Crime is Sweet: Forbes.com writer Trevor Butterworth opines on a recent study by the British Journal of Psychiatry correlating candy and crime. Now, according to their statistics, regularly eating candy not only gives you a life of cavities, but also crime. These kinds of studies, Butterworth says, are the "cheap carbs of news", filler that attempts to prove why bad things happen to good people. Correlation is not the same as causation. Butterworth connects frequent consumption of junk food to family income. Poorer people tend to consume more junk food on a habitual basis for multiple reasons: a lack of food knowledge and how to maintain a proper diet, the relative unavailabilty of fresh produce in socio-economically deprived areas, and the simple fact that junk food is cheap. The relationship between poverty and crime is much stronger than the correlation of junk food and jail time.
Balanced Penalties: The Washington Post, in an editorial, opines on the disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. As it stands today, one must be caught with 100 times the amount of powder to trigger the same mandatory minimum sentence that someone caught with crack cocaine would receive. The Justice Department is throwing its support behind Sen. Richard J. Durbin's bill to change that ratio to 1-1 for the amount of cocaine required for minimum sentencing. A 2007 report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission shows that smoking crack delivers a faster, more intense high. It compels crack users to seek additional doses. The report notes that about one-fourth of crack offenders are associated with violence, this exceeds the rate of violent cocaine offenders. The Washington Post editorial suggests to eliminate mandatory minimums and judge offenses on a case by case basis allowing for tougher penalty ranges for crack.
Soft Serve Slayings Tossed in Texas: Associated Press writer Jim Vertuno reports that on Wednesday, a Texas judge dimissed murder charges against two men awaiting retrial for the 1991 slayings of four teens, after prosecutors admitted they weren't ready to take the case to a jury. Robert Springsteen was sent to death row in 2001 for the capital murder of one of the girls. Michael Scott had been convicted in her death previously, and sentenced to life in prison. Both convictions were overturned when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said Springsteen and Scott were unfairly denied the chance to cross-examine each other. They had implicated each other in statements to investigators. The men were released in June after new DNA tests could not match them to the crime scene and revealed the presence of an unknown male. District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg plans to continue her investigation into the murders, and notes that the men could be charged again if new evidence emerges.
California Attorney General's Office Blast Cooper's Innocence Claims: Yesterday, Will Bigham of the Contra Costa Times, had an article discussing the California Attorney General's response to Kevin Cooper's U.S. Supreme Court petition. Apparently Cooper, the man convicted of murdering four people in 1983, has asked the Supreme Court to intervene in his case and address his innocence claims. The Attorney General's opposition filing presents evidence of Cooper's guilt and assails claims that he's had in insufficient opportunity to review evidence he claims will prove his innocence. The state's filing points out that when Cooper's execution was halted in 2004, so that Cooper could conduct forensic testing on a T-shirt and hair evidence, the results just revealed further evidence of Cooper's guilt. Cooper will reply to the state's filing next week, and the Supreme Court could decide whether to hear the case as early as November.
Balanced Penalties: The Washington Post, in an editorial, opines on the disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. As it stands today, one must be caught with 100 times the amount of powder to trigger the same mandatory minimum sentence that someone caught with crack cocaine would receive. The Justice Department is throwing its support behind Sen. Richard J. Durbin's bill to change that ratio to 1-1 for the amount of cocaine required for minimum sentencing. A 2007 report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission shows that smoking crack delivers a faster, more intense high. It compels crack users to seek additional doses. The report notes that about one-fourth of crack offenders are associated with violence, this exceeds the rate of violent cocaine offenders. The Washington Post editorial suggests to eliminate mandatory minimums and judge offenses on a case by case basis allowing for tougher penalty ranges for crack.
Soft Serve Slayings Tossed in Texas: Associated Press writer Jim Vertuno reports that on Wednesday, a Texas judge dimissed murder charges against two men awaiting retrial for the 1991 slayings of four teens, after prosecutors admitted they weren't ready to take the case to a jury. Robert Springsteen was sent to death row in 2001 for the capital murder of one of the girls. Michael Scott had been convicted in her death previously, and sentenced to life in prison. Both convictions were overturned when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said Springsteen and Scott were unfairly denied the chance to cross-examine each other. They had implicated each other in statements to investigators. The men were released in June after new DNA tests could not match them to the crime scene and revealed the presence of an unknown male. District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg plans to continue her investigation into the murders, and notes that the men could be charged again if new evidence emerges.
California Attorney General's Office Blast Cooper's Innocence Claims: Yesterday, Will Bigham of the Contra Costa Times, had an article discussing the California Attorney General's response to Kevin Cooper's U.S. Supreme Court petition. Apparently Cooper, the man convicted of murdering four people in 1983, has asked the Supreme Court to intervene in his case and address his innocence claims. The Attorney General's opposition filing presents evidence of Cooper's guilt and assails claims that he's had in insufficient opportunity to review evidence he claims will prove his innocence. The state's filing points out that when Cooper's execution was halted in 2004, so that Cooper could conduct forensic testing on a T-shirt and hair evidence, the results just revealed further evidence of Cooper's guilt. Cooper will reply to the state's filing next week, and the Supreme Court could decide whether to hear the case as early as November.
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