Injustice Watch (https://www.injusticewatch.org/news/)
The Philadelphia police commissioner announced on Thursday the department’s intention to fire 13 officers who published offensive posts on Facebook, and to suspend several additional officers. The action was taken in response to the publication of the Plain View Project database, exposing troubling posts by officers in eight cities.
Across the country, officials and citizens alike reacted intensely the launch of a database revealing thousands of troubling posts by law enforcement. Top prosecutors in Philadelphia and St. Louis said they are reviewing the posts, and some police groups called on departments to take action against officers whose posts were included in the database.
Remaining 137 associate judges get new, 4-year terms in secret vote by circuit judges.
An Illinois man originally sentenced to serve 100 years in prison for a murder he committed at age 16 was re-sentenced Monday to 39 years by Cook County Circuit Court Judge Kenneth J. Wadas.
A review of the Facebook accounts of thousands of officers around the US — the largest database of its kind — found officers endorsing violence against Muslims, women, and criminal defendants.
Some associate judges have faced repeated reversals and criticism from appellate courts. Some have engaged in troublesome past behavior. But Circuit Court judges, who are now voting on which get new terms, are armed with little information about those cases. Injustice Watch spent the past month digging into the records of the judges on the ballot. Here are our reports.
Email exchanges have advocates and a key Cook County commissioner fearing that the sheriff had not fully abandoned a controversial gang data base even as plans to decommission its use were taking place. The sheriff’s office responded that the concerns are baseless.
A 59-year-old Cook County man has long contended that he had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to life in prison because the judge who presided in the case had won office by deceptively claiming he lived in northwest Chicago. He was released from prison this month.
Nicholas R. Ford, who left behind a checkered record when he retired from the Cook County circuit court last month, has a new job: Ford was appointed this week as a U.S. Immigration Court judge, based in San Francisco.
A group of inmates who participated in the now-defunct debate team at a maximum security prison in Joliet, Illinois, filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday contending officials at the Illinois Department of Corrections violated their constitutional right to free speech.
Supporters and family of a man serving a 76-year sentence for murder based on testimony from an eyewitness the judge did not know was legally blind called on State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and her office to overturn his conviction at a press conference Monday.