Domestic Glance
A small hearing March 4, 2014, in an obscure courtroom at the Circuit Court for Baltimore City ended with the release of former Black Panther Marshall Edward Conway, who has spent nearly 44 of his 67 years in maximum security prisons. Eddie, as he is known to his thousands of supporters, entered the courtroom wearing a Department of Corrections sweatshirt, in handcuffs and leg chains, and walked out of the courthouse about an hour later in civilian clothes to greet a host of family, supporters and old friends:
"I am filled with a lot of different emotions after nearly 44 years in prison. I want to thank my family, my friends, my lawyers and my supporters; many have suffered along with me."
Political Prisoner Marshall Eddie Conway Released After 44 Years
Delaware lacks lethal injection drugs needed to execute death row inmates
Like other states, Delaware prison officials have found it difficult to get the drugs used in lethal injections because major manufacturers several years ago began prohibiting the use of their products in executions out of ethical concerns and fearing the unwanted publicity.
As a result, supplies of two of the three drugs used in Delaware executions have expired, according to records obtained by the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act. Moreover, prison officials aren’t even trying to get the necessary drugs.
Contractor at NJ explosion was levied more than $100K in safety fines for 2 other sites
The contractor working at the site of a massive explosion in New Jersey has been fined more than $100,000 by federal safety monitors for problems at two other work sites.
Records provided by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration show that Henkels & McCoy was fined $70,000 for safety violations at a work site in Bayonne and $42,000 for violations in Neptune.
The violations involved signaling and warning signs and protection of workers during excavations. The company is contesting the fines.
D.C. Council Votes to Decriminalize Small Amounts of Marijuana
The D.C. Council voted Tuesday in favor of a bill to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use.
Mayor Gray is expected to sign the bill into law. Then it will have to wait for the standard congressional review period before going into effect. Congress has rarely used its veto powers over D.C. laws.
The vote was little more than a formality. The council had already approved decriminalization by an 11-to-1 vote. But before that initial vote, the council watered down the bill by maintaining criminal penalties for smoking pot in public.
U.S. justices extend employee whistleblower protections
A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that employees at private firms that contract with publicly traded companies are subject to whistleblower protections.
In a 6-3 vote along non-ideological lines, the court ruled that two whistleblowers were legally protected against retaliation after they raised concerns to their employer, Fidelity Investments parent FMR LLC, about how some mutual funds were being managed. Whistleblowers at public companies already are protected from employer retaliation.
The court was interpreting part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a 2002 law passed by Congress that set standards for all U.S. publicly traded company boards, management and public accounting firms.
Thrown in jail for being poor: the booming for-profit probation industry
Many poor Americans face jail when they can’t pay steep fines for nonviolent crimes, like $1,000 for stealing a $2 beer
Thomas Barrett of Georgia sold his own blood plasma twice a week to raise money for the probation fees he owed a for-profit firm.
In January 2013, Clifford Hayes, a homeless man suffering from lupus and looking for a night off the streets, walked into the sheriff’s office in Augusta, Georgia. It was a standard visit: he needed police clearance, a requirement of many homeless shelters, to stay overnight at the Salvation Army.
Florida woman's sentence could be tripled in stand-your-ground retrial
A Florida woman who won a retrial after being sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing a “warning shot” in the direction of her violent husband has been told that her jail term could be tripled if she is convicted again.
Marissa Alexander could be sent to prison for a minimum of 60 years if she is found guilty of three counts of aggravated assault at her second trial in Jacksonville in July, after state prosecutors confirmed they would seek for the sentences to be served consecutively.
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