Recently in Criminal Justice Systems Category

Vigilantes: Menace or Heroes?

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With Hollywood hype in certain movies such as "Boon Dock Saints" and numerous comic book heroes, how do real vigilantes fair up? Psychologically, these individuals typically inspire hope and a sense of justice to criminals that evade the long arm of the law. The vigilants themselves feel it is up to them to assist or serve justice that the law will not or cannot provide. Criminals feel added fear by someone being a "hero." However, in law, these vigilants are typically frowned upon by the government or seen as criminals themselves. Sometimes, vigilantes help society by ridding the neighborhood of criminals. Like in the comic book stories, however, they can cause damage while doing so.

In the case of Robert Bell and Gary Sellers, they accidentally killed the wife of a known pedophile while setting their car and house on fire. Why did they do this? Bell and Sellers wanted to do the community a favor by ridding a known pedophile. They accomplished this by making Timothy Chandler homeless, penniless, and now a widow. Did these vigilantes admit to their actions? Yes and with remorse.

There are other vigilantes that take more careful actions, however. For example, there are internet vigilantes out there who attempt to regulate the lack of control on the world wide web. These people will find online scams, phishing scams, and immoral content. After doing so, they will gather information on their target and inform the local law of their target of their misbehavior. On a less web-based example of positive vigilantism would be the Guardian Angels. These people are a non-profit international organization that do group patrols in dangerous neighborhoods, raise awareness to communities on safe practices, teach adults on how to make a citizen's arrest, and so on.

Vigilantes that work outside the law have proven that fair justice cannot be served in most cases. However, when working in legal bounds, these individuals can do good. However, should civilians be allowed to operate without legal approval? Do these vigilantes do more harm or good? Would you feel safe knowing a vigilante could be watching what you do? Vigilantes: Menace or Heroes? You decide.

Disneyland - The Greatest Place on Earth?

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This topic is strangely hard to research. There are many individuals in the United States as well as others that believe the Disney Corporation is one of the most evil corporations in the world. Why? That is the hard part to research. Whether we talk about their media branch (Disney Channel, Disney Records, or Walt Disney Studios), their theme parks, or their toy lines, Disney has the best lawyers to represent the "good" of the company. There are many rumors which are difficult to prove or disprove. Here's some for you to judge. The main focus will be the theme parks in this discussion, as that is the primary interaction between the people and the corporation. At this link, incidents are listed based on the attraction. As Disney owns a known 40 square mile tract of land and more land in their reserves within Florida, they have their own internal security force, prison, EMT's, fire fighters, utilities, and so fourth. When an incident occurs in Disneyland, the first responders (IE, their security) categorize each incident into 4 distinct categories: 1) Guest Negligence via non-compliance, 2) Guest's negligence of their own health, 3) Act of God (Nobody's Fault), 4) Negligence on the park's behalf.

Here's the questions that aren't easy to find. How many lawsuits are filed against Disney's Theme Park branch per year? How many of those are losses in Disney's books? Should Disney's first responders be pay-rolled by Disney itself or government funded employees mandated by the state?

Granted, millions travel through Disney Theme Parks every year and come back with good experiences (other than long lines and overpriced goods). However, how safe are we to know that even the emergency staff will side with Disney if something was to happen? This brings me more fear than the tower of terror does.

UCMJ - Uniform Code of Military Justice

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The UCMJ is the military law. For the most part, it spells out what is considered a crime, the military legal system, acceptable punishments, and so fourth. When a crime is being referred to or for the purposes of documentation, they are marked as Articles. For example, Article 86 is AWOL (Absent Without Leave), Article 112 is Drunk on Duty, and so on. The two major sections for military crimes are Punitive Charges and Non-Judicial Punishment Charges.

However, unlike civilian law, there are Articles that exist in which aren't crimes outside the military. For example, Article 125 - Sodomy. Simply put, the act itself is a crime, whether it is consensual or not. Article 134:24 - Gambling with a Subordinate. In short, you can only gamble with people of the same rank. There are many strange Articles in which limits the freedoms of service members for both good and the strange. The second link is a website that spells out some of the court-martial offenses.

Imagine being a single soldier who had consensual sex in one of the two soldier's rooms. Guess what? You've violated the UCMJ in one way or another, which states the door must be open when a member of the opposite gender is present. If you've done this, then you've violated Article 134-29 (Indecent Acts with Another). Let's take a common situation. Imagine having some time off, and getting a little sun. You've spent a little too much time outside and were sunburned. Congratulations! You've violated Article 108 - Damage or Destruction of Government Property. In many cases, being guilty of any of the articles can include any or all of the following: Loss of rank, loss of pay, loss of leave, loss of responsibility, restrictions on locations, dishonorable discharge, and/or prison time.

Psychologically, many soldiers have fears of the UCMJ. Granted, there are many Articles that are violated, but swept underneath the rug. It all depends on a soldier's chain of command (their bosses all the way up to the President) if they wish to pursue these charges or not. Some believe that the chain of command has a personal grudge against them, which has been proven in the past. There is an Article for this as well. Some chains of commands are extremely "by the book" and will punish soldiers under the UCMJ for crimes that don't exist outside the military. Do soldiers really have to fear their law more than the combat zone they could be in? Does the UCMJ protect the soldier against others, or does it create more control for the government?

 

UCMJ:

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm

 

Punitive Charges of the UCMJ:

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/punitivearticles/a/mcm.htm

"April 15, 2010

Next week the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a question near and dear to digitally proficient texters: whether their personal messages are private when transmitted over an electronic device supplied by an employer."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125998549

An NYPD officer uses a phone to send text messages on a New York sidewalk.

     Most of us understand that when your employer gives you something to use, its still theirs, and a certain level of "acceptable behavior" comes with the privilege of using said allowance.  HOWEVER, we have all heard about people downloading explicit material at work, engaging in illicit chat room conversations on company laptops, and making long-distance phone calls to your family in Japan on the company's dime.  

     With this context in mind, the article linked above describes a situation involving cellular phones distributed to police officers in Ontario, California.  When the phones were distributed to police officers, the lieutenant responsible for the equipment informed the users that the message content was private, and officers would be required to pay out of pocket for messages exceeding the 25,000 character limit per month.  

     A problem arose however, when officers DID exceed the limit, and the lieutenant described feeling like a "bill collector".  He grew weary of this responsibility, and when he requested transcripts of the message content being transmitted by his officers, he was surprised to find explicit language being used between one particular officer, his estranged ex-wife, and another police officer.  

     I circle back now to my first point.  Most of us understand that this kind of behavior is not acceptable on company time, and especially with company money.  However, the officer and others who allegedly sent the "sexy" text messages sued the department for breaking their privacy rights.  

     If this situation only involved police issued equipment, then I'd probably side with the department on this one.  HOWEVER it doesn't, as the estranged ex-wife DOES NOT use a department issued phone.  What about her privacy rights?  

     George Washington University professor Orin Kerr provides the following insight: 

"Does the government violate your rights when they take those messages off the server, even though you're not the government employee?" asks George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr. "And what does that mean for the rest of us, who do have privacy rights, when the government wants to get copies of those communications?"

     If this were an isolated case without possible influence on the rest of the country, that would be fine.  However this same kind of situation will inevitably continue to arise with other agencies, organizations, private companies and the like.  What is reasonable privacy?  What sort of protections can citizens and employees expect regarding their personal lives?  What will prevent the government or others from getting into your "dirty little secrets"?  

     I submit the following guidelines:  WATCH YOUR BACK JACK.  Its sort of like the advice you get from an old sage like your grandparents, "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all".  Obviously the issue only came to trial because of the DISCRETION used by police administrators to view transcripts of transmitted messages.  

Discretion, its all around us! 

This article is about the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback being accused of sexual assault for the second time. I think this ties into the class because the case has been dropped from the DA for the lack of any evidence, so it seems that it is all hearsay evidence. This could be a case where the girl was trying to take advantage of the superstar by accusing him of assualting her, or it could be a case in which the prosecution just didnt have enough evidence to satisfy the burden of proof to convict Ben. Either way he is not going to get in trouble by the law for whatever happened however he may be suspended by the league for violating the players code of conduct policy. Ben has been accused of assaulting a girl before and it makes people wonder if girls are just trying to take advantage of a celebrity or is he getting away with these assaults because of lack of evidence. The prosecution pretty much said in their press conference that they are confident that Ben assaulted the girl but cannot prove without a reasonable doubt to a jury that he is responsible, also it did not help that the girl, for some reason, did not want to press charges. The medicial examiner said they found male DNA but not enough to make a DNA profile. I think this would have come to a different outcome if they were in fact able to get a DNA profile from the sample.The case shows that there is in fact a burden of proof that needs to be satisfied for the DA to persue a case, and do not just go after people to punish them for supposably committing crimes.  

Upon reading the transcript from the Sandoval trial, I became interested in how defense attournys work. While Googling this, I came across this article that explains how to protect yourself when pulled over for drunk driving (which is pretty common among college kids, which is why I chose it!) I'm not saying I'm defending drunk driving, but I am trying to say that there are ways that we can protect ourselves from the system, and to make sure that people who get pulled over for it are being treated fairly.  You can do this by contacting a defense attourny.

Within the article, there are other links that you can click on that provide further information behind this issue.

I enjoyed doing research on jury selection because I've never been asked to serve on a jury, so I was always curious about the process you have to go through. As it turns out, it's pretty time consuming. I've provided a link that has information on the jury selection process.

Also, when one of my friends was called to jury duty, she asked me how to get out of it. Just in case any of you decide you want to get out of jury duty, I also found a website that gives 20 effective ways to avoid jury duty. Some of them are humorous, other ones are more serious. So have fun reading those!

Broken Government

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For my book report due in class, I read the book Active Liberty which is all about our government. I decided to look for things relating to government and psychology for my blog. I found this article http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hidden-motives/201002/our-broken-government talking about how many feel that our government is "broken". It seems that many politicians are only worried about how much power they have rather than worrying about everyone's rights as an American. The article talks about how a week or so ago, a Texan slammed his plan into a building where the IRS was at. He had left a suicide note saying that Islamic terrorists are not the only ones who hate our government. What does the government need to do in order to install more faith in the people in this country?

Bad Cop!- the magic words

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Talking Tuesday in class I realized how uneducated I am when it comes to police officers. I didn't know that they could lie to no end just to get a confession or anything else we really learned Tuesday. I decided to do some research on the topic. The site I found-- i'm not sure how credible-- reinstated a lot of the things we were told in class. For the record, I LOVE police officers! In the end they do accomplish a LOT of good through their jobs. They protect those who need protecting and uphold a lot of good in the world. So keep in mind while reading this= they are doing their jobs as they were taught to do. They don't know who is truly guilty or innocent and part of their job is to decipher the differance, through whatever means.

I do NOT agree however with the sites "golden rule:" Don't trust cops. Cops are there for the better of society as a whole and we should keep that in mind. At the end of the day, cops are the good guys. Good guys that just want answers. So while this site is informative I'm choosing not to believe everything in it because it seems very opinion based to me.

I was not aware that cops do not have to read you your Miranda Rights- I was under the impression that your rights were there for you regardless, yet they can still use whatever you say against you in court. From class I know that during interrogation they can lie to get any confession possible. I had never really thought about the lie they tell when they're going to charge someone for... who knows what. They can't charge us with anything! So why have we not learned this earlier? We wait until we're 20 years old to find this stuff out. What about those who still have no idea!?

But how fair is it for a police officer to trick an innocent citizen? A citizen who believes that he or she is in good hands. A citizen who believes they are being protected, not tricked. So it should be common sense to any judge or jury that any confession given should be looked at critically because people will say anything to "help" those who are supposed to "help" us.

http://www.rense.com/general72/howto.htm

Mark Becker's plea of insanity

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Most of us have heard about the devastations that the community of Aplington-Parkersburg has gone through in the last few years. The first devastation that the community went through was the tornado that went through Parkersburg and destroyed many houses. The Community rebuilt and didn't let the horrific experience dampen there community pride. One of the main advocates for rebuilding the Community was the long time Football Coach Ed Thomas. Ed was seen as a key supporter in the community and everyone knew who he was and what he has done to better the community.  The second devastation that happened was on June 24th of 2009 when Coach Ed Thomas was shot by Mark Becker. Becker has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Both the prosecution and defense do agree that Becker has suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, so his mental state is playing a huge factor in whether he will be convicted or not for the murder.  Living in Cedar Falls for most of my life and having friends who went to Aplington-Parkersburg it hit close to home to me. I remember something on the news about how the previous day Becker had been detained by Cedar Falls police for breaking and entering a house in Cedar Falls. He was taken to Allen Hospital and was suppose to stay for a 48hr psych evaluation. However something went wrong and he was released that day. Which led to the next day's proceedings to Occur.  One question that comes to mind to me is, is our legal system at fault as well because the procedure wasn't followed through. Also some say that he didn't know what he was doing but I wouldn't think you would be able to put bullets in a gun and drive to the school and shoot your former coach. I think this is a very big controversy in the Cedar Valley. Below is just one of the latest articles about the case.

"Jury Deliberating Becker's case"

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/highschool/news/story?id=4941821

The Case of Amanda Knox

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On November 1st, 2007 Meredith Kercher was found dead on the bedroom floor partly naked with stab wounds on her neck, many bruises, and signs of being sexually assaulted.  At the time, Meredith was a foreign exchange student in Perugia, Italy along with Amanda Knox, an American foreign exchange student.  Five days after interrogation, Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were arrested and later convicted with murder, sexual violence, as well as other charges (Knox was sentenced to 26 years while Sollecito was sentenced for 25 years).  DNA and fingerprint evidence at the scene both inside and around Meredith's body pointed to another man, Rudy Hermann Guede.  Guede was later arrested, tried, and was also convicted of murder an sexual assault.  Guede was initially sentenced to 30 years in prison but appealed his sentence which was then reduced to 16 years. 

I had never heard of this case before but I happened to turn on Oprah today and caught the tail end of the story. I got the sense that it was a pretty well known case and I found this to be true when I was searching online and I did end up finding a lot of information about it.  Here is the link to the Wikipedia article which I think does a great job summarizing the case and is a good place to start if you haven't heard of the case before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MurderofMeredith_Kercher

There seems to be quite a bit of controversy going on about the differences in the criminal justice system and culture of Italy compared to that of the United States when dealing with this case.  I haven't looked into this issue very extensively, but what I have gathered is that many people feel that if Amanda was tried in the United States rather than Italy, she would have never been convicted.

Regardless of this controversy, it became apparent to me while watching the rest of the Oprah show and reading and watching the videos online (http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Amanda-Knoxs-Family-Speak-Out/7), being wrongfully convicted has substantial consequences not only for the person wrongfully convicted, but for their family as well. 

First of all, being wrongfully convicted puts a huge financial burden on the person who is desperately fighting for their freedom.  The book I am reading for this class (Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter) also touches on the tremendous debts one can be in when fighting their conviction.  Thousands upon thousands of dollars were spent, not only by Carter himself, but by his supporters.  Amanda's case seems to be no different.  When searching through sites online, I came across her official site where you could donate money to contribute to her defense fund which will hopefully someday free her.

Being wrongfully convicted also takes a emotional toll on the person who has been wrongfully convicted as well as their family.  On Oprah's website, you can watch a short video of an interview of Amanda's three sisters.  The oldest of the three talks about her new responsibility of being the older sister since Amanda is away and how she struggles at being a good example for her younger sisters.  Amanda's youngest sister talk about how she feels like she doesn't have a family because she describes a family as everyone being there, which is not the case.  Her younger sister struggles with her emotions and her need to stay strong for Amanda and her parents.  My book focuses a lot on Carter's emotional struggles to keep his identity while in prison and the shame he feels, which inevitable causes him to distance himself from his former wife and children.  Carter's family was torn apart by his wrongful conviction, but Amanda's has come together.  Her parents divorced when she was three, but since her conviction, they have combined forces in attempt to free their daughter.  Every Saturday her family gets together for the weekly phone call from Amanda. 

Being wrongfully convicted has tremendous repercussions for the individuals and their families.  Stories like these really make me understand the importance that psychology plays in the law.  I'm not sure how heavily eyewitnesses played in Amanda's conviction, but eyewitness evidence was the only thing used to convict Carter of his sentence of triple-murder.  In order to keep the innocent out of prison, it is evident that a better understanding and acceptance of faulty eyewitness testimonies is necessary, but I'm afraid that no matter how hard we try, there will always be people who are wrongfully convicted.  Even if our criminal justice system improves on keeping the innocent out of jail from now on, there are currently many innocent people in prison, most of which are more than likely desperately trying to free themselves.
 


Mercy Killing- Right or Wrong?

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I have came across this article in which a british tv program host has been arrested for murder after he had admitted that he assisted in the death of a former lover that was diagnoses with aids.  Euthanasia is a topic that has been debated in the past. Euthanasia or "mercy killing" is when someone helps a terminally ill person commit suicide to "stop the suffering" I wrote a research paper on this topic at the community college I attended. I think that it is a interesting topic to discuss. Many people will hopefully never experience a loved one being diagnosed with a terminal illness so it is hard to be put into that position just by imaginating it. I am not sure if this should be accepted or not. A person that is terminally ill and is experiencing extreme pain and suffering and there is nothing that the medical field is able to do for that person, and that person is wanting the pain to stop. Should the euthanasia process be able to be carried out legally if it can be done in a "humane" way? I dont know.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/02/17/bbc.presenter.arrest/index.html 

We've all heard the stories of the girl who reported she was raped- when she wasn't, or those who were kidnapped, but weren't really. False reports happen everyday in the United States and now the law is cracking down.

I called 9-1-1 once when I was little, to see if it worked. It did and I ended up getting a visit from a very nice police officer who sat me down and explained to me how calling for no reason was wrong. Followed by a capital punishment made by the judge/ jury/ executioner: my mom. Being six or seven though- i was merely curious- and the things i learned that day have stuck with me since.

But is there really a differance between a harmless 7 year old calling to see if 9-1-1 was real and a maliscious woman who just wanted to ruin the lives of others? Either way we both took precious time that could be used really saving someone in danger, we both made the choice to call, and we both got punished in the end.

https://secure.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/FalseReporting.pdf

this website shows in minor detail the punishment for all the states where false crimes are reported.

Many of you have probably heard about this story at least once on the news or online. After Haiti was faced with a tragic earthquake, 10 American missionaries were arrested and detained after allegedly kidnapping 33 Haitian children. The Americans supposedly tried to take these children out of the country into the Dominican Republic without proper documentation, and were turned back. According to CNN.com, the judge of this case has up to 3 months to decide whether or not he wants to prosecute these individuals. Many people have completely differing views on this case and their are arguments for both sides. Here are a couple links that are following this case as it is just starting to get underway.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/04/haiti.arrests/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/americas/10prisoners.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/0211/Haiti-kidnapping-case-Americans-could-be-released-today

 

 

Furlough-Yes or No?

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In my criminology class a couple of weeks ago, the issue of "furlough" was brought up. This is when a prisoner who has been convicted of a crime and who is in jail, is granted with the opportunity to go out in public, unsupervised, for a period of time. Willie Horton, who was granted furlough and who was also in prison for murder, never came back. Upon his escape, Horton killed a man and his fiance, on top of other crimes. The link below provides other examples of convicts who have gotten out on furlough, and committed numerous crimes while on this "prison vacation." What do you think about this policy?

 

http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0158_Dukakis__Willie_Hort.html

In my Cognitive Psychology textbook, Cognition: Theory and Applications by Reed, there's a box that talks about why we have trouble distinguishing faces of people who are a different race from us.

People are notoriously awful at recognizing faces from other races. It's a human foible often explained by the notion that we have more experience looking at members of our own race and thus acquire "perceptual expertise" for characteristics of our own kind.
One influential version of that hypothesis argues that the so-called cross-race recognition deficit can be modeled by assuming that faces of other races are more psychologically similar than are faces of one's own race. But Daniel Level, PhD, a cognitive psychologist at Kent State University, has been unsatisfied with that argument.
"The perceptual expertise position is pretty intuitive, and it makes sense," he says. "But I'm arguing that it's not really the case. The problem is not that we can't code the details of cross-race faces - it's that we don't."
Instead, he says, people place inordinate emphasis on race categories - whether someone is white, black, or Asian - ignoring information that would help them recognize people as individuals. In recent research, Levin has shown that people can, in fact, perceive fine differences among faces of people from other races - as long as they're using those differences to make race classifications.
For example, Levin explains, "When a white person looks at another white person's nose, they're likely to think to themselves, 'That's John's nose.' When they look at a black person's nose, they're likely to think, "That's a black nose."
The results are important, Levin maintains, because they help explain the long-standing question of why people are poor at recognizing the faces of people who  belong to other racial groups. Such an understanding could be useful in a variety of settings, including training police and others in the justice system to identify faces more accurately.

Source: From "Why do 'they all look alike'?" by Siri Carpenter, Monitor on Psychology, December, 2000, p. 44.

Did you know that a majority of imprisoned murderers only spend 8 years, on average, in jail? Rediculous right? What is the worth of a human life, or 5, or 100? Where do we draw the line? September 18, 2004 the LA Times put out an article concerning MORE killers getting out on parole. The article discusses Governer Schwarzenagger letting out 48 murderers in only one years time! The most common release for murderers in prison is due to "good behavior" and a "clean prison record." How can someone who murdered a person, or numerous people, get out of prison for "good behavior" when what they are in there for deserves death itself? This cite leads to the LA Times cite housing the article about Schwarzennager: http://articles.latimes.com/2004/sep/18/local/me-parole18 

The following website delivers a few statistics based on granted paroles: http://www.citizensinc.org/parolestatistics.html 

I understand second chances-- and wrongful charges. But how does the victims family feel about all the goings on? The person who took the life of their loved ones being set free? I side with the victims in this one. The website: http://www.murdervictims.com/Parole.htm gives a little information regarding the victims rights and ways they can get a parole overturned.

The Parole process is a long one that does take victim's family and suspect into consideration. The process has to look at all sides because if they release a criminal and the criminal repeats the offense- or worse- it goes back to the board that chose to grant parole. So the board has to have put some heavy thought into their decision. The following website is a cite that describes the governing process of parole in the state of Connecticut: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2009/rpt/2009-R-0345.htm 

As you can see, parole sentences are governed by state and each state has its own set rules of who they are willing and not willing to let rome the streets among us. Each state has a public record of their procedures,etc. that determine parole sentences, some more strict than others. All sites are easily accessed through search for parole sentences in said states.

This article was about James Ray who is a self-help guru. He gives people advice regarding physical, mental, or financials. As it turns out, in 2008 Ray organized a giant sweat lodge in Arizona. Three people ended up dying and others in the hospital. He has been charged with three counts of manslaughter. This looks to be an accident, a terrible accident, but it was not intentional. Since he has been charged it will be interesting to see how it goes over in court for James Ray.


Last year I took an honors course on Japan. While we never discussed or directly explored the Japanese court system, the professor slipped out a tidbit of information that always struck me as interesting. She said that in Japan, if you sincerely apologize for your actions, you will receive a greatly reduced sentence. I've had a hard time finding any information to back this up, but I did come across this article which seems to substantiate the claim. Sheila Johnson explains that this forgiveness after an apology occurs throughout the culture. Can you imagine if we let Blagovich or Spitzer off because they apologized? Johnson says that the difference in this regard between our two cultures is that we live in a "guilt" society and Japan lives in a "shame" society. When the Japanese apologize, they feel extremely shameful and believe that they have dishonored their family. And since, in Japanese culture, your family includes every family member who came before you and all of your descendants, this is a pretty big deal.

The importance and weight of an apology is also felt in their business world. If an employee acts unethically, their supervisor or the head of the company will often take the blame for them, sometimes even quitting or suspending themselves.

It's hard for me to imagine what our culture would be like if a murderer apologized and was sentenced to only 10 years in prison. We would have murderers and rapists out walking the streets, which frightens me. I greatly prefer our system, where you are punished for your crime, and your apology carries little weight.

The Twinkie Defense

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Have you ever seen the Oscar winning film, Milk? This article is about the man (Dan White) who murdered the San Francisco mayor, George Moscone, and the board supervisor, Harvey Milk. This case gained notoriety not only because the first openly gay official was murdered but also because many media agencies reported that White beat the murder conviction by using an insanity plea (stating that he ate too much junk food which made him insane). The media nicknamed this defense tactic as  the Twinkie Defense. 
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/insanity/7.html
 

Child Witness Testimony

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In a program series called Discovering Psychology, Philip Zimbardo narrates a particular program called Applying Psychology in Life.
 In the program, Research Psychologist Stephen Ceci is interviewed about child witness testimony. He discusses how investigators can inadvertently alter a child's memory by asking leading questions. His research has also laid down groundwork for interviewing children in many jurisdictions.
 This segment was extremely interesting to me and I encourage you all to watch it. It's roughly 7 minutes long but it is filled with a lot of  useful and interesting information.

http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=1521
*Please note, this video link is for the entire show. You may need to download Media Player 11 to watch it. To get to Ceci's segment, pull the video's progress bar to 12 minutes and 40 seconds into the video. Also, directly following the segment is a different segment about conflict management that begins with images from the Columbine incident (this begins around 19 minutes and 20 seconds). Please note that this segment is entirely different and strictly pertaining to conflict management among youth and not the judicial system. 

Mafia Boss John Gotti Beats Prosecution

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The son of the late notorious John Gotti Sr. Junior gets racketeeting charges droped after the prosectuion fails to convince the jury that Junior is guilty.  Four failed trials and he is a free man.  The main question that comes to my mind is the idea from old mobseter movies, when the mob always manages to get to some of the jury members and threatens their families lives if they don't go their way.  Now the fact that they tried to prosecute him with four different juries and failed only goes further to support my assumption.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/13/new.york.feds.gotti/index.html?iref=allsearch 

 

Adult Crime, Adult Time

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This is a very interesting and controversial article that I found on the CNN website. In this article it is discussed how the law in Connecticut changed the age at which a teenager could be tried as an adult. The original age was 16 and it was raised to 17. I think that this relates to the class because there are many psychological issues at question. In the beginning of an article a 16 year old boy stole gum from his peer and was charged with third degree assault. Because of this he had to do time. His parents were worried about him being in the same facility as other males much older than him. The psychological question is how will this experience affect his future? It is psychologically successful to put a 16 year old theft in with 35 year old rapists? How will this affect his future and his goals in life? I think this issue is very important to think about because I personally do not believe that juveniles should get away with rape or murder, but I also do not think a petty theft by a minor should be treated the same as a theft by an adult.

http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.uni.edu/stable/1394168?seq=1

Here is the link to the article.

The Texas Observer-Gone Baby Gone

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http://www.texasobserver.org/features/gone-baby-gone

 This article depicts the story of Otty Sanchez, who murdered her baby while she was suffering from postpartum psychosis. The article investigates how Sanchez actually sought help prior to the murder but had slipped through the cracks of an under-budgeted mental health system in Texas. Despite clear evidence supporting a legal insanity defense, prosecutors are planning to seek the death penalty. It is truly a tragic but eye-opening article for anybody who is interested in the problems that the mental health systems face and what happens when there is a break down in communication between professionals seeking mental health help for their clients. It is true that hindsight is 20-20. However, as it pertains to the Sanchez case, so many clear warning signs were left ignored by so many people and the two people who did recognize the pending break-down went unheard.
 Just to warn those who may read this article, some of the facts listed in it tend to be graphic in nature. 
 

CNN Justice

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The old Courttv.com is unfortunately gone. It's morphed into CNN Justice to cover 'real' life, and TruTV to cover crime dramas, etc.

http://www.cnn.com/JUSTICE/

Bureau of Justice Statistics provides comprehensive data on criminal justice systems.

http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/tost_1.html#1_aa

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