By Michael Graczyk Associated Press
HOUSTON — The State Bar of Texas is suing a former prosecutor who is now a state district judge, accusing him of withholding memos and other written evidence in the case of a man who served nearly 25 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.
Ken Anderson was the prosecutor in 1987 when Michael Morton was sentenced to life in prison for the slaying of his wife at their home in Williamson County, just north of Austin. A year ago, DNA evidence cleared Morton and he was freed. Another man now faces a murder trial in his wife's death.
A disciplinary panel for the state lawyers' association contended in a lawsuit filed earlier this month that Anderson, now a judge in the Central Texas county, knew about the evidence but didn't disclose it to Morton's lawyers.
"Before, during and after the 1987 trial, (Anderson) knew of the existence of several pieces of evidence and withheld same from defense counsel," according to the lawsuit, which also serves as a disciplinary petition. Read More
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The Alameda County Sheriff's Department is hoping to become one of the handful of local law enforcement agencies that have received federal clearance to use unmanned aerial drones to fight crime, a goal that already is arousing concerns among privacy advocates.
Civil liberties and privacy groups revealed Thursday that Sheriff Greg Ahern is seeking Department of Homeland Security funding to buy a small remote-controlled drone called a Dragon Fly. If the money comes through and the Federal Aviation Administration permits the department to test the device, Alameda would be the first public safety agency in California to deploy technology first developed for spying on U.S. enemies overseas.
A memo that one of Ahern's captains prepared over the summer, obtained by the Freedom of Information Act web site MuckRock, says the drone would be equipped with a long-distance camera, live video downlink and infrared sensors that could be used for monitoring bomb threats, fires, unruly crowds, search and rescue operations, and marijuana grows. Read More
LOS ANGELES - The LAPD on Thursday announced it has open investigations on a dozen unsolved homicides near known Manson Family hangouts around Los Angeles.
The revelation came amid a legal battle to obtain hours of audio tape recordings between former Charles Manson follower and convicted murderer Charles "Tex" Watson and his lawyer.
"We have an obligation to the families of these victims," Cmdr. Andy Smith told NBC4. "Our detectives need to listen to these tapes. The tapes might help with solving these murders."
News of the open investigation was first reported by the Los Angeles Times Thursday and confirmed to NBC4 by LAPD officials. Smith told the Times the 12 murders they are investigating "are similar to some of the Manson killings."
Manson and his followers shot to infamy in 1969 after the murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others at a Benedict Canyon home in the hills above Los Angeles. That rampage was followed the next night by the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their Los Feliz home. Read More
BY KIM JANSSEN Federal Courts Reporter Chicago Sun Times
Five south suburban men who were wrongfully convicted of murder while they were teenagers have filed a federal lawsuit alleging crooked cops framed them.
The so-called “Dixmoor Five” — who between them served more than 70 years for the 1991 rape and murder of 14-year-old Cateresa Matthews — say Dixmoor Police and the State Police coerced false confessions, witheld evidence and invented witness testimony.
DNA evidence identified the true killer, a convicted sex offender with no connection to Robert Taylor, Jonathan Barr, James Harden, Shainne Sharp and Robert Veal, the suits say. Read More
A Florida judge has set June 10, 2013 as the start date of the murder trial of George Zimmerman.
Zimmerman, 29, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, is charged with second-degree murder for shooting and killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26.
Zimmerman claimed self-defense in the case and has pleaded not guilty.
Attorneys in the case said they estimate the trial will last three weeks, and Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda said he expected the jury selection would take longer than the trial itself, the Orlando Sentinel reported. Read More
A federal court Tuesday threw out the terrorism conviction of Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard and driver, ruling that he was improperly prosecuted before a military tribunal for a war crime that did not exist at the time he was accused of having committed it.
The unanimous decision by a three-judge appeals panel came in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who authorities say met bin Laden in 1996 at an al-Qaeda training camp.
Hamdan was tried in 2008 before a military commission at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was acquitted of conspiracy but convicted of material support of terrorism; he was sentenced to 5 1 / 2 years in prison and released in 2009 to his family in Yemen.
In seeking to overturn his conviction, Hamdan argued that material support of terrorism was not considered a war crime under international law when he was accused of aiding al-Qaeda. In a 28-page ruling, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed. Read More
On the night of November 29, 1988, near the impoverished Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, an explosion at a construction site killed six of the city’s firefighters. It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick O’Connor, the facts—or a lack of them—didn’t add up. Justice on Fire is OConnor’s detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters’ deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. Also available from Amazon
NBC News