Liberty and Justice

An incensed federal judge sentenced a racist Brooklyn woman to indefinite jury duty on Tuesday after she trashed the NYPD and minorities. "This is an outrage, and so are you!"

John Thompson spent 14 years in jail until he was exonerated. The prosecutor had hidden evidence. A jury gave Thompson $14 million. This week the Supreme Court took it away.... "If I wasn't shaken by the seven execution dates I got, or watching my friends on death row die, I can't be shaken by what the world has to offer out here," he said in a recent interview. But he says that he is angry that the Supreme Court ruling means no one will be held accountable for his years on death row, or his near execution. "It's not about $14 million, because that was never my money anyway," he said. "People should be worried about what it means: there is no accountability. We just gave prosecutors permission to kill. That's the reality. "...

women still earn less, on average, than men and are more likely to live in poverty. They are also at much greater risk of sexual assault and of violence at the hands of an intimate partner than men. To be sure, the report shows that there is still plenty of progress to be made. But it is Women's History Month, and a good time to pause for perspective.... [Yeah, let's not dwell on what the next paragraph calls ASTONISHING IMPROVEMENTS in the headline or lead paragraphs!]

Republican state Sen. Josh Brecheen is sponsoring a bill to prohibit protests for two hours before and after a funeral and to no closer than 1,000 feet of the service. Current law prohibits protests within 500 feet and an hour before and after a funeral.... he doesn't think a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing a fundamentalist church to protest outside military funerals will affect his bill....

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a victim's statement to the police at a crime scene can be used in court, even if the victim later dies and cannot testify at a trial.

The interim president picked to rule Honduras after the army ousted leftist President Manuel Zelaya said on Monday the coup had saved the country from swinging to a radical Venezuelan-style socialism.... said Zelaya had lost respect for the law.... [Which doesn't bother Obama any...]

An inmate booked into the Oklahoma County jail Wednesday on an assault complaint was revealed to be one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives after a fingerprint check.... wanted in connection with the stabbing deaths of his estranged wife in Cleveland in 2002 and of a man in Baldwin Park, Calif., in 1995....

Mario Orion Bonilla, 24, pleaded guilty Nov. 25 to violating the federal drug-kingpin statute, which pertains to defendants who purportedly occupied management roles in drug-trafficking organizations involving at least five people who engaged in a series of felonies and made a substantial profit... pertained only to the marijuana aspect of the plot...

Legendary music producer Phil Spector was sentenced Friday to 19 years to life in prison for killing actress and House of Blues VIP hostess Lana Clarkson in the foyer of his Alhambra mansion more than six years ago.

"Twinkie defense" is a derisive label for an improbable legal defense. It is not a recognized legal defense in jurisprudence, but a catchall term coined by reporters during their coverage of the trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone. White's defense was that he suffered diminished capacity as a result of his depression. His change in diet from health food to Twinkies and other sugary food was said to be a symptom of depression. This defense is a claim that sugary food was not itself responsible for White's criminal behavior, but rather that it was a symptom of depression, which was the underlying cause. White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

A former reserve police officer charged with impersonating a police officer is contending that prosecutors failed to state a crime. According to a motion to dismiss filed this week in the case against Eric Evans, the state "failed to state a crime, under the circumstances of this action, which constitutes a crime."

Drew Peterson pleaded not guilty Monday to a charge of first-degree murder in the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.... Investigators have named Peterson as a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson. His third wife's death was originally deemed an accident, but after the case of the fourth wife sparked new questions, Savio's body was exhumed and a grand jury indicted Peterson this month on a charge of first-degree murder in her death.

Retired Cleveland County Sheriff's Department investigator Cliff Winkler can't ever forget the images of finding 8-year-old Shane Coffman's badly decomposed body packed inside a deep freezer behind a Newalla trailer home on Feb. 9, 1996. "It's a case that has really haunted me over the years and I feel like at least tomorrow, there will be some closure to it...."

The Drew Peterson case continues to read like a black-comedy version of "The Silence of the Lambs" done by "Monty Python's Flying Circus," with the Keystone Cops standing in for the FBI.