you reside in,...

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A report by the county monitor says that such shootings leave the Sheriff’s Department vulnerable to criticism. His report also found an increase in shootings in which deputies did not see a weapon before firing. By Robert Faturechi, Los Angeles Times – Almost half the people shot at by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies after reaching toward their...

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Karen Sloan - The National Law Journal- September 22, 2011 (Indio, CA) A group of attorneys in Indio, Calif. are moving forward with plans to open a new law school next September. The California Desert Trial Academy College of Law will focus on preparing students for trial advocacy and fill a need for a local law school, said criminal...

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (MCT) — When the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency for Troy Allen Davis Tuesday, the board based its decision on one of the bedrocks of the American judicial system: eyewitness testimony. Nine individuals testified that they saw Davis murder off-duty police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in a Burger King parking lot in 1989,...