crime

Latin America and the Caribbean is a region of stark paradoxes, and that has never been truer than in the past decade: Even as the continent enjoys one of its most dynamic economic booms, it’s suffering one of the worst violent crime crises in its history.

State lawmakers will not  decide whether to abolish the death penalty this year. Rejecting cost, fairness and morality arguments, a House criminal justice subcommittee on Thursday voted down a bill to abolish capital punishment in Florida.

The vote was largely along party lines, with the majority Republicans voting in favor of preserving the death penalty.

Texas executed 15 convicts in 2012, the most of any state, according to an end-of-year report from the Death Penalty Information Center.

But Florida led the nation with new death sentences for the year: 21, more than twice as many as Texas. California, with 14 death sentences, was the only other state to achieve a double-digit performance.

The bodies of "In Cold Blood" killers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock have been exhumed in Kansas for DNA samples that could tie them to murders of a Sarasota County family.

The men were hanged for killing Herb and Bonnie Clutter and their children in Holcomb, Kan., in 1959.

09/04/12 - Tuesday’s Topical Currents is with USC psychology and law professor Dan Simon, author of In Doubt: The Psychology Of The Criminal Justice System.  Why do victims and eyewitnesses identify innocent people as crime perpetrators? DNA results show that some suspects confess to crimes they didn’t commit.  Simon bemoans that juries are often given erroneous testimony during trials and are subject to human cognition failure.

On September 11, 2001, Tanya Villanueva Tepper’s fiancé, Sergio Villanueva, was one of the 343 New York City firefighters who didn’t make it out of the World Trade Center. Tanya is featured in the new documentary,Rebirth, which follows five people affected by those attacks, over the course of the last decade. The film airs Sunday on Showtime on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. Tanya now lives in Miami, where she has found solace and a new life. She spoke with Under the Sun co-host Alicia Zuckerman.

If you ever find yourself charged with a crime, a bail bondsman can be your best friend. When a judge sets bail and the defendant doesn’t have the money to pay, the bondsman posts the money in exchange for an upfront fee – usually 10 percent of the bond amount – and property as collateral. All the defendant has to do is show up to court.
 

Getting a jury summons in the mail is not cause to rejoice for most people. It means missing a day or more of work and sitting for long periods of time waiting for your name to be called while watching bad movies in a large, cold room. If you do get chosen for a jury panel, however, you get to see the legal system in process.

You may have heard of Queen Brown.  Her son was killed two years ago, and ever since, she’s pushed for an end to youth violence.  In speeches and articles, Queen talks about the wrenching experience of losing her son.  But the fallout of his death still haunts her.  Kenny Malone has her story.