As of March 26, we're $27,100 in the red for the quarter. Donate here to support this vital work
Subscribe here and join over 13,000 subscribers to our free weekly newsletter

Court and Judicial Corruption News Articles

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on Court and Judicial Corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

Explore our comprehensive news index on a wide variety of fascinating topics.
Explore the top 20 most revealing news media articles we've summarized.
Check out 10 useful approaches for making sense of the media landscape.

Sort articles by: Article Date | Date Posted on WantToKnow.info | Importance


Trump's pardons of Rod Blagojevich and others meant to convince America corruption is OK
2020-02-20, NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-pardons-rod-blagojevich-others-...

If actions speak louder than words, then President Donald Trump's granting of pardons Tuesday was deafening. The list of 11 lucky Americans granted clemency read like a who's who of the rich and the famous former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr., Wall Street financier Michael Milken and former New York City police Commissioner Bernard Kerik among them. Many of the offenders who received pardons or commutations of their sentences were convicted of crimes relating to fraud and corruption. The message Trump is sending seems loud and clear: Fraud and corruption are not serious crimes. And as such, these types of white-collar crimes can be ignored. Predators of all types from criminals who engage in fraud to those who commit sexual exploitation often groom their victims for action they want to take in the future. Trump may be using his pardon power in the same way. By inuring the public to the harm of fraud and corruption, the president can convince his base of supporters that these are not serious crimes. Clearly, Trump is using pardons to undermine public faith in the government and the criminal justice system. If, at some point, he does decide to pardon [Roger] Stone and other allies, such as former campaign chairman Paul Manafort or former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the outrage will have been defused.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Court strikes down Trump rule that drugmakers disclose price
2020-06-17, ABC News/Associated Press
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/court-strikes-trump-rule-drugmakers...

In a major legal setback for President Donald Trump on a high-profile consumer issue, a federal appeals court has ruled that his administration lacks the legal authority to force drug companies to disclose prices in their TV ads. Where most plans to overhaul the cost of drugs are complex, mandating that companies disclose prices is something any consumer can relate to. Separate from the court case, legislation that would lower drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries with high bills is stuck in Congress. There's also a separate bill that would mandate drug companies to disclose their prices in consumer advertising. On TV ads, the unanimous decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit did not address a core argument of the pharmaceutical industry, that forcing companies to disclose their prices in advertising violates their free speech rights. Instead the three-judge panel ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services overstepped its legal authority by requiring disclosure under the umbrella of its stewardship of Medicare and Medicaid. When the disclosure rule was announced last year, administration officials were confident that it would be in effect by now. Drug pricing details were expected to appear in text toward the end of commercials.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and Big Pharma profiteering from reliable major media sources.


Trump administration targeting 'enemy of America' Julian Assange, court told
2020-02-24, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/24/julian-assange-hearing-journa...

Donald Trumps administration is targeting Julian Assange as an enemy of the America who must be brought down and his very life could be at risk if he is sent to face trial in the US, the first day of the WikiLeaks founders extradition hearing has been told. Lawyers for Assange intend to call as a witness a former employee of a Spanish security company who says surveillance was carried out for the US on Assange while he was at Ecuadors London embassy and that conversations had turned to potentially kidnapping or poisoning him. Assange, 48, is wanted in the US to face 18 charges of attempted hacking and breaches of the Espionage Act. They relate to the publication a decade ago of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and files covering areas including US activities in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Australian, who could face a 175-year prison sentence if found guilty, is accused of working with the former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to leak classified documents. Key parts of the evidence related to the claim, which emerged last week, that a then US Republican congressman offered Assange a pardon if he denied Russian involvement in the leaking of US Democratic party emails during the 2016 US presidential contest. The court was told that Dana Rohrabacher, who claims to have made the proposal on his own initiative, had presented it as a win-win scenario that would allow Assange to leave the embassy and get on with his life.

Note: Read more about the strange prosecution of Assange. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


How 20 years of stop and search has widened Americas racial divide
2018-10-09, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/oct/09/how-20-years-of-stop-and-search-...

Not all stops are created equal. Sometimes the police pull people over for traffic-safety reasons for speeding or running a red light, for example. More nefariously, recent reports ... have shown that police departments ... have used traffic enforcement to generate fines to fund local government. But [another] kind of stop an investigatory or pretext stop uses the traffic laws to uncover more serious crime. Such stops (and subsequent searches) exploded in popularity in the 1990s. Pretext stops are responsible for most of the racial disparity in traffic stops in the US. Political scientist Charles Epp found that when the police are actually enforcing traffic safety laws, they tend to do so without regard to race. But when they are carrying out investigatory or pretext stops, they are much more likely to stop black and other minority drivers: black people are about two-and-a-half times more likely to be pulled over for pretext stops. The damage from a pretext stop of a driver, a pedestrian, a loiterer doesnt end with the stop itself. The pretext-stop regime ... propels disparities in the rest of the criminal justice system. By ... 2000, we had been steadily, incrementally, building the punitive criminal justice system we still live with today. Most of the pieces the aggressive prosecutions and policing, longer sentences, prison-building, collateral consequences of convictions such as losing the right to vote or the chance to live in public housing had been put in place. The years since [have] been primarily dedicated to maintaining ... that basic architecture.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in policing and in the judicial system.


Pope Francis changes Catholic Church teaching to say death penalty is inadmissible
2018-08-02, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pope-francis-changes-catholic-church-tea...

Pope Francis has changed Catholic Church teaching to fully reject the death penalty, the Vatican announced Thursday, saying it would work to abolish capital punishment worldwide. The revision to several sentences of the catechism, the compendium of Catholic beliefs, has the potential to recast debates around the world on how to handle those accused of the most heinous crimes. The churchs updated teaching describes capital punishment as inadmissible and an attack on the dignity of the person. Previously, the church allowed for the death penalty in very rare cases, only as a means of defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. Francis has for years been a vocal critic of the death penalty, calling it an inhuman measure. The Argentine pontiff has pointed to the churchs stance on the death penalty as evidence of how the Vatican can evolve: The church for centuries permitted executions, but in 1997, John Paul II dramatically narrowed the standards for when the punishment was permissible. Franciss latest move places the issue toward the forefront of his own efforts to overhaul and modernize the Roman Catholic Churchs approach to social justice. The full political significance of the new teaching stands to emerge slowly, as priests and bishops speak more clearly about the death penalty to planets 1.2 billion Catholics. Because the practice has already been abolished in most countries with large Catholic populations ... the United States is among the places where the shift could have the greatest consequence.

Note: In 2014, a major study found that about 300 wrongfully-convicted people had been executed in the US between 1973 and 2004. from reliable major media sources. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing prison system corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


'Stand your ground' has become a get-out-of-jail-free license to kill
2018-07-30, USA Today
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/spotlight/2018/07/30/stand-yo...

As has happened before in Florida, "stand your ground" is being appropriately scrutinized in the aftermath of the shocking shooting death of Markeis McGlockton, an unarmed black man who was gunned down for trying to protect his family - including his young children - in a dispute over a handicapped parking space. The local sheriff concluded that shooter Michael Drejka pulled the trigger because he was in fear, and therefore stand your ground applied. According to this inexplicable interpretation of the law, Drejka needed to defend himself from a man who ... was backing away from the confrontation. Floridas stand your ground law emerged as an outgrowth of the traditional castle doctrine, which allowed individuals to defend their home (or castle) with whatever force was necessary. Somehow, that concept has been warped into a virtual get-out-of-jail-free card that is essentially a license to kill. Five members of Congress, including three U.S. senators, have called for the Department of Justice to investigate why stand-your-ground immunity was extended to a man carrying a concealed weapon who angrily approached a car ... and created a confrontation. Had McGlockton been the one to pull out a gun, there is no way stand your ground would have been extended to him, a man of color. The Journal of the American Medical Association has reported a significant increase in unlawful homicides since stand your ground was enacted in Florida in 2005.

Note: Watch the disturbing video of the incident at the link above. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Will I Die At Guantanamo Bay? After 15 Years, I Deserve Justice
2018-01-11, Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/will-i-die-guantanamo-bay-15-years-without-charges-de...

I was captured when I was in my 20s and brought to Guantanamo Bay in 2004, after more than two years in secret prisons. I have been imprisoned here without charges since then. I am now 43. Thirteen years ago, your country brought me here because of accusations about who I was. Confessions were beaten out of me in those secret prisons. I tried, but I am no longer trying to fight against those accusations from the past. What I am asking today is, how long is my punishment going to continue? Your president says there will be no more transfers from here. Am I going to die here? If I have committed crimes against the law, charge me. In 15 years, I have never been charged, and the worst things the government has said about me were extracted by force. The judge in my habeas case decided years ago that I had been subjected to physical and psychological abuse during my interrogations, and statements the government has wanted to use against me are not reliable. Even if I were cleared, it would not matter. There are men here who have been cleared for years who are sitting in prison next to me. Detainees here, all Muslim, have never had rights equal to other human beings. Even when we first won the right to challenge our detention, in the end, it became meaningless. It is hard for me to ... believe that laws will not be bent again to allow the government to win. But this week, I am joining a group of detainees here, all of us who have been held without charges for years, to try again to ask the courts for protection.

Note: The above was written by Sharqawi Al Hajj, a Yemeni citizen detained at Guantanamo Bay. For more along these lines, see the "10 Craziest Things in the Senate Report on Torture". For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the intelligence community.


Texas makes it nearly impossible to obtain records in police abuse cases
2017-04-25, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/04/25/texas-makes-it-ne...

A couple in the town of Mesquite, [Texas] have spent the past several years trying to learn how and why their son died after being arrested by local police. [Kathy Dyer was told that her son] Graham had been out of his mind on LSD and had bitten one of the officers while they were taking him into custody, [and that] hed seriously injured himself inside the police cruiser as they drove to the jail. After the funeral, his parents noticed items in the hospital records that didnt match the police account the night he was arrested. So they asked police department for records. They were denied. Under state law, police agencies arent required to turn over records from investigations that dont result in a conviction. Because Graham is dead, there would be no conviction. Grahams parents did finally get ... videos [of the arrest]. They showed clear discrepancies between how her son died and how local police claim he died. He was Tasered repeatedly, including in the testicles, and put in a restraint chair. Even after Graham showed signs of distress, police waited more than two hours to call an ambulance. Before they had obtained the video, the Dyers had filed a complaint in federal court. It was quickly dismissed for being too vague. After the videos, a federal ... judge allowed the lawsuit to go forward. This problem isnt limited to Texas. Law enforcement agencies know that federal courts require specificity in these types of lawsuits. So theres a strong incentive to be as stingy with information as possible.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in police departments and in the judicial system.


Did the EPA Prosecute and Jail a Mississippi Lab Owner Because of Her Activism?
2016-11-25, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/25/did-the-epa-prosecute-and-jail-a-mississi...

Tennie White, who was prosecuted by a joint team made up of attorneys from the Environmental Protection Agency and the environmental crimes division of the Justice Department, had spent her professional life exposing contamination. She was ... particularly vocal about protecting poor African-American communities. Before she was charged and prosecuted, White had spent much of her time volunteering for [the Coalition of Communities for Environmental Justice], an organization she had co-founded to help these Mississippians contend with pollution. She traveled throughout the state ... talking about environmental issues in black communities. So in 2012, when White was charged with fraud by the EPA, the organization she so often criticized, and the charges involved a company she had helped a community challenge, [those] who had been working closely with her felt they knew exactly what had happened. She was framed, said [White's former colleague Rev. Steve] Jamison. It was that simple. I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the EPA for all communications relating to the investigation of Tennie White in April 2016. The agency is supposed to resolve such requests within 20 business days, but I did not receive all the documents I requested. Nor did the EPA respond to my repeated requests to address the specifics of Whites case - and why her sentence for a crime of no environmental consequence was more severe than penalties for many others who caused serious harm.

Note: Despite its mandate to protect human health and the environment, the EPA has a long history of keeping the existence of toxic waste sites secret and preventing employees from talking with congressional investigators, reporters and the agency's own inspector general. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and health.


Child sex abuse crimes 'going unpunished' in Malaysia
2016-11-14, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/malaysia-child-sex-abuse-crimes-...

Most complaints of child sexual abuse in Malaysia do not lead to successful prosecutions. According to classified data Malaysian police compiled and shared with Reuters, 12,987 cases of child sexual abuse were reported to police between January 2012 and July of this year. Charges were filed in 2,189 cases, resulting in just 140 convictions. No details were disclosed in the cases where there were convictions. Child rights advocates have long pushed the government to publicly disclose data on child sexual abuse to increase awareness so action can be taken to address what they call a growing problem. A veil was lifted in June when a British court handed Richard Huckle 22 life sentences for abusing up to 200 babies and children, mostly in Malaysia, and sharing images of his crimes on the dark web. Child sexual abuse data ... is protected under Malaysias Official Secrets Act. The government provides data on child abuse only at the request of a member of parliament. In 17 years of operation, PS the Children, Malaysias biggest NGO dealing with child abuse, has seen zero convictions on the cases it has handled, its founder Madeleine Yong told Reuters. Malaysia does not have a law specifically prohibiting child pornography and defines rape narrowly as penile penetration. Australian detectives who investigate paedophiles in the region believe Malaysia has become one of Southeast Asias biggest centres for the transmission of child pornography on the Internet.

Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.


Judicial errors take high toll on inmates, taxpayers, report says
2016-03-09, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Judicial-errors-take-high-toll-on-inmates...

692 felony convictions in California ... were thrown out between 1989 and 2012 based on errors or misconduct by police, prosecutors, defense lawyers or judges, according to a new study by researchers at UC Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania. The report ... didnt include misdemeanor cases, which amount to about 80 percent of all prosecutions, or juvenile cases. And it also excluded the costs of jailing people who were later released without charges, which may amount to $70 million a year, the report said. The study examined only records from California and ... looked at cases in which felony convictions were overturned and the defendants were later cleared. More than half the cases involved prosecutors wrongful withholding of evidence. One example was that of former Black Panther Elmer Geronimo Pratt. Pratt was convicted in 1972 of murdering schoolteacher Carolyn Olson [in 1968] and was sentenced to life in prison, based in part on [witness] testimony. He was freed in 1999 after a judge found that prosecutors had withheld evidence that the witness was an informant for the FBI, which was then trying to discredit Pratt as part of its Cointelpro campaign. The authors questioned long-standing laws that shield prosecutors from lawsuits by criminal defendants. They said they knew of no other profession that received immunity for intentional wrongdoing that gravely injures another.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the prison system.


Chicago Law Department is sanctioned again for withholding police shooting records
2016-01-04, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-law-department-s...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Law Department again has been sanctioned for withholding records involving a fatal police shooting, marking the eighth time in recent years a federal judge has formally punished the city [of Chicago] for failing to turn over potential evidence in a police misconduct lawsuit. U.S. District Court Judge Joan Gottschall on Tuesday ruled that the city acted in "bad faith" when it ignored a court order and made little effort to provide documents to the lawyer for the family of 20-year-old Divonte Young, who was shot and killed by an officer in 2012. In a sharply worded 24-page order, the judge criticized the city for its approach to discovery, the legal process that allows the two sides in a lawsuit to uncover relevant facts. "The City's cavalier attitude toward the discovery process ... warrant findings of willfulness, fault and bad faith," Gottschall wrote. In imposing her punishment, Gottschall ... stripped the city of legal protections that would have allowed its lawyers to withhold some documents from the Young family's lawyer. A Tribune investigation last year that analyzed nearly 450 cases alleging police misconduct since Emanuel took office found that a federal judge had to order the city to turn over potential evidence in nearly 1 of every 5 cases. The issue came to a head in January 2016, when a federal judge sanctioned one city lawyer for intentionally concealing evidence and ... took the rare step of tossing out a jury verdict in favor of the city and ordering a new trial.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing police corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


While Sears executives get $25 million in bonuses, laid-off workers struggle during Christmastime
2018-12-11, NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/while-sears-executives-get-25-million-bo...

While the executives who presided over the bankruptcy of Sears and Kmart will ring out 2018 with news of $25.3 million in bonuses, laid-off worker Ondrea Patrick will be using her unemployment check to pay for new brakes on her 2000 Dodge Durango. Patrick, who lost her job when the Kmart she worked at in Rockford, Illinois, closed in October, had been hoping to use the money to buy her kids ... something new for Christmas. Theyll be getting hand-me-downs and relying on charity this Christmas while the people in charge are handsomely rewarded. Those top people and (Sears CEO Eddie) Lampert are having a wonderful Christmas, Patrick [said]. They got $25 million in bonuses. Me? Im late on my bills. The electric company is threatening to shut me off. And I dont have anything left to spend on the kids this Christmas. Patrick, who worked part-time for Kmart for nine years, is one of the thousands of workers whose lives were upended in October when Sears Holdings ... declared bankruptcy. A U.S. bankruptcy court judge allowed Sears Holdings to hand out the bonuses after the company successfully argued that it would lose its top people if theres nothing in their stockings this Christmas. Meanwhile, Patricks former co-worker Sheila Brewer, 47, has cancelled Christmas for herself and her husband. The eight weeks of severance she was supposed to get ended after four weeks when the bankruptcy court stopped the rest of the payments to laid-off Sears Holdings workers.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and income inequality.


After a summer of protest, Americans voted for policing and criminal justice reform
2020-11-14, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/criminal-justice-election/2020/11/13/...

Americans took to the streets for extended demonstrations this summer to protest police violence and racial injustice. Then, on Election Day, they took to the voting booth to endorse criminal justice and policing changes. With a wave of votes across the country, Americans backed a string of measures increasing police oversight, elected reform-minded prosecutors, loosened drug laws and passed other proposals rethinking key elements of law enforcement and justice in their communities. These votes, taken together, signal that after a summer of protest brought renewed scrutiny to the justice system, many Americans were open to rethinking how it functions. Voters in Oakland, Calif., moved to create an inspector general’s office outside the police force to review officer misconduct. In Columbus, Ohio, voters passed an amendment creating a civilian police review board and an inspector general. San Diegans supported replacing a police review board with a commission that would have subpoena power and the authority to investigate police misconduct. These votes were not exclusively in big cities. In Kyle, Tex., outside Austin, voters overwhelmingly passed a proposition requiring police policies to be reviewed by the city council and put under a committee’s oversight. Voters in several places supported loosening drug laws. Oregon voters backed a ballot measure decriminalizing small amounts of drugs including cocaine and heroin. New Jersey, Arizona, Montana and South Dakota ... legalized recreational marijuana.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.


Trump calls for Sotomayor, Ginsburg to recuse themselves from 'Trump-related' cases as he has a lot at stake before the court
2020-02-25, CNN News
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/politics/donald-trump-ruth-bader-ginsburg-soni...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday called for two liberal Supreme Court justices to recuse themselves from cases involving him following a scathing dissent issued by one of them, blasting the justices as the court considers a number of cases critical to his presidency. "I just don't know how they can't recuse themselves for anything having to do with Trump or Trump-related," Trump said of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg during a trip to India. "Her statement was so inappropriate when you're a justice of the Supreme Court," he said of Sotomayor, who was appointed to the court by President Barack Obama. Sotomayor castigated the government for repeatedly asking justices on an emergency basis to allow controversial policies to go into effect and charged her conservative colleagues on the court with being too eager to side with the Trump administration on such requests. While Sotomayor's dissent targeted the federal government -- not The Trump administration per se -- she was speaking about the recent uptick in emergency petitions concerning many of the President's policies. And her criticism of her conservative colleagues was pointed. Sotomayor wrote that granting emergency applications often upends "the normal appellate process" while "putting a thumb on the scale in favor of the party that won." Targeting her conservative colleagues, she said "most troublingly, the court's recent behavior" has benefited "one litigant over all others."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on judicial system corruption from reliable major media sources.


Epstein accusers denied compensation in victims' rights case
2019-09-17, MSN News/Associated Press
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/epstein-accusers-denied-damages-in-fla-v...

A group of women who say they were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein suffered a setback Monday in their decade-long legal fight over a plea deal that allowed the financier to avoid a lengthy prison term. A federal judge in West Palm Beach, Florida, ruled that the women were not entitled to compensation from the U.S. Justice Department, even though prosecutors violated their rights by failing to consult them about the 2008 deal to end a federal probe that could have landed Epstein in prison for life. "In the end they are not receiving much, if any, of the relief they sought," U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra wrote. Several of Epstein's victims sued the Justice Department in 2008 over their handling of his plea negotiations, in which his victims were purposely kept in the dark by state and federal prosecutors in South Florida. They kept the legal case alive for years ... arguing that prosecutors had violated the federal Crime Victims' Rights Act. The drawn-out litigation ultimately fueled a Miami Herald investigation into the plea negotiations, which in turn led to a new wave of public outrage over perceived favorable treatment for Epstein. Federal prosecutors in New York revived the case, arguing they weren't bound by the original deal, and charged Epstein with sex trafficking. Former Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who oversaw the plea deal, stepped down as U.S. labor secretary amid the renewed scrutiny. And Marra ruled in February that prosecutors had violated the rights of dozens of Epstein accusers.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.


How Golf Digest and College Students Helped Free a Man Wrongly Convicted of Murder
2018-09-20, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/nyregion/Valentino-Dixon-golf-digest-exone...

There were dozens of witnesses when a gunfight broke out on a street corner in Buffalo on Aug. 10, 1991. Torriano Jackson, 17, was killed. Valentino Dixon, then 21, was at the scene. Hours later, he was arrested. And in 1992, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to almost 40 years to life in prison. For years, Mr. Dixon fought that conviction from behind bars, insisting on his innocence. No physical evidence had ever connected him to the murder, and another man had confessed to it more than once. His murder conviction was vacated on Wednesday, and Mr. Dixon, 48, walked free. As he struggled to get his conviction overturned, Mr. Dixon got help from ... Martin Tankleff, who was imprisoned for 17 years after being wrongly convicted of murdering his parents. In prison, [Dixon] liked to draw detailed landscapes in colored pencil. Golf courses were a frequent subject. That caught the interest of journalists at Golf Digest, and the magazine profiled Mr. Dixon. In 2017, a new district attorney, John Flynn, took office in Erie County. And in 2018, a course called the Prison Reform Project was offered for the first time at Georgetown University ... with Mr. Tankleff [serving] as an adjunct professor. Three students chose Mr. Dixons case and gathered evidence. Their work helped Donald M. Thompson, a lawyer for Mr. Dixon, make his case to the district attorneys office. Mr. Flynn, the district attorney, said the newly discovered evidence from various witnesses attesting to Mr. Dixons innocence was deemed credible.

Note: Read the Golf Digest profile featuring Mr. Dixon's artwork which brought much-needed attention to his wrongful incarceration. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


UK charity warns tourists in Dubai not to report rape after woman who was 'gang raped' arrested
2016-11-17, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/rape-victim-dubai-united-arab-em...

A UK-based charity has warned that British tourists and expats in Dubai and across the United Arab Emirates (UAE) should not report incidents of rape after a woman who was allegedly gang raped was arrested and charged with extramarital sex. Detained in Dubai, an organisation that assists people who have become victims of injustice in the UAE, has warned against reporting rape or other crimes in the country because of the manipulation when it comes to criminal accusations and the racist preconceptions held against Western tourists. Radha Stirling, founder of the charity, said that following the recent case as well as a number of other shocking incidents in recent years where rape victims have been detained in the UAE she advises British tourists not to report crime. The latest case involves the arrest of a 25-year-old woman who was on holiday in Dubai in October when she was allegedly attacked by two British men, who allegedly befriended her and lured her to their hotel room before pinning her down and raping her while recording it on a phone. When the woman reported the rape at a police station, she was arrested for breaking Emirati laws against extramarital sex, while her attackers have since flown home to the UK. Her passport has reportedly been confiscated and she is prohibited from leaving the country. The prescribed punishments for extramarital sex in the UAE include imprisonment, deportation, floggings and stoning.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.


Dakota Access pipeline protesters see bias after Oregon militia verdict
2016-10-30, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/30/dakota-access-pipeline-protes...

Hundreds of activists gathered to block construction of the Dakota Access pipeline on Thursday. Police with tanks and riot gear surrounded them and began making mass arrests. One officer on the loudspeaker warned the demonstrators not to shoot bows and arrows. For some Native American activists, the officers comment was the latest sign that a highly militarized police force has little understanding of indigenous culture. The notion that the criminal justice system is biased against Native American protesters came into sharp view hours later, when a jury in Portland, Oregon, issued a verdict of not guilty for white militia leaders who staged an armed occupation of federal land to protest government policies. The fact that protesters with guns were acquitted on the same day police arrested 141 water protectors, who have often relied on indigenous songs and prayers to convey their message, sparked a firestorm on social media. At the Standing Rock camps in North Dakota, where the fight against the $3.8bn oil pipeline is escalating ... Native Americans said the Oregon verdict was an infuriating and painful reminder that the law treats them differently and that the odds are stacked against them in their ... battle to save their land. The ultra-conservative activists who seized the Malheur refuge were fighting against environmental restrictions aimed at protecting ... public lands. In North Dakota, the Native American-led movement is grounded in the idea that the land is sacred and must be preserved.

Note: For more on this under-reported movement, see this Los Angeles Times article and this article in the UK's Guardian. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the erosion of civil liberties.


Cover-up claims revive sex scandal
1999-04-20, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/apr/21/stephenbates

Anguish over the abduction and death of girls as young as eight at the hands of a convicted sex offender, Marc Dutroux, together with persistent allegations of official cover-ups, has been revived by an announcement that [Jacques Langlois], the chief investigating magistrate in the case, wants to reopen medical evidence of sexual assault on the children. And, in further disclosures ... a book by [Marc Verwilghen], the highly respected chairman of a parliamentary inquiry into the case, claims that his commission's findings were muzzled by political and judicial leaders to prevent details emerging of complicity in the crimes. In August 1996, [the children's] bodies were found buried in Mr Dutroux's back garden in Charleroi. They had disappeared 14 months before, and had apparently starved to death, locked in a cell in Mr Dutroux's basement. The bodies of two teenage girls were also found buried in the garden, with that of Bernard Weinstein, an associate with whom he had fallen out. Two other teenage girls were found alive in the basement cell after the police, who had previously searched the property three times without noticing it, finally broke into the house. Although there is plenty of evidence that Mr Dutroux kidnapped the children ... Mr Langlois now apparently wants to establish whether he [or anyone else] also sexually assaulted them. One of the rescued girls, Sabine Dardenne, 12, who was locked up in the cell for three months, told police of being taken to a 'beautiful white house' by Mr Dutroux and being sexually assaulted.

Note: Explore more excellent research proving a major cover-up of this case. Read a highly revealing essay on several cases of pedophilia rings involving top politicians. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.


Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.