An arson fire in Lowell, MA circa 1982 raises doubts as to it's origins.

On March 5, 1982, a fire broke out in an apartment house in Lowell. It was the worst fatal fire in Lowell history, killing eight people, including five children.
Victor Rosario was charged with eight counts of murder and one count of arson in connection with the fatal fire. He was convicted in 1983. But a New England Center for Investigative Reporting, or NECIR, investigation found the prosecution's case was marred with possible misconduct including allegedly misstating witness information, filing false search warrant applications, and coercing a confession.


Links:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/specials/rosario/lowell_fire_reports_rosario_arson/
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/specials/lowell_fire_rosario_graphic/
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/specials/rosario/rosario_statement_lowell_fire/

Police and private investigators are not the only people monitoring your tweets etc.

You might think that the only ones following your online musings are your mom and college pals. But if they include a gripe about a hotel, the front-desk clerk at the offending property may be listening, too.

Hotels and resorts are amassing a growing army of sleuths whose job it is to monitor what is said about them online—and protect the hotels' reputations. These employees search social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter for unhappy guests and address complaints. They write groveling apologies in response to negative reviews on TripAdvisor. And they keep tabs on future guests who post about upcoming stays—and sometimes offer them extra perks or personalized attention at check in.

During a recent technology conference at the hotel, an attendee who moderates and edits an influential website about BlackBerry news mused about his desire for a cold beer over Twitter. Already identified by Mr. Long and Ms. Pribila as an active blogger with more than 1,000 Twitter followers, the hotel responded over Twitter, "Can I buy you a beer? Stop by the "actual" Front Desk and ask for Sarah!"

Some hotels are hiring outside consultants like StepChange Group, a division of Powered Inc.. The Portland, Ore., company develops social media strategies for companies, and will also help staff watching online commentary and respond. More hotels are employing new services like those offered by Revinate LLC that track online comments and reviews and send out electronic reports for corporate mangers, front-desk staff and even housekeeping to gauge a property's online reputation. Hotels are also increasingly using social media to market their properties, too, by, for example, sending out special discounts via Twitter.

Link:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704256304575320730977161348.html?mod=WSJ_myyahoo_module

IPhone & IPad users beware Apple collects & shares your precise location.

The world's largest technology company by market capitalization may soon rival the National Security Agency in its ability to track Americans using their cell phones.

But Apple's new terms and conditions allow it to store information about users' exact locations, a level of privacy intrusion not heretofore seen. Websites can tell users' locations down to a zip code, generally speaking, but they neither store nor track exact locations -- which Apple and AT&T can do using triangulation down to about ten feet.

The company says the data is anonymous and does not personally identify users. Analysts have shown, however, that large, specific data sets can be used to identify people based on behavior patterns.

An increasing number of iPhone apps ask users for their location, which is then used by the application or even uploaded to the app's maker. Apps like the Twitter application Tweetie and Google Maps make frequent use of location data, either to help the user get oriented geographically or to associate the user's action with a specific location (as when a tweet is geotagged).


Link:
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0622/apple-collecting-precise-location-iphone-ipad-users/

El Reno, Oklahoma police taser an 86 year old grandmother while in her bed.

Police tasered an 86 year old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn't breathe, after her grandson called 911 seeking medical assistance, the woman and her grandson claim in Oklahoma City Federal Court. Though the grandson said, "Don't Taze my granny!" an El Reno police officer told another cop to "Taser her!" and wrote in his police report that he did so because the old woman "took a more aggressive posture in her bed," according to the complaint.

Lonnie Tinsley claims that he called 911 after he went to check on his grandmother, whom he found in her bed, "connected to a portable oxygen concentrator with a long hose." She is "in marginal health, [and] takes several prescribed medications daily," and "was unable to tell him exactly when she had taken her meds," so, Tinsley says, he called 911 "to ask for an emergency medical technician to come to her apartment to evaluate her."

In response, "as many as ten El Reno police" officers "pushed their way through the door," according to the complaint.The grandma, Lona Varner, "told them to get out of her apartment." The remarkable complaint continues: "Instead, the apparent leader of the police [defendant Thomas Duran] instructed another policeman to 'Taser her!' He stated in his report that the 86 year-old plaintiff 'took a more aggressive posture in her bed,' and that he was fearful for his safety and the safety of others.

Links: http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/06/24/TaserGranny.pdf

Oregon appeals court throws out DUI eye test, calls it unscientific.

The Oregon Court of Appeals earlier this month threw out a commonly performed roadside sobriety test as unscientific. A divided three-judge panel found the accuracy of vertical gaze nystagmus in establishing drunkenness remained unproven in the eyes of the court.

Curtis Wendell Bevan had passed through a laser speed trap in Umatilla County at an alleged 64 MPH in a 45 zone. Officer Gutierrez followed Bevan briefly and did not note any signs of erratic driving before pulling him over. Gutierrez did smell alcohol on Bevan's breath, and Bevan admitted drinking two beers -- the empty cans were still in the car. On this basis, Gutierrez administered a series of field sobriety tests.

Bevan failed the horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) test where he was asked to follow a penlight with his eyes as the light moved from side to side. When the eyes jerk involuntarily, that motion is known as "nystagmus" and is caused, according to Gutierrez, when an individual has consumed an excessive amount of alcohol or narcotics.

Bevan "maintained his balance perfectly" on the one-leg-stand test and scored four out of eight on the walk-and-turn-test (higher than two is a failure). Gutierrez explained a final sobriety test during lower court proceedings.


Links: http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2010/or-bevan.html
http://www.thenewspaper.com/

A judge has ruled that the University of California police illegally searched the camera of a photojournalist.

BERKELEY, Calif. -- A judge has ruled that the University of California police illegally searched the camera of a photojournalist covering a protest outside the chancellor's campus home, attorneys said Monday.

Alameda County Superior Judge Yolanda Northridge on Friday invalidated the search warrant used by UC Berkeley police to review photographs taken by David Morse at the Dec. 11 demonstration, according to the Oakland-based First Amendment Project, which represented him.

Links:http://www.thefirstamendment.org/documents/D.Morse6.21.10PR.pdf
http://www.ktvu.com/news/23983715/detail.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/06/21/national/a163442D79.DTL

Texas: A homeowner is arrested for taking a picture of a police officer while in his own home.

HOUSTON - A homeowner says he was arrested for "illegal photography" when a police sergeant followed him into his own home, and he objected and took the cop's photo with his cell phone. "We did not know what he was talking about, and I don't think he does either," the homeowner says in his federal complaint.

In his civil rights complaint, Francisco Olvera says Sealy Police Sgt. Justin Alderete's charge of "illegal photography" baffled him and several witnesses.

Olvera says he was acquitted of all charges in a jury trial.


Link:http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/06/21/Photo.pdf

Maryland: Anthony Graber could face 16 years in prison for violating the states wiretapping law.

In early March, Anthony Graber, a 25-year-old staff sergeant for the Maryland Air National Guard, was humming a tune while riding his two-year-old Honda motorcycle down Interstate 95, not far from his home north of Baltimore. On top of his helmet was a camera he often used to record his journeys.

The camera was rolling when an unmarked gray sedan cut him off as he stopped behind several other cars along Exit 80. On April 8, Graber was awakened by six officers raiding his parents' home in Abingdon, Md., where he lived with his wife and two young children. He learned later that prosecutors had obtained a grand jury indictment alleging he had violated state wiretap laws by recording the trooper without his consent.

The case has ignited a debate over whether police are twisting a decades-old statute intended to protect people from government intrusions of privacy to, instead, keep residents from recording police activity.

It was Graber's first arrest. He spent 26 hours in jail. Graber has since stopped talking publicly about the case on the advice of his attorneys. On June 1, he was arraigned in Harford County Circuit Court in Bel Air. He faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

Link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/15/AR2010061505556.html?sid=ST2010061505592

Formspring is the latest teen and college phenomenon it can be a great resource for private investigators.

With approximately 100 million questions answered every month, Formspring is giving people across the globe a new way to connect and express themselves. Just like a good conversation in person, Formspring helps our over 12 million users do what comes naturally: ask questions and give answers, about anything and everything. Our community is driven by a curiosity about what people think, what they know, where they’ve been, and what matters to them. From college students and interior designers to athletes, journalists, musicians and your friends and family: our community is made up of millions of people who all have something unique to share.

How does Formspring work?
Formspring is as simple as starting a conversation – you ask a question of a friend or someone you want to know more about, and they answer. And vice versa. It’s a fun and easy way to connect with people you know or people you want to know more about, and for your friends to learn more about you.

Getting started on Formspring is really simple. First, you set up an account. During the set up process, you can find friends already on Formspring through your favorite social networks. After that, you can begin asking questions, either anonymously or openly. You’ll get a notice when you get a new question from a contact, and you can choose whether or not to answer it. Lastly, you can easily link up your Formspring account with other websites, so more of your friends and contacts can learn about you, and ask you more questions.

Why did you create Formspring?
In many ways, our users helped us create Formspring. Just six months ago, Formspring grew out of another company called Formstack, which creates online forms used by companies and organizations that want to get to know their users and customers better. Back in the Summer of 2009, we noticed that bloggers were beginning to use Formstack’s forms to let their readers ask them questions. Pretty soon, tens of thousands of people were using our forms to share information, insights and learn about one another. We took note and realized that people were desperate for a new way to connect and learn about each other. With this in mind, we launched Formspring.me in November 2009. Today, there are over 12 million accounts on Formspring asking millions of questions every day.

Link:
http://www.formspring.me/

A prison company in TX is accused of fabricating evidence etc. who's monitoring the private prisons?

NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas (CN) - A man claims a corrupt private prison company, The GEO Group, bribed the government to get contracts and then abused inmates, including his father, who died at the Bill Clayton Detention Center in Littlefield, Texas, from "grossly inhumane treatment, abuse, neglect, illegal and malicious conditions of confinement."
Daniel McCullough sued Texas-based GEO Group and its top executives, all of Florida, and the warden of the jail where his father, Randall, died on Aug. 18, 2008.
In his complaint in Comal County Court, Daniel McCullough says his father "was found dead after supposedly being monitored by GEO and its personnel."
The complaint states: "McCullough's death was caused by specific breaches of duty by the Defendants ... who engaged in grossly inhumane treatment, abuse, neglect, illegal conditions of confinement, and subsequent coverup of wrongdoings." McCullough claims that "GEO and its personnel were found to have fabricated evidence, including practicing 'pencil whipping,' a policy and practice of GEO to destroy and fabricate log books and other relevant evidence."

Link: http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/06/17/GeoGroup.pdf

Woodman family settles with the Boston Police for $3 Million.

Jeffy and Cathy Woodman, issued a statement through Boston attorney Howard Friedman announcing the settlement. The parents of the 22-year-old, who had a heart condition, said they remain frustrated that no one is being held legally accountable for their son's death.

"This is not a satisfactory resolution; rather, it reflects our choice not to allow anger to affect our family any further,'' Woodman's parents said in the statement.

The family said they will create a foundation to honor the memory of their son, a former Emmanuel College student.

"David was active within Boston, tutoring young students and being a friend to those who lived on the streets. He cared deeply about people who are poor, homeless or looked down on by society,'' the parents said. "The foundation started in his name will continue David’s work by providing empathy, compassion and support to people who are often ignored in this world."

Friedman said in a statement that the Menino administration "has properly accepted responsibility for David Woodman’s tragic death. We hope there will be no similar tragedies. If another incident occurs, we hope it will be investigated quickly, thoroughly and fairly.”

Links:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/Stern%20Report.pdf
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/06/woodman_family.html

How the demand for DNA testing continues to outstrip the capacity of crime laboratories to process these cases.

National Institute of Justice report June 2010:
"Making Sense of DNA Backlogs"

Link: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/230183.pdf

16 ways to get out of a jury summons.

"You will be called for jury duty one day – I guarantee it. If the state, city, or county knows that you exist, you will get a summons to appear for jury duty at least several times in your life. And while we really should all be willing to do our civic duty when called upon, sometimes the timing or location of said duty doesn’t work for us at all. So instead of just ignoring the summons as inconvenient and throwing it in the trash (which can land you in contempt of court), you should try to reschedule or get out of jury duty this time, and hope it’s a while before you are asked again. But how do you get out of your civic duty of being a jury for one of your peers? Try on some of these excuses for size. While some are entirely legal and legit, and some are just plain silly (and possibly illegal), it may be worth the effort to give some of them a try if the timing of your jury duty doesn’t fit in your schedule."

Link:
http://www.mytwodollars.com/2010/06/10/ways-to-get-out-of-jury-duty-summons/

Police in Brockton, MA use a new IPhone application that uses facial recognition to identify suspects.

BROCKTON — Officer Scott Shields held up the oversized iPhone and snapped a photo.

Within seconds, that photo would match one of a man included in a test database.

It is part of a new facial recognition system now being used by Brockton police.

The system, called MORIS (Mobile Offender Recognition and Identification System), will allow officers in the field to take photos of suspects to be compared with a database now being developed by sheriff departments across the state.

“This is something the officers can access when they are out on the road,” said Police Chief William Conlon.

He said officers can take a photo of a suspect, upload it into a secure network where it is analyzed then learn – often within seconds – who the person is.

Conlon said the handheld iPhone device will likely be used by the gang unit initially until the department can get more of the devices through grants.

The device – with the necessary applications – costs $3,000 – and was made available thanks in part to a $200,000 federal grant funneled through the Massachusetts Sheriff’s Association.






Link:
http://www.patriotledger.com/topstories/x1602636300/Catching-criminals-Cops-have-an-app-for-that

Arson investigation in LA led to a man's wrongful conviction.

After spending 13 years in prison for an arson crime he says he did not commit, George Souliotes is seeking a new trial. He was convicted of setting a fire that killed a woman and her two children while they slept. Now, fire investigators say they don’t believe the fire was intentionally set.

For decades, fire investigators believed accelerant-propelled arsons left signs: melted steel, glass etched by tiny cracks, certain patterns and markings. But when the theories were finally tested, scientists learned the conditions also were found in accidental blazes.

The turning point for fire science came in 1992 with the publication of a seminal guide by the National Fire Protection Assn.

The report dispelled myths that had guided fire investigations for decades, but years passed before the report's conclusions were embraced. Even today there are investigators with little training who cling to the old beliefs, according to leading fire experts.

"There is still a pretty sizable rear guard who don't want to admit they were doing it wrong," said John Lentini, a fire scientist who was hired by Souliotes' defense. "It is understandable, because the worst thing you can do is send a person to prison for a crime they did not commit."

Fire scientists say that arson investigators misinterpreted the evidence at the scene, and a former FBI agent hired by Pantazis found Souliotes was truthful during a polygraph test when he denied setting the blaze.


Link:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/crime/la-me-arson-20100531,0,125247.story

How to be safe and secure on social networking websites.

Online social networks are websites that allow users to build connections and relationships to other Internet users. Social networks store information remotely, rather than on a user’s personal computer. Social networking can be used to keep in touch with friends, make new contacts and find people with similar interests and ideas.

These online services have grown in popularity since they were first adopted on a large scale in the late 1990s. Pew Research shows that the number of adult Internet users who have a social networking profile more than quadrupled from 2005 to 2008. (See Pew Research's Social Networks Grow: Friending Mom and Dad) As of June 2010, the popular application Facebook listed over 400 million active accounts worldwide.

However, many people besides friends and acquaintances are interested in the information people post on social networks. Identity thieves, scam artists, debt collectors, stalkers, and corporations looking for a market advantage are using social networks to gather information about consumers. Companies that operate social networks are themselves collecting a variety of data about their users, both to personalize the services for the users and to sell to advertisers.

Link: http://www.privacyrights.org/social-networking-privacy#privacy-policy

Washington, DC is the second state this year that has flawed DUI tests. Can we trust the accuracy of the equipment?

Nearly 400 people were convicted of driving while intoxicated in the District since fall 2008 based on inaccurate results from breath test machines, and half of them went to jail, city officials said Wednesday.

The District's badly calibrated equipment would show a driver's blood-alcohol content to be about 20 percent higher than it actually was, Nickles said. All 10 of the breath test machines used by District police were wrong, he said. The problem occurred when the officer in charge of maintaining the machines improperly set the baseline alcohol concentration levels, Nickles said.


Link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/09/AR2010060906257.html?hpid%3Dmoreheadlines&sub=AR

BP purchases search engine phrases, will private investigators have to dig deeper to uncover the facts in future investigations?

BP, the very company responsible for the oil spill that is already the worst in U.S. history, has purchased several phrases on search engines such as Google and Yahoo so that the first result that shows up directs information seekers to the company's official website.

A simple Google search of "oil spill" turns up several thousand news results, but the first link, highlighted at the very top of the page, is from BP. "Learn more about how BP is helping," the link's tagline reads.

A spokesman for the company confirmed to ABC News that it had, in fact, bought these search terms to make information on the spill more accessible to the public.

But several search engine marketing experts are questioning BP's intentions, suggesting that controlling what the public finds when they look online for oil spill information is just another way for the company to try and rebuild the company's suffering public image.

Despite the criticism, Kevin Ryan, the CEO of California-based Motivity Marketing, says that BP's fierce PR campaign is smart.

"The search terms, everything, it's probably not a bad idea for the company to do," he said. "Is it right? Is buying these terms ethical? That's another question."

Link:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Broadcast/bp-buys-search-engine-phrases-redirecting-users/story?id=10835618

Is the science of micro-expressions (behavior detecting by TSA agents) junk science?

In the United States, the DHS is pursuing a program that would use sensors to look at nonverbal behaviors, and thereby spot terrorists as they walk through a corridor. The US Department of Defense and intelligence agencies have expressed interest in similar ideas. A growing number of researchers are dubious not just about the projects themselves, but about the science on which they are based.

“Simply put, people (including professional lie catchers with extensive experience of assessing veracity) would achieve similar hit rates if they flipped a coin,” noted a 2007 report from a committee of credibility-assessment experts who reviewed research on portal screening.

“No scientific evidence exists to support the detection or inference of future behavior, including intent,” declares a 2008 report prepared by the JASON defesce advisory group. And the TSA had no business deploying SPOT across the nation’s airports “without first validating the scientific basis for identifying suspicious passengers in an airport environment”, stated a two-year review of the program released on 20 May by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the US Congress.

In response to such concerns, the TSA has commissioned an independent study that it hopes will produce evidence to show that SPOT works, and the DHS is promising rigorous peer review of its technology program.

For critics, however, this is too little, too late.

Link: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100526/pdf/465412a.pdf

A mother in San Bernadino, CA used Facebook to locate her kidnapped children.

California prosecutors have charged a man with kidnapping his two children almost 15 years ago after the mother used Facebook to locate their whereabouts.

Faustino Fernandez Utrera, who was held in custody in Osceola County Thursday, was charged with two felony counts each of kidnapping and child abduction, according to the San Bernardino County Sun.

About three months ago, Segala attempted to use Facebook to find her children, and searched the popular social networking Web site for her children’s' names to see if either had a profile. It was then that she found her daughter's profile, the Sun reports.

"In my 22 years of being in Montclair this is the first one (finding a child through social networking) I've ever heard of," Montclair police Sgt Ken Pollich said. "It's promising to know that there's a tool that if it's used properly its working for this woman. It's just unfortunate that it took 15 years to find them."


Link:http://www.sbsun.com/ci_15221943?source=rss_viewed

PDF Geni is a great resource website for private investigators.

PDFGeni is a dedicated pdf search engine for PDF ebooks, manual, catalogs, sheets, forms and documents.

Link:http://www.pdfgeni.com/

In LA police can enter a home without a warrant if they hear an animal in distress.

A report of a dog crying in distress can constitute an emergency that justifies police entering a home without a warrant, a state appeals court ruled Thursday in upholding a Los Angeles County man's conviction for animal cruelty.

Police can conduct a search without a judge's approval "when an officer reasonably believes immediate warrantless entry into a residence is required to aid a live animal in distress," Presiding Justice Joan Dempsey Klein said in the 3-0 ruling.

Link:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/04/BA8Q1DPK7V.DTL

How the police can seize your stuff when you have not been proven guilty of anything.

Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today.

In most states the police can seize property they suspect has been used to commit a crime. Under “civil asset forfeiture” laws, they typically do not have to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that a crime was committed, or even charge anyone with an offence. What is more, the money raised by auctioning seized houses, boats and cars is often used to boost the budgets of the police department that did the seizing. That can mean fancier patrol cars, badass hardware or simply keeping the budget plump in lean times. In one survey 40% of police executives agreed that funds from civil-asset forfeiture were “necessary as a budget supplement”. This conflict of interest has predictable consequences. It spurs the police to pay more attention to cases that are likely to involve seizable assets (such as drug busts) and less attention to other ones. A report from the Institute for Justice, a pressure group, calls it “Policing for Profit”.

Civil and criminal asset forfeiture laws are often confused. Criminal forfeiture involves proven criminals. A convicted bank robber may lose his getaway car; a money-launderer may lose the house he bought with his illicit profits. Civil forfeiture is different. No conviction is necessary. If the government suspects that property has been used in the commission of a crime, it files an action against the property itself.

Links:
http://www.economist.com/world/united-states/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16219747

http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/assetforfeituretoemail.pdf

Taking a video with audio can get you arrested in many states including MA.

It is legal in MA to video tape anyone without audio, this includes police officers.

In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.

Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.

The legal justification for arresting the "shooter" rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where "no expectation of privacy exists" (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.

Massachusetts attorney June Jensen represented Simon Glik who was arrested for such a recording. She explained, "[T]he statute has been misconstrued by Boston police. You could go to the Boston Common and snap pictures and record if you want." Legal scholar and professor Jonathan Turley agrees, "The police are basing this claim on a ridiculous reading of the two-party consent surveillance law - requiring all parties to consent to being taped. I have written in the area of surveillance law and can say that this is utter nonsense."

In 2001, when Michael Hyde was arrested for criminally violating the state's electronic surveillance law - aka recording a police encounter - the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld his conviction 4-2. In dissent, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall stated, "Citizens have a particularly important role to play when the official conduct at issue is that of the police. Their role cannot be performed if citizens must fear criminal reprisals…." (Note: In some states it is the audio alone that makes the recording illegal.)

Link:http://gizmodo.com/5553765/are-cameras-the-new-guns

Catch cheating spouses by checking Facebook accounts.

Before the explosion of social media, Ken Altshuler, a divorce lawyer in Maine, dug up dirt on his client's spouses the old-fashioned way: with private investigators and subpoenas. Now the first place his team checks for evidence is Facebook.

Consider a recent story of a female client in her 30s, who came to Altshuler seeking a divorce from husband. She claimed her husband, an alcoholic, was drinking again. The husband denied it. It was her word against his word, Altshuler says, until a mutual friend of the couple stumbled across Facebook photos of the husband drinking beer at a party a few weeks earlier.

It was the kind of "gotcha moment" Altshuler knew would undermine the husband's credibility in court. His firm presented the photos to the judge, and the wife won the case in April, he said.

"Facebook is a great source of evidence," Altshuler said. "It's absolutely solid evidence because he's the author of it. How do you deny that you put that on?"

Social media stalking skills have become invaluable to the legal world for divorce cases in particular. Online photo albums, profile pages, wall comments, status updates and tweets have become gold mines for evidence and leads. Today, divorce and family law firms routinely cull information posted on social media sites -- the flirty exchanges with a paramour, unsavory self-revelations and compromising photographs -- to buttress their case.

At National Digital Forensics, Inc., a North Carolina company that mines digital sites for information, requests for social media searches from divorce lawyers have surged, says president and senior digital investigator Giovanni Masucci. The social media detective work requires different snooping skills, he says.

"For example, someone may be cheating, but they are married," Masucci explained. "If their status on the web page says single, that's a major red flag."

The most common way to gather information on Facebook relies on the battling couple's mutual online friends who still have access to the spouse's profile. Many times the spouse will "de-friend" a partner but forget about their shared friends, who can play detective and access information on their profile.

Another way of exposing damaging information is searching the profiles of the suspected "other man" or "other woman", says says Marlene Eskind Moses, a divorce attorney in Tennessee.



Link:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/06/01/facebook.divorce.lawyers/index.html

Texas: Dog scent lineup is called junk science.

HOUSTON - The San Jacinto County Sheriff's Department, north of Houston, used fraudulent "dog scent lineups" and testimony from a jailhouse snitch to send a man to prison for 2½ years for a murder he did not commit, Richard Winfrey claims in Federal Court.
Winfrey claims the Sheriff's Department "actively ignored all evidence to the contrary, including DNA tests performed on evidence collected at the crime scene that excluded [him] as an offender."
Winfrey claims Sheriff James Walters used a "junk science" dog scent lineup, devised by former Fort Bend County sheriff's Deputy Keith Pikett in the early 1990s.
The technique involves introducing a scent to a dog that has been collected from a crime scene, then presenting the dog with a series of containers with scents in them taken from suspects, Winfrey says.
"According to defendant Pikett, the dog will then communicate to its handler/observer if the scent that it 'got' the first time matches the scent of one of the containers," Winfrey says.
"Without a doubt, these lineups epitomize the worst of junk science," Winfrey adds. "Defendant Pikett developed the dog scent lineups without any training - he simply purchased bloodhound dogs and 'trained' them to indicate when two human scents matched.





Links:http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/06/02/ScentMatch.pdf
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/06/02/27727.htm

In Ohio you can be ticketed if an officer thinks you're going too fast. Can this become law in other states?

Ohio's highest court has ruled that a person may be convicted of speeding purely if it looked to a police officer that the motorist was going too fast.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an officer's visual estimation of speed is enough to support a conviction if the officer is trained, certified by a training academy, and experienced in watching for speeders. The court's 5-1 decision says independent verification of a driver's speed is not necessary.

Link: http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/95410314.html

The Supreme Court ruled today, suspects must say they want to be silent and ask for an attorney to invoke their Miranda protections!

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that suspects must explicitly tell police they want to be silent to invoke Miranda protections during criminal interrogations, a decision one dissenting justice said turns defendants' rights "upside down."

A right to remain silent and a right to a lawyer are the first of the Miranda rights warnings, which police recite to suspects during arrests and interrogations. But the justices said in a 5-4 decision that suspects must tell police they are going to remain silent to stop an interrogation, just as they must tell police that they want a lawyer.

The ruling comes in a case where a suspect, Van Chester Thompkins, remained mostly silent for a three-hour police interrogation before implicating himself in a Jan. 10, 2000, murder in Southfield, Mich. He appealed his conviction, saying that he invoked his Miranda right to remain silent by remaining silent.

Links: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1470.pdf

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/01/AR2010060101378.html?hpid=topnews

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