Sentencing/Post Conviction

Jury recommends life sentence for woman convicted in granddaughter’s running death

A jury has recommended a life sentence without parole for an Alabama woman convicted of capital murder in her granddaughter’s running death. The jury, by a vote of 7-5, rejected prosecutors’ request for a death sentence for Joyce Hardin Garrard in the February 2012 death of 9-year-old Savannah Hardin, the…

Mar 27, 2015 2:21 PM CDT

Prosecutor seeks judge’s recusal in all pending cases, cites ‘legal advice’ email to public defender

A South Florida chief judge began hearing a colleague’s criminal call on Friday morning, after a Broward circuit prosecutor filed a blanket recusal motion against Judge John Contini. Filed late Thursday, the motion by State Attorney Mike Satz contends that an email from Contini to an assistant public defender offered…

Mar 27, 2015 12:25 PM CDT

California relaxes residency rules for sex offenders, will apply restrictions on case-by-case basis

Following a California Supreme Court ruling earlier this month that a blanket state-law ban on sex offenders living within 2,000 feet of a school or park was unconstitutional, state prison officials on Thursday announced new rules. Such restrictions will be imposed on registered sex offenders only on a case-by-case basis,…

Mar 27, 2015 9:05 AM CDT

Lawyer gets 10-year sentence for role in stealing $3.8M from elderly victims

A New Jersey lawyer has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for her part in a scheme to steal $3.8 million from 16 elderly victims. Barbara Lieberman, a court-appointed guardian and elder law specialist in Atlantic County who gave seminars to senior citizens on end-of-life issues and other matters,…

Mar 27, 2015 8:30 AM CDT

Inmates respond to philosophy prof’s moral exploration of ancient play

A fictional murder is stimulating philosophical discussions at the prison where a Columbia University professor volunteers. Writing at the Washington Post, philosophy professor Christia Mercer says the need for educational volunteers is pressing since a 1994 law ended federal Pell grants for inmates. Many states followed suit, ending state-funded educational…

Mar 26, 2015 12:32 PM CDT

Botched child-murder case gets tossed; mother jailed for 2 decades speaks out

Found guilty in 1990 of playing a role in the slaying of her 4-year-old son, Debra Milke spent 22 years in the Arizona prison system before she was released in 2013 after successfully challenging her conviction in a federal habeas petition. In a scathing written opinion (PDF), the 9th U.S.…

Mar 25, 2015 10:00 AM CDT

Defense objected to twin-jury murder trial of 2 men, but wants cases consolidated for appeal

At least one of the defense lawyers representing Johnny Parker, 31, and William Fillyaw, 37, in their joint first-degree murder trial earlier this year asked that their unusual twin-jury trial be severed. But that didn’t occur and now a lawyer for Fillyaw is asking that their post-trial motions be consolidated…

Mar 24, 2015 3:15 PM CDT

Appeals court says magistrate had power to hold former TV judge Joe Brown in contempt and jail him

It appears that a former TV-show judge may be headed back to the slammer over a Tennessee juvenile-court outburst last year, in which he talked himself into an escalated five-day jail sentence after initially getting 24 hours for contempt of court. Although Joe Brown characterized his post-ruling debate with the…

Mar 24, 2015 12:40 PM CDT

Man dodges jury duty 11 times but is arrested when he comes to court to contest child-support ruling

A Pennsylvania man dodged jury duty 11 times, but the long arm of the law caught up with him when he went to court in Somerset County to contest a child-support ruling. Faced with the possibility of being sentenced to as much as 10 days in jail and a $500…

Mar 24, 2015 9:00 AM CDT

‘Serial’ subject Syed appeals, says lawyer never interviewed alibi and didn’t seek plea deal

Beset by health problems that led to her consent disbarment the following year, a Maryland criminal defense attorney never interviewed an alibi witness or sought a plea bargain during his 2000 trial. At least, that’s what her former client, Adnan Syed, says. He is now serving a life sentence for…

Mar 23, 2015 3:15 PM CDT

SCOTUS won’t hear case of inmate on death row for 30 years; dissenters see ‘glaring’ legal error

The U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear the case of a Texas inmate who claimed that executing him after more than 30 years on death row would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court denied cert on Monday in the case of Lester Leroy Bower Jr., according to the order…

Mar 23, 2015 10:09 AM CDT

Freed after 20 years, man gets $20M; another whose DNA doesn’t match linked murder is still jailed

An Illinois man who was exonerated in a 1992 child-murder case after being tried and convicted three times and serving nearly 20 years in prison has won a $20 million settlement from authorities in the collar county outside Chicago where the trials took place. The amount that will be paid…

Mar 20, 2015 3:40 PM CDT

Once on death row, man released after 39 years behind bars gets $1M for wrongful imprisonment

An Ohio man imprisoned for 39 years based on false testimony in a murder case has been awarded more than $1 million in compensation. Ricky Jackson, now 59, cried last year when he learned he was going to be released by Cuyahoga County, according to the Associated Press and an…

Mar 20, 2015 9:10 AM CDT

Deaf man took plea in theft case over iPad that wasn’t stolen, due to lack of communication

A homeless deaf man, who was arrested last year at a Washington, D.C., area airport where he was trying to sleep, spent six weeks in jail in Virginia and eventually took a plea in a case over a stolen iPad, due to a lack of communication. The iPad at issue,…

Mar 19, 2015 11:00 AM CDT

Nude sunbather, 77, agrees to plea deal in case over his backyard practice

Thirty years of nude sunbathing in his own backyard ended Tuesday for a 77-year-old Utah man with a plea deal that requires him to don a swimsuit. Myron Lee Kipp hitherto had only a traffic ticket on his record from more than a decade ago, the Associated Press reports. His…

Mar 17, 2015 3:20 PM CDT