Drew Peterson Conviction Hinged On Hearsay Evidence, Juror Says

JOLIET, Ill. -- The final juror to agree to convict Drew Peterson of murder in the death of his ex-wife says he "barely slept" one night during the proceedings because the same nagging questions kept popping into his head.

Even after joining fellow members of the panel by casting the last vote for guilty, Ron Supalo remains troubled by the prosecution's reliance on hearsay, statements not based on a witness' direct knowledge.

Peterson, the former suburban Chicago police officer, faces a maximum 60-year prison term after his first-degree murder conviction in the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. It was the first case in Illinois history to permit the use of hearsay evidence, based on a 2008 state law specifically tailored to Peterson's case.

"I needed time to think it through," Supalo, a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, said in a telephone interview Friday evening.

Supalo said he believes the hearsay law might be unconstitutional, but he eventually realized his duty as a juror was only to assess the evidence, not the laws.

"We (the jurors) weren't the U.S. Supreme Court," he said. "Right or wrong, this was the hearsay law, and we had to use it in this case."

Other jurors acknowledged that comments Stacy Peterson, Peterson's fourth wife, made before her 2007 disappearance played the decisive role in convincing them to convict her husband of killing his ex-wife.

The prosecution's strategy grew largely from a lack of physical evidence collected in the case after investigators initially deemed Savio's 2004 death an accident. Prosecutors claimed the hearsay would allow Savio and Stacy Peterson – who is presumed dead – "to speak from their graves" through family and friends.

It worked.

Jury foreman Eduardo Saldana, 22, said the women's comments were "extremely critical" in deliberations and in his decision to convict Peterson. He said he was one of four jurors who initially had reservations given a lack of physical evidence tying the former police officer to Savio's death. But Saldana said the more he thought about hearsay testimony from Stacy Peterson's pastor, the more compelling he found it.

But Supalo said he had some doubts about the credibility of Stacy Peterson's statements to the Rev. Neil Schori.

During the trial, Schori testified that Stacy Peterson told him weeks before she went missing that her husband got up from bed and left the house about the time of Savio's death and then returned to stuff women's clothing in their washing machine. Peterson also coached his wife for hours on how to lie to police, Schori told jurors.

"When it was the 11 for guilty and just me holding out, I told them, `You all believe Schori's testimony is gospel because he is a man of God,'" Supalo said. "They said, `It is.' And I said, `No, it's not!'"

Supalo also said he had difficulty coming to terms with convicting someone based on what others claimed someone else said.

"I'm uncomfortable with the Illinois law that allowed hearsay," Supalo, who briefly studied law. "They made the law just for Drew Peterson – applied it to him retroactively. If there was no hearsay in his case – Drew Peterson goes free."

Defense lawyers have said the presentation of hearsay undercut Peterson's constitutional rights because he couldn't directly confront his accusers – namely, his third and fourth wives.

They tried to discredit Stacy Peterson by having attorney Harry Smith testify that she asked him if she could squeeze more money out of Peterson in a divorce if she threatened to tell police he killed Savio. But Saldana and other jurors said Smith only ended up stressing that Stacy Peterson knew her husband had, in fact, murdered his ex-wife.

As he realized Smith was starting to hurt Peterson's case, the defense attorney questioning him, Joel Brodsky, began shouting at Smith, accusing him of lying.

Juror Teresa Mathews, 49, said Friday that Smith had nothing to gain by making up testimony.

"We believed he was a credible witness," she said.

Although thoughts about the evidence cost Supalo some sleep, by Thursday afternoon, just before the verdict was read in court to gasps and tears, he'd resolved several issues in his mind. Among them was accepting Schori's and Smith's testimony as credible, he said.

"It was the totality of the evidence that convinced me," he said.

Peterson is to be sentenced Nov. 26.

Neighbors found the 40-year-old's body in the bathtub of her suburban Chicago home – a gash on the back of her head. Investigators initially thought she drowned after slipping in the tub, but reopened the case after Stacy Peterson disappeared.

Peterson also is a suspect in that case, and Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow said Thursday that charges could be forthcoming.

Peterson's personality had seemed to loom large over the trial, at least to outsiders.

Before his 2009 arrest, the glib, cocky Peterson seemed to taunt authorities, joking on talk shows and even suggesting a "Win a Date With Drew" contest. His behavior inspired a TV movie starring Rob Lowe.

But jurors said Friday that Peterson's crude and unsavory reputation didn't factor into their deliberations.

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'THE EPITOME OF DANGER': Doctor Charged In Homeowners Shooting

Mahmoud Yousef Hindi (R) appears for his arraignment on charges of murder, assault and wanton endangerment, along with defense attorney Todd Lewis.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A Louisville man accused of opening fire at a homeowners association meeting, killing one and critically wounding another, was ordered held on a $1 million bond Saturday at an initial court hearing where a prosecutor called him "the epitome of danger to the community."

A not guilty plea was entered on behalf of 55-year-old Mahmoud Yousef Hindi to charges of murder, assault and wanton endangerment in the Thursday evening shooting at a church.

Dressed in a blue jail outfit, Hindi showed no emotion and did not speak as he stood before a judge.

Afterward, defense attorney Todd Lewis called the case a "horrendous tragedy" and said the Hindi family's thoughts were with the victims' families. Lewis asked for patience in unraveling the case.

"We look forward to our day in court," he told reporters. "There's always another side to things."

What specifically sparked the attack wasn't clear.

Police say Hindi, a doctor educated in Jordan, had a history of disputes with the homeowners group revolving around a fence that the association said didn't meet its height or design requirements in the upscale neighborhood of Spring Creek.

The association's attorney says the organization brought the zoning violation charges to the city. Hindi wrote several letters to the attorney, expressing anger and contempt for the attorney.

In one letter that ranted about several neighbors, Hindi cited the Quran, the theory of creationism, the idea that America has gone to Communism, threatens to form his own homeowners association and accused neighbors of stealing his "no trespassing signs" in the dispute over the fence.

"You would not believe some of the crap he wrote in these letters," said Mark Wagner, a former president of the homeowners association. "It was rambling stuff."

Wagner, who used to live near Hindi, said his predecessor as association president resigned from the post and abruptly moved from the neighborhood after having property-line disputes with Hindi.

"They were so scared of him that they moved," Wagner said in a phone interview. "They dumped their house. They sold it to the first person who looked at their house ... to get away from this guy."

Police say Hindi was at the homeowners meeting for a short time before he started shooting. Some of the several people in attendance detained him until police arrived. Police did not immediately release other details such as what sort of weapon was used.

Slain was 73-year-old David Merritt, a one-time association president, who was shot once in the head and died at the scene, according to a deputy coroner.

The wounded man, whose name was not immediately released, was in critical condition Saturday at University of Louisville Hospital.

Barbara Pass, who lives down the street from Hindi, said people were intimidated by him.

"He threatened people, he would say things like, `You know I've got a gun and I just might use it.'"

Two of Hindi's brothers and one of his sons watched the brief arraignment via closed-circuit television in another room. They declined comment as they left the local jail where the hearing was held.

"The family is in a state of shock and disbelief as to what has happened," said Khalid Kahloon, another attorney representing Hindi. "This is a ... peace-loving, law-abiding family enjoying their American dream, and then it's shattered by this unfortunate and very tragic incident."

His attorneys asked the judge for a much lower bond. Kahloon called him a "complex man" who "is not a danger to the community in the sense that this crime is not a random, violent crime."

Kahloon cited another neighbor's favorable comments about Hindi. The neighbor, Marty Swiergosz, told The Courier-Journal that he got along well with Hindi and Hindi's family.

"It's real complex because they were nothing but good to me," Swiergosz said of the Hindi family. "They'd give us stuff out of their garden. He always wanted to feed our dogs. That was 98 percent of the time."

Swiergosz described Hindi as a "passionate man," but told the Louisville newspaper that he wouldn't repeat some things Hindi had said.

Prosecutor Joe Martz objected to lowering the bond.

"He is the epitome of danger to the community," Martz said at the arraignment.

The judge kept the bond at $1 million and set a pre-trial hearing for Sept. 14.

Hindi is a Jordanian-American citizen who worked in nuclear medicine, Kahloon said.

Hindi was unable to keep practicing medicine because of health problems – he recently had back surgery – and his medical license had expired, the attorney said.

Kahloon mentioned one other time when Hindi had a brush with the law, when he was given a traffic ticket in another county for exceeding the speed limit by 7 mph. Hindi had failed to appear for a hearing on the citation, resulting in a bench warrant, the attorney said.

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NYPD Fatally Shoots Knife-Wielding Man

An NYPD officer fatally shot a knife-wielding man in Queens Friday afternoon,

Police were responding to a call at 165-43 Terrace in Springfield Gardens. When they arrived they found an emotionally disturbed, 27-year-old man holding a knife to his own neck.

After pleading with him to put the knife down, the man raised the knife in the air and approached a police officer. The officer fired one shot, hitting the man in the shoulder.

The man's injuries were initially not considered life-threatening. At 7:16, however, he was pronounced dead at Jamaica Hospital.

Kevin, a neighbor and friend of the deceased, didn't understand why the cops had to shoot him.

“Why didn’t they tase him to bring him down, calm him down and then grab hold of him to keep him under wraps?” he told CBS New York. “That man did not deserve that.”

Less than 24 hours earlier, an NYPD officer fatally shot a Bronx bodega worker, 20-year-old Reynaldo Cuevas. According to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Cuevas was fleeing from the store after a robbery when he barreled into a cop, whose gun accidentally discharged.

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Chocolate Penis May Save Death Row Inmate

Marcus Wellons, now 57, was convicted of murder in 1993.

The lawyer for a Georgia death row inmate says a penis-shaped chocolate could play a crucial role in setting her client free.

Marcus Wellons, now 57, was sentenced to death in June 1993, after his conviction in the 1989 rape and strangling murder of 15-year-old India Roberts.

Wellons' trial cannot be considered fair, argues his lawyer, Mary Elizabeth Wells, because the judge and bailiff received gifts of erotically-shaped chocolate from jurors, according to the Atlantic Journal-Constitution.

Juror Mary Jo Hooper told the paper she had ordered a box of chocolates to share with jury members and courtroom employees. The candy store employee, a friend of Hopper's, included one piece of chocolate shaped like a penis in an attempt at humor.

Hooper, now 63, claims Cobb Superior Court Judge Mary Staley expressed her curiosity after hearing about the candy phallus, the Seattle Times reported. Hooper then gave it to her as a gift when the trial was over.

Additionally, bailiff Loretta Perry allegedly received a piece of chocolate shaped like women's breasts. Hooper maintains that there were no breast-shaped chocolates in her order, and no other juror has owned up to such a gift.

Wells says the whole ordeal indicates the jury was not taking the murder trial seriously.

"This is even embarrassing to discuss in open court," she told judges on Friday. "This is not dignified."

Wells also alleges that the gifts were "evidence of the jury's racial bias" against the black Wellons, according to the Los Angeles Times. The candy penis was made out of white chocolate, according to the Associated Press.

Appeals for Wellons were initially rejected by several courts. In 2010, however, the Supreme Court ordered a federal review panel to take another look at the case, noting that a death penalty case "must be conducted with dignity and respect."

11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta is expected to announce its decision in upcoming months.

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Arnold Gets Off Scot-Free

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A Sacramento County superior court judge ruled Friday that former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't break any laws when he cut the manslaughter sentence for the son of a political ally just hours before leaving office last year.

Judge Lloyd Connelly called Schwarzenegger's decision to reduce Esteban Nunez's sentence from 16 years to seven years distasteful and "repugnant to the bulk of the citizenry of this state," but within his executive powers as governor. Nunez is the son of the governor's onetime political ally, former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.

Esteban Nunez pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in a 2008 attack on an unarmed group of young men after he and some friends were turned away from a fraternity party in San Diego. Three others pleaded guilty to various charges in the attack that killed 22-year-old college student Luis Santos.

Santos' family and the San Diego district attorney sued, claiming that Schwarzenegger violated the voter-approved Marsy's Law, which requires families be notified about cases involving their loved ones.

"The attorney general's office fought for corruption, and they won," said Kathy Santos, Luis' mother, outside court. "They defended a backroom deal, you know? They got away with it for today, but we're very disappointed. Where's the justice for our son? He was murdered. Two conniving politicians got away with it."

The family said the judge's words were not enough. They want the reduced sentence for Nunez thrown out.

Connelly sided with the attorney general's office in ruling that Marsy's Law does not specifically address the governor's power of pardons and commutations, which may have been an oversight when it was drafted.

He said that other laws cited by the plaintiffs' attorneys also did not place a specific obligation on the governor to notify the family or the district attorney, even if that had been the practice in Schwarzenegger's office for other pardon and commutation applications.

"Based on the evidentiary records before this court involving this case, there was an abuse of discretion," Connelly said. "This was a distasteful commutation. It was repugnant to the bulk of the citizenry of this state. ... It is outside the normal realm, the normal circle of fundamental justice."

But, he said, it was not illegal.

San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said her office will appeal the judge's decision. The Santos family said they were considering their options.

Schwarzenegger said in his commutation notice that he believed the sentence was excessive given Nunez's "limited role in the killing." He said evidence showed that Nunez's friend delivered the fatal blow, yet both men received the same 16-year-sentence.

The former governor told Newsweek in April 2011 that his office made a mistake in not notifying Santos' parents, but he defended the decision, saying: "I mean, of course you help a friend."

Dumanis and attorneys for the Santos family said Schwarzenegger blatantly violated the state constitution with his last-minute decision, ignored the victims' due process rights and acted "in an arbitrary and capricious manner."

There was evidence that Schwarzenegger generally required that his office follow the provisions of Marsy's Law, which voters approved while he was in office in 2008, when he considered other clemency cases, Deputy District Attorney Laura Tanney wrote in a brief filed this week.

"Schwarzenegger knew the law, he knew exactly what was required of him, and yet he defied the oath of his office," Tanney wrote.

Esteban Nunez, now 23, is incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, about 50 miles southeast of Sacramento, and is scheduled for release in 2017. His father is a political consultant in Sacramento.

Gov. Jerry Brown in October signed a bill that was written in response to the controversy over Nunez's commutation. It requires the governor to give at least 10 days' notice to the district attorney in the jurisdiction where the crime occurred before acting on an application for clemency. That would give the district attorney time to notify crime victims and allow them to petition against a sentence reduction.

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OJ Simpson's Attorney Tampered With The Glove: Ex-Prosecutor

In this June 1995 photo, prosecutors made OJ Simpson put on a pair of Aris extra-large gloves as a huge piece of evidence in the trial.

Nearly seventeen years after O.J. Simpson walked away from his murder trial a free man, a prosecutor at the center of the case has alleged that the lead defense lawyer tampered with a crucial piece of evidence.

Former Los Angeles deputy district attorney Christopher Darden on Thursday accused Simpson defense lawyer, the late Johnnie Cochran, of "manipulating" one of the infamous gloves that the prosecution said linked Simpson to the grisly double murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

After Simpson struggled to fit the gloves on his hands -- in one of the defining moments of the racially charged trial that captivated the nation - Cochran famously admonished the jury, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."

On Thursday, during a panel discussion about the trial at Pace Law School in New York City, Darden, a member of the prosecution team, declared: "I think Johnnie tore the lining. There were some additional tears in the lining so that O.J.'s fingers couldn't go all the way up into the glove."

Darden said in a follow-up interview on Friday that he noticed that when Simpson was trying on a glove for the jury its structure appeared to have changed. "A bailiff told me the defense had it during the lunch hour." He said he wasn't specifically accusing anyone, adding: "It's been my suspicion for a long time that the lining has been manipulated."

He said he had previously voiced similar concerns in TV interviews, but could not recall the details.

Darden's incendiary charge surprised key participants in the trial and related legal action. Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who was a member of Simpson's defense team, and Paul Callan, who represented Nicole Brown Simpson's estate in a successful civil trial against Simpson, said it was the first time they had ever heard the allegation.

On Friday, Dershowitz called the claim that the defense had an opportunity to tamper with the gloves "a total fabrication" and said "the defense doesn't get access to evidence except under controlled circumstances."

"Having made the greatest legal blunder of the 20th Century," Dershowitz said of Darden, "he's trying to blame it on the dead man."

Darden's remarks came after Dershowitz, a fellow panelist, called Darden's decision to have Simpson try on the glove for the first time before the jury "the most stupid thing" a prosecutor could have done.

Dershowitz said that if Darden had evidence that there had been tampering, he would have had an ethical obligation to report the alleged misconduct. He also questioned why Darden hadn't filed a grievance with the state bar association. Darden responded by saying that this would have been a "whiny-little-snitch approach to life" and that was not what he believed in because it didn't change anything.

The event was part of a "Trials and Errors" series, co-sponsored by Pace Law School and the Forum on Law, Culture & Society at Fordham Law, that examines America's most controversial cases. Also on the panel were Goldman's father, Fred Goldman, and his sister, Kim Goldman.

Derek Sells, the managing partner of Cochran's old law firm, The Cochran Firm, did not respond to requests for comment. A call to Cochran's daughter, Tiffany Cochran Edwards, who is a communications director for the firm, was not immediately returned. Cochran died in 2005 from a brain tumor at age 67.

Simpson was acquitted in the double murder case despite what prosecutors described as a "mountain of evidence" against him. The evidence included a blood-soaked glove found on Simpson's estate and a matching one found at the scene of the murder.

Questions about the lining of the gloves emerged during the 1995 trial, but they did not involve allegations of tampering by defense lawyers.

Three other members of Simpson's defense team, Robert Shapiro, Barry Scheck and F. Lee Bailey, did not immediately return requests for comment. Robert Kardashian, who also represented Simpson, is deceased.

A civil jury in 1997 found Simpson liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages to the murder victims' families. Simpson is currently serving up to 33 years in prison for a 2007 armed robbery in which he claimed he was trying to recover his own sports memorabilia.

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Deadly Shooting Shakes Port Moody

A 32 year-old-man is dead after a shooting in Port Moody, B.C., Saturday morning. (AP)

A 32-year old man shot Saturday morning in Port Moody has died.

Shots were heard by neighbours around 10 a.m. and police arrived on scene to a house on the 900 block of Wallace Wynd shortly after.

Police arrived at the house and found the victim suffering from gun shot wounds.

The victim was taken to hospital in critical condition, reports Global News. He succumbed to his injuries in hospital.

The home was known to police as well as the victim, said Const. Luke Winkel to News 1130.

The death has been ruled a homicide and no suspects have been identified. Vancouver Police have called in the Forensic Identification Unit and Homicide Investigation Team to take over the investigation.

The victim's name has not yet been released.

This is the city's third recorded fatal shooting since May, reports CKNW.

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Son Charged In Woman's Death

The RCMP have charged a 25-year-old man with the murder of his mother, who went missing from Richmond in June.

Lianjie Guo's remains were discovered in a suitcase on the Sunshine Coast in July but police withheld that information until now. Yuan Xi Tang has been charged with first degree murder and counselling to commit an indictable offence, announced the RCMP and the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) in a Friday news release.

Sgt. Jennifer Pound told News1130 that Tang is also suspected of trying to have his father killed.

Powell River RCMP discovered a suitcase with human remains on Harwood Island on July 29. Those remains have now been confirmed as Guo's. The cause of death is not being released for investigative reasons.

Guo's husband was notified Friday of the charge against his son and police say he is still trying to process the information.

Guo and her husband had been in Canada visiting their son for only about seven hours when she disappeared on June 7, CTV reported.

Tang said at the time that the family had no idea what happened to her.

"My father is still very upset and still loves my mom and now he’s missing my mom," he told reporters, translating for his father who speaks Cantonese.

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Arkansas Cop Charged With Felony Manslaughter For Shooting 15-year-old

Josh Hastings, a police officer who fatally shot a 15-year-old Arkansas boy was charged with felony manslaughter Friday after investigators determined his account of the incident didn't match up with evidence at the scene.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- A police officer who fatally shot a 15-year-old Arkansas boy was charged with felony manslaughter Friday after investigators determined his account of the incident didn't match up with evidence at the scene, Little Rock police said.

Officer Josh Hastings, who has a history of disciplinary issues with his department, shot Bobby Moore Jr. while responding to a suspicious persons call at an apartment complex on Aug. 12. Hastings claimed the car Moore was driving was heading toward him, prompting him to fire through its windshield, but the police chief said evidence shows the car was either moving in reverse or stopped several feet away from Hastings when he fired.

Moore died at the scene. Two other teenagers in the car fled on foot and weren't injured.

"I have reviewed this matter and have concluded that the incident did not occur in the manner represented by the officer and that the use of deadly force did not conform to departmental orders," Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas said, adding that prosecutors agreed "the use of deadly force was not justified."

The 26-year-old officer, who had been suspended six times in five years prior to the August shooting, was booked into jail Friday but later released on $15,000 bond. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Hastings' attorney, Bill James of Little Rock, said the officer was justified.

"I'm confident that when the facts all come out he'll be found innocent. I think he used reasonable force," James said.

Several phone numbers listed for Moore's relatives in the area were disconnected when called Friday.

The police chief said evidence showed that the vehicle had stopped several feet from Hastings "and that the driver was in the process of reversing direction when the shots were fired." Thomas also said evidence didn't support Hasting's claim that Moore's vehicle "continued past him," noting that the teen's car came to rest after colliding with a parked vehicle behind it, showing that it had been moving in reverse.

Prosecutor Larry Jegley said he didn't see a need for his office to recuse itself from the case, saying the same standards and level of scrutiny is applied in all cases.

Thomas said Hastings has been relieved of duty pending administrative proceedings.

According to police records, Hastings was suspended for 15 days earlier this year after he was found sleeping in his patrol car in March.

In August 2011, Hastings was dealt a one-day suspension for not running audio and video equipment while he drove with a suspect in his cruiser. Between May 2011 and November 2011, Hastings was suspended for six days for not attending court hearings, which resulted in six drunken driving prosecutions being scuttled or delayed.

The agency suspended him for 10 days in 2010 for responding to a call outside of his district. A year before, he was sent home for a day for crashing a patrol car. He had another one-day suspension in 2008 for wrongly identifying a suspect and not properly logging documents in the case.

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Man With Scissors Arrested Outside Of Miley Cyrus' Home

LOS ANGELES -- A man allegedly clutching a pair of scissors was arrested after police say he tried to force himself inside the Los Angeles home of Miley Cyrus.

Los Angeles police Lt. Brian Wendling says that employees inside the house in the Studio City area called police around 4 a.m. Saturday after the man came to the door and claimed to be a friend of the 19-year-old singer-actress.

Wendling says the suspect then repeatedly threw himself against an outside wall as if he was trying to break into the house. Cyrus was not home at the time.

The man, who was not identified, was arrested after officers saw him jump behind some bushes. He was carrying a pair of scissors.

Wendling says charges have not yet been filed.

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Cops Seek Vehicle In Violent Murder Of Teen

Police in Georgia are looking for a silver four-door passenger car that may be connected to the violent and tragic murder of 16-year-old Hannah Truelove last month.

Patch reports that the car -- a late 90s Chevrolet or Dodge -- was last seen near the Gainesville apartment complex, around where Truelove was killed in the woods on Aug. 23. She may have been inside the vehicle that day.

Few other details are available. Hall County Police say they've narrowed down the case to several persons of interest, but no names have been released. They believe that Truelove knew her killer.

Truelove's father, Jeff, spoke to Channel 2 News for the first time on Friday.

"I can't understand it. I mean, who can do that to somebody? It's so brutal," he said.

He said that his daughter had just moved to her mother's house at Lake Lanier apartment complex a month before she was found dead by a neighbor. He thinks the killer may be someone who rode a bus to school with her.

PHOTOS (Story continues below):

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Hannah's tweet on Aug. 12.

Hannah's tweet on Aug. 18.

Just days before her disappearance, she tweeted cryptic messages implying that someone was following her.

"I got me an uglyass stalker," she tweeted on Aug. 12.

Anyone with information regarding the vehicle or with further information about the case is asked to call the Hall County CID tip line at 770-503-3232, or the GBI tip line at 800-597-8477.

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Does The Media Care About Missing Black Boys?

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Despite detectives' pleas to national media, the disappearance of an 18-month-old black boy with the wide smile has yet to grab the widespread attention given to other missing children's cases. Some advocates say the reason why may be as simple as the toddler's gender – and his race.

From the still-unsolved slaying of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey more than 15 years ago to the disappearance and killing of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, the public has watched with rapt attention as many cases involving young children unfolded, often over many months. Yet Amir Jennings, the little boy who hasn't been seen since he was captured on surveillance video with his mother in South Carolina nearly a year ago, has registered as scarcely a blip on the nation's consciousness.

"Media has always leaned toward the cute little kids," said Monica Caison of the Wilmington, N.C.-based CUE Center for Missing Persons. "And unfortunately, a lot of times they think cute little kids are white."

Amir's mother, Zinah Jennings, was convicted Friday on a charge related to his disappearance and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The 23-year-old woman has been jailed since December, and police arrested her after she told them false, misleading stories about the boy's whereabouts. Jennings has maintained that she left the boy somewhere safe, but prosecution witnesses said the young mother claimed she was stressed and pondered selling or giving away the boy.

Jennings' mother says she last saw her wide-eyed, giggly grandson early on the morning of Nov. 28, 2011. He went to a bank with his mother the next day but has not been seen since. A store owner has testified she saw the boy and his mother a month later, but prosecutors challenged that assertion, and there was no surveillance video to back up the claim.

In the months since he disappeared, Amir's grandmother has celebrated his second birthday. His mother has given birth to a second child. And the national spotlight that initially shone on the case has waned.

One of the reasons could be as simple as Amir being a boy. While federal officials say the numbers of the missing are roughly split when it comes to gender, Caison said pedophiles tend to seek out girls, while missing boys often are taken by a parent or other relative.

And in her searches for adult males, Caison said, she has an even harder time getting anyone to pay attention.

"People want to think that missing males are OK and safe," she said. "I still sit back every day and scratch my head and say, `Why can't you pick these cases up?'"

Amir's story has gotten nowhere near the attention of cases like that of Caylee Anthony, a 2-year-old white Orlando girl whose body was found a month after she was reported missing in 2008. Anthony's mother was arrested and charged with murder after telling a string of lies to the police.

The case captivated the nation for months and culminated with the trial of the girl's mother, Casey Anthony. Radio shows enlisted attorneys to provide analysis during the morning commute, while cable television networks covered every moment in the courtroom.

People camped outside the courthouse to make sure they could sit in the gallery the next morning. Protests erupted when Casey Anthony was acquitted of a murder charge; her attorneys devised an elaborate plan to shake the media when she was whisked away from jail.

In the Ramsey case, water-cooler speculation swirled for years about who killed the child beauty pageant queen in 1996 and who wrote the ransom note found at the murder scene. Her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, were demonized by the public for years until prosecutors apologized and said DNA evidence excluded them as suspects. No one was ever charged in her death.

So why are some cases elevated in the public sphere, while others are not?

Jacqueline Fish, a former law officer and current criminal justice professor at Charleston Southern University, said law enforcement ideally takes each case seriously, and each case has had police and prosecutors who have spoken publicly about the need for justice. But inherently, Fish said, every case is still somewhat subjective. Columbia Police Chief Randy Scott is black, and surmised he might have seen something of one of his own children in Amir – and pushed initially to publicize the case.

After Jennings' arrest, Scott reached out to the media to ask for help finding the missing boy. Yellow flyers began popping up around Columbia. Groups organized vigils to pray for Amir's safe return.

"I want someone to call us and say, `We just saw this on the news, we have Amir, we're sorry, we didn't realize this was going on,'" Scott said at a January news conference announcing that a tip line had been set up. "Her stories are so across the board."

In his investigation's early days, Scott also appeared on several national cable news shows, saying that Jennings continued to change her story when pressed for information about her son. Jennings' mother also made appeals for help, asking at a news conference for any information about the boy she called "Mir Mir" and "AJ." She sat down several times with The Associated Press, describing her conflicting emotions of concern for her grandson and support for her daughter.

But as the weeks dragged on, and no credible tips moved the case forward, the national news outlets stopped calling. Scott said his officers continued their investigation, but no bombshells came.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, about 800,000 children are reported missing in the United States a year, and nearly all reported missing to the police – almost 99 percent – are returned home alive. More than half of those are white, while about 150,000 are black, and 164,000 are Hispanic.

Amir's body has not been found, although police have said from the beginning that they feared foul play had been involved in his disappearance. But it's the uncertainty of his fate, Fish said, that could play a role in the lack of widespread attention.

"Someone needs to be brought to justice," Fish said. "In Amir's case, they can't be out for justice because we don't know what happened to him."

Officials with the Black and Missing Foundation, Inc., an organization that focuses on finding missing minorities, said they struggle to get and maintain news coverage of minority missing persons cases.

"We are making some headway, but there are still challenges," said co-founder Natalie Wilson, who said she sometimes gets pushback when pitching a story to media outlets.

Noting she has had some recent successes pitching missing minority cases to media outlets, Wilson said she's often told that editors and producers can't promise coverage and don't have the time to run a big piece. In one instance, a plea for help to find a young missing black girl was bumped to report the news that Paris Hilton had been released from jail.

"How does that supersede someone's life?" Wilson asked. "Can you imagine how her parents would feel?"

Attention on a missing child case should be the same – intense – regardless of gender or race," Caison said.

"It's not an excuse," Caison said. "A child missing should be aired because of the fact that they're a child, that they're away from safe haven, and that there's foul play or other concerns involved."

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Police Search Home Of Family Slain In The French Alps

British police secure the area Saturday, Sept. 8, 2012, outside the home of Saad al-Hilli, in Claygate, Britain, who was shot dead on Wednesday with three others while vacationing in the French Alps. (AP Photo / Steve Parsons, PA)

LONDON — French and British police searched the U.K. home of a British-Iraqi couple slain while vacationing in the French Alps, as it emerged Saturday that all four people killed in the attack took two gunshots to the head. Meanwhile, relatives arrived in France to help care for the couple's two surviving daughters, one of whom was badly wounded.

Questions remained about a potential motive for the killings as well as the identity of one victim, an elderly woman found dead in the couple's bullet-riddled BMW. Police have said they are probing reports of a financial dispute between the slain husband and his brother, but stress they are following all leads. The brother has denied any dispute.

The identity of the dead couple – mechanical design engineer Saad al Hilli and his wife, Ikbal – was based partly on the testimony of their 4-year-old daughter Zeena, who survived unhurt by hiding under her mother's skirt as some 25 automatic-handgun rounds were fired at the family car.

Her older sister, 7-year-old Zaina, was badly wounded in the attack and is in a medically-induced coma. Aside from the elderly woman shot dead dead in the car, French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, 45, whom authorities suspect was in the wrong place at the wrong time, was also killed in Wednesday's rampage.

French prosecutor Eric Maillaud, based in Annecy near the site of the killing, told a press conference there Saturday that each of the dead was shot twice in the head – one more time than previously stated – in addition to an undisclosed additional number of times elsewhere.

Autopsies on the bodies were completed late Friday, Maillaud said, adding that the bodies of the victims will be returned to their family "as soon as possible."

Maillaud remained tight-lipped throughout Saturday's news conference, saying he was "at the limits" of what he could publically disclose. But he confirmed that France has asked Italy and Switzerland to assist in the hunt for whoever is responsible for the shootings, which took place just a short drive from the borders of both countries.

French investigators arrived in Britain on Friday night, and police on Saturday snapped pictures of the al Hilli home in the village of Claygate, a London suburb in the county of Surrey. Some officers entered the house in protective suits, while other carried boxes with equipment and evidence bags into an investigation tent erected outside.

Authorities in Britain, too, revealed few details. The French police who had traveled to Surrey spoke only to praise cooperation with their U.K. counterparts in what they described as a long and complex investigation. Surrey's police force stressed that the probe is French-led and that the emphasis now is on the victims of the tragedy.

Asst. Chief Constable Rob Price of Surrey police confirmed that family liaison officers have been deployed in the U.K. and in France to help the victims, while Maillaud, the French prosecutor, said relatives of the dead have arrived in France to help care for the two young sisters. He did not identify the relatives or say how many were arriving.

Maillaud has said investigators are looking forward to speaking to 7-year-old Zaina, who was shot in the shoulder and beaten, but she remains in the medically induced coma. Authorities have questioned her 4-year-old sister Zeena, but Maillaud has said much of her account was filled with "kids' words."

Authorities have been reluctant to discuss what prompted the killings, but investigators are looking into a possible family dispute over money as a potential motive.

After learning about media reports that they may have been fighting over money, Saad al Hilli's brother Zaid came forward to British police Friday and denied any conflict in the family, French prosecutors said.

But Mae Faisal El-Wailly, a childhood friend of the brothers, made available a letter written to her by Saad last year that alluded to a possible inheritance dispute. She said the brothers' father had died recently, and she described the family as wealthy and well-traveled.

But El-Wailly added that she did not believe Zaid had anything to do with the killings.

"Zaid and I do not communicate any more as he is another control freak and tried a lot of underhanded things even when my father was alive," Saad wrote. The letter was dated Sept. 16, 2011.

"He tried to take control of father's assets and demanded control," the letter says. "(A)nyway it is a long story and now I have just had to wipe him out of my life. Sad but I need to concentrate now on my wife and two lovely girls ..."

Public records show Zaid resigned from Saad's small aeronautics design firm, Shtech Ltd., last year.

At the press conference Saturday, Maillaud said authorities will talk to the brother. "He will be interviewed just as all of the rest of the al-Hilli family, who are going to be identified in the coming days," Maillaud said.

Early reports have suggested that the elderly woman shot dead may have been the girls' grandmother, but authorities have not confirmed that.

Swedish authorities have confirmed that a passport discovered on the scene corresponds to a Swedish person living in Sweden. But as of yet no absolute connection has been made between the older woman in the car and the passport or between her and the rest of the victims, authorities said.

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Keller reported from Paris.

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Opposing Legal Weed Could Cost Obama Votes, Pot Advocate Says

A man smokes a marijuana cigarette at a marijuana rally.

On Friday Reuters reported that nine former U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency heads urged Attorney General Eric Holder to oppose marijuana legalization measures that will appear on ballots in Colorado, Washington state and Oregon this November.

"To continue to remain silent conveys to the American public and the global community a tacit acceptance of these dangerous initiatives," the nine said in the letter to holder obtained by Reuters.

Mason Tvert, co-director of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, told The Huffington Post that these ex-drug warriors' position to keep the war on marijuana alive and well should come as no surprise, but that Holder should be wary of such requests.

"It is not surprising that these men, who have made a living off of marijuana prohibition, want their successors to continue profiting from the existence of the underground marijuana market," Tvert told The Huffington Post via email. "They just want to keep billions of taxpayer dollars flowing to their buddies. They know that marijuana prohibition isn't really improving public safety; just as our nation's streets weren't safer when Al Capone and his cohorts controlled the alcohol trade."

Tvert added: "For Eric Holder to act as the mouthpiece for these old school warriors of the irrational war on marijuana that is rapidly losing public support would be sending a message to tens of thousands of passionate supporters of Amendment 64 that their opinions do not matter. He will be telling them that Colorado must continue to live under a system of marijuana prohibition not because it makes sense, but because the federal government demands it."

Colorado's Amendment 64 which seeks the legalization of marijuana for adults age 21 and older appears to be popular among voters. A recent poll from Rasmussen showed that 61 percent of likely Colorado voters are in favor of legalizing marijuana if it is regulated the way that alcohol and cigarettes are currently regulated.

Politically, the measure has received support from both Democrats and Republicans in Colorado, as well as more than 100 professors from around the nation.

According to a new report by the Colorado Center on Law & Policy, the passage of Amendment 64 could be a boon for the state economy. Marijuana legalization would produce hundreds of new jobs, raise millions for the construction of Colorado public schools and raise around $60 million annually in combined savings and revenue for Colorado's budget, the report says.

And it's not just marijuana use advocates that are behind the measure. The NAACP has backed pot legalization measures in Oregon and in Colorado not because the group necessarily favors marijuana use, but because members say current marijuana laws lead to a disproportionately high number of people of color being incarcerated or otherwise negatively affected.

"Marijuana prohibition policy does more harm to our communities than good," said Rosemary Harris Lytle in a statement, president of the NAACP-Colorado-Montana-Wyoming State Conference. "That is why we have endorsed Amendment 64 which presents a more effective and socially responsible approach to how Colorado addresses the adult use of marijuana."

The NAACP provided this data in a press statement about marijuana arrests in Colorado:

African-Americans made up roughly 4% of the population in Colorado in 2010, but they accounted for about 9% of marijuana possession arrests and 22% of arrests for marijuana sales and cultivation. The numbers in Denver are particularly staggering. According to a report prepared by the Denver Police Department for the the city's Marijuana Policy Review Panel, African-Americans accounted for more than 31.5% percent of arrests for private adult marijuana possession, despite making up less than 11% of the city's population.

Tvert also spoke about the forecast that Amendment 64 will bring out young voters, who continue to overwhelmingly support President Obama in swing state Colorado. "At a time when President Obama is counting on the support of young voters in Colorado, such a message from Holder could do significant damage to his prospects," Tvert said. "Following the advice of these former DEA chiefs would not only be a bad policy decision, but also a bad political decision."

The letter sent to holder is similar to one that the same group sent to Holder in 2010 urging him to oppose Proposition 19 -- a pot legalization ballot measure in California. It was defeated with 53.5 percent of voters rejecting it, Reuters reports.

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Nebraska School Officials Accused Of Sex Abuse Cover-Up

OMAHA, Neb. -- Authorities have accused a Nebraska school superintendent, principal and coach of failing to report the alleged sexual assault of a young high school wrestler by several teammates last summer.

The Nebraska State Patrol on Tuesday cited the three Maxwell Public Schools officials – Superintendent Danny Twarling, Principal Aubrey Boucher, and head wrestling coach Ryan Jones – for suspicion of failure to report child abuse or neglect, which is a misdemeanor.

Lincoln County Attorney Rebecca Harling didn't immediately return a Friday phone message enquiring whether her office was considering charging the officials or the alleged assailants. Patrol Lt. Lynn Williams said that as of Friday, no legal action had been taken against any of the Maxwell High School team members.

Patrol Investigator Carlos Trevino, in an affidavit, said several members of the wrestling team were present during the alleged attack at a wrestling camp last summer. According to the alleged victim and two boys who said they witnessed but didn't take part in the attack, two team members held down the younger boy while another sodomized him with a soda bottle. On another occasion, at least one team member allegedly groped the victim on a school bus, Trevino said.

Last month, state troopers exercised a search warrant on Maxwell High School and seized personnel files, correspondence and other records. In the warrant, investigators said they expected to find evidence of reported sexual abuse or assaults, intimidation, inappropriate touching and language, and hazing at the school.

Twarling, reached Friday by phone, read a statement confirming that district employees were served with citations on Tuesday.

"The school district maintains that it adheres to both the state law and district policy and reports all incidents of abuse and neglect to the proper authorities when there is reasonable cause to make such a report as provided under Nebraska law," Twarling said.

He declined to comment further or answer questions. Neither Boucher nor Jones immediately responded to phone messages and emails Friday seeking comment.

Authorities began investigating following a call to a child abuse hotline, said Williams, who declined to say who placed the call or what was discussed.

According to the affidavit, a woman from the district brought the alleged camp assault to the attention of the principal, Boucher, writing in a letter that her family members wouldn't be enrolled in the district because she had seen video of the attack.

Williams said investigators haven't seen such video, and he wouldn't say whether investigators believe it exists. The affidavit doesn't explain who might have recorded the assault.

The woman told investigators that Boucher contacted her after receiving her letter and told her "he would get to the bottom of it." She said she tried following up with Boucher over the next two days, but that he was never available to take her calls and he never returned her messages.

The woman said she asked the boy if he had told his coach about the assault, and that the boy "said he was told, `What happens in wrestling, stays in wrestling.'" It's unclear from the affidavit whether the boy said he did tell the coach and whether it was the coach who allegedly responded that way.

Two students told investigators that they told Boucher that they witnessed the abuse, Trevino said in the affidavit. The alleged victim told investigators that Boucher called him a liar and "a rumor spreader."

Both Boucher and Twarling told investigators that they knew of the sexual assault accusations and that they had determined that the accusations were unfounded. Nebraska teachers, administrators, medical professionals and others in positions of authority are required by law to report cases of suspected child abuse or neglect to law enforcement.

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Moms Break Into Street Fight After Greenbelt Parade

Two women fought in the street on Crescent Road in front of the Greenbelt Municipal Building following the Labor Day Parade Sunday, according to Greenbelt Police spokesperson Officer Kelly Lawson.

The two women were mothers of Boys and Girls Club Raiders and they were angry for whatever reason, according to Linda Ivy, president of the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival.

Read the whole story at Patch

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Jason Silverstein: Back to School and the Prison Pipeline

Jason Silverstein: Back to School and the Prison Pipeline HPFB.init();
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Jason SilversteinPhD student, Department of Anthropology at Harvard

GET UPDATES FROM Jason Silverstein   Like 3 Back to School and the Prison PipelinePosted: 09/04/2012 4:19 pm React Amazing
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As the school year begins, so does the Dignity in Schools and Opportunity to Learn Campaigns' "Solutions Not Suspensions" initiative to combat the dramatic racial disparities in school punishments. In schools across the country, youth of color are arrested more aggressively, tried more severely, and sentenced more harshly than white youths. The ACLU's Racial Justice Program calls this national trend the "school to prison pipeline," though The Children's Defense Fund believes life chances dwindle even before the classroom - at the cradle. By adopting more constructive disciplinary policies, the campaigns reason, schools can interrupt the criminalization of youth, combat the persistent achievement gap, and steer children away from an unforgiving justice system. As the school year begins, we should question why we readily discard so much human potential, funneling some children into prisons while redeeming others, considering some children 'pranksters' and others 'criminals.'

In June, the Department of Justice reported violations of the constitutional rights of African American children and children with disabilities in Meridian, Mississippi. In their letter of findings, the Department of Justice writes that "[t]he children expelled and suspended...are almost exclusively black children." This is not solely a problem for the Magnolia state. Last month, the Civil Rights Project published "Opportunities Suspended: The Disparate Impact of Disciplinary Exclusion from School." Across the nation, they found that one of every six black students in K-12 had been suspended from school compared with only one of twenty white students. Even worse, if you were a black student with a disability, your chances of suspension from school were one in four.

But school suspensions are only the start of the story, the gateway to the criminal justice system for many youth of color. In 2009-2010, more than 70 percent of school referrals to law enforcement involved black and Hispanic kids, according to the Office for Civil Rights. Once arrested, these juveniles are disproportionately transferred to adult court. In fact, the W. Haywood Burns Institute showed that youth of color represent a staggering 90 percent of cases transferred to adult court. Once there, according to their study, African American youth are 18 times more likely to receive a sentence of life in prison without parole than white youth. These disparities exist throughout the nation. In Virginia, black youths are 1.5 times more likely to be detained by police and placed on probation than white youth, according to recent research from the University of Virginia. Last year in Georgia, 63% of all children sent to the Department of Juvenile Justice were black. In Connecticut, children of color make up nearly two-thirds of all kids charged with a crime. Racial disparities in juvenile justice are a national tragedy.

Why do we punish children of color so harshly, when, after all, they are just children? Recently, Aneeta Rattan, Cynthia S. Levine, Carol S. Dweck, Jennifer L. Eberhardt took on this question in their paper, "Race and the Fragility of the Legal Distinction between Juveniles and Adults." Knowing white people continue to be overrepresented in juries, they asked a final sample of 658 white Americans to judge the constitutionality of a non-homicide Supreme Court case. The offender was described as "a 14-year-old male with 17 prior juvenile convictions on his record who brutally raped an elderly woman." There was one manipulation. Sometimes the offender was described as white, sometimes black. What did they find?

In the present study, simply bringing to mind a Black (vs. White) juvenile offender led participants to view juveniles in general as significantly more similar to adults in their inherent culpability and to express more support for severe sentencing.

Their study helps us understand sentencing disparities in actual courts. For example, Kareem L. Jordan and Tina L. Freiburger showed that, if transferred to adult court, black juveniles receive harsher sentences than whites. Though childhood is associated with an age of innocence for whites, it is not for blacks, who tragically bear the burden of racial bias before they're even old enough to drive.

Harsh disciplinary practices in schools create criminals, rather than mold students, by separating them from classrooms and, often, entering them into the full force of the juvenile justice system. "The harsh discipline policies now in place around the country do not make schools safer nor improve academic achievement," Jermaine Banks, a student organizer with Power U Center for Social Change, told Tim Walker for NEA Today, "but instead feed the school to prison pipeline." We have known for some time that poverty, low supervision, and social disorganization are risk factors that push children into the prison system. Going to school should not further increase this risk, it should eliminate it, and for all children.

 

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FOLLOW CRIME Like 38k   Get Alerts #ad_bottom_article_text {margin-bottom: 15px} RacismAs the school year begins, so does the Dignity in Schools and Opportunity to Learn Campaigns' "Solutions Not Suspensions" initiative to combat the dramatic racial disparities in school punishments. In...As the school year begins, so does the Dignity in Schools and Opportunity to Learn Campaigns' "Solutions Not Suspensions" initiative to combat the dramatic racial disparities in school punishments. In...     Comments2Pending Comments0 View FAQ Previewing Your Comment. This comment has not yet been posted You have exceeded your word limit by    words. Please click the "Edit" button and shorten your comment.

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of our newest badge: Community Curator. View All Recency |  Popularity HagueAbductionsCard carrying member of The Patriarchy111 Fans   39 minutes ago ( 5:41 PM)This has been recognized by sociologists and the public for decades. It's why the crime of DWB has long been part of the American public vernacular.

There's an even greater bias than that of blacks vs. whites that pretty much never comes up though and it's the bias against boys and men.

Some quotes from a study by the University of Texas:

"The prediction that females will receive milder sentencing outcomes receives such consistent support from a wide range of studies done since the 1980s, and encompassing many different jurisdictions in the United States, that it may be one of the best established facts regarding criminal justice outcomes."

"Succinctly put, while the effect of offender gender on sentencing receives considerable support, this support is stronger and more consistent at the in/out stage than for sentence length, and this association may to some extent depend on women’s family status and on the gender of crime victims [put another way, some victims matter, and some don't]"

"Specifically, for male offenders the odds of incarceration are about 2.10 times higher than for female offenders for the sample as a whole"

To give a frame of reference "African-American offenders were 1.68 times more likely to receive prison than white offenders for property offenses"

"...the analyses of sentence length show that females bene?t the most when violent offending is examined. Specifically, for violent crimes, males receive sentences that average 4.49 years longer than do females..."HagueAbductions: This has been recognized by sociologists and the public forhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/HagueAbductions/back-to-school-and-the-pr_b_1855441_184166947.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments… HUFFPOST SUPER USERnix28Aim for intelligence; ignore the irrelevant.198 Fans 20 hours ago (10:40 PM)What's sad is this information is pretty much common knowledge for those that have ever taken a basic sociology course, yet even with knowing such discrimination persists, we have yet to see a change. What steps do we need to bring about change here, and how do we get started?nix28: What's sad is this information is pretty much common knowledgehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/nix28/back-to-school-and-the-pr_b_1855441_183844154.htmlHistory |Permalink |Share itThis comment has been down-ranked into oblivion. View comment You have not right to carry out this operation or Error this operation. Loading comments…    new comment(s) on this entry — Click to refreshLoading comments… 1 2 3 4 5 See All Highlights in × people have highlighted this! Huzzah! This text has been highlighted.

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