University of North Carolina's Fraud Running Deeper?

Forbes:

In early December, former Governor of North Carolina, Jim Martin, declared the University of North Carolina free from any wrongdoing in an alleged athletic scandal, which revolved around questionable classes within the Department of African American Studies. Martin claimed that officials tried to raise red flags on a couple different occasions. Specifically, Martin said that in 2002 and 2006, officials informed the Faculty Committee of Athletics of the abnormally higher than expected number of independent enrollments and lecture courses that had all of a sudden turned in to independent studies. Martin reported that this committee responded by stating that the professors operated with “high latitude on how to teach a course”, and Martin firmly stated that while the courses were filled with mainly athletes, there was no athletic scandal.

After the proclamation by the former Governor, the University of North Carolina seemed to have mitigated some of its potential damage. However, a recent review of the faculty minutes do not allude to any such red flags ever being raised. In fact, several faculty members have specifically addressed the proclamation and asserted that the alleged red flags were never raised or that they do not remember them existing.

A former committee chair in 2002, Dr. Stanley Mandel, commented on the alleged red flags being brought up. “You won’t find any reference to it in the committee minutes because there was no reference to it,” said Mandel. “There was no discussion. Nothing was brought up.” A former committee member from 2006 stated, “It seemed like everyone around the table was congratulating themselves about what a squeaky clean program they had.”  With this recent news about the red flags never being brought up via the evidence of the committee minutes, it seems as if Martin has potentially made some borderline fraudulent statements. Still, Martin’s report showed that 216 classes had either proven or potential problems, and 560 classes were suspected to have incurred unauthorized grade changes. The opposite of squeaky-clean.

Full article by Darren Heitner can be found here.

Buyers Rush to Firearms Dealers

From the Spokesman-Review:

Sam Bishop stood Tuesday at the counter of Sharp Shooting Indoor Range and Gun Shop. He was looking at a gun for home security while he felt he still could, he said.

“I want to be just one step ahead of everybody else,” said Bishop, who was checking out the Spokane gun store’s selection of pistols. “I don’t want to come in here to get something left over that nobody wants.”

Bishop isn’t the only buyer rushing to a nearby firearms dealer. Spokane gun stores are reporting increased sales since the Newtown, Conn., school massacre Friday, which has sparked talk in Congress of potential gun control legislation.

Sales already appeared to be up in 2012 before the latest tragedy. The FBI, which operates the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, reports record gun background checks for the year. The FBI ran checks on more than 16.8 million people through November nationwide. Even without December’s numbers, that’s a 2 percent increase from last year. About 444,000 of those were in Washington state.

Several Democratic lawmakers, including Washington’s U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, are promising gun reform in the wake of last week’s school shooting, as well as the Clackamas Town Center shooting in Portland.

The lawmakers say that at the very least they will push to reinstate the Clinton-era ban on certain types of semi-automatic rifles often called assault weapons. The ban expired in 2004.

“My biggest fear is what our lawmakers are going to do,” Bishop said. “I just think the future for recreational and self-defense is potentially being jeopardized with the way our lawmakers look at gun ownership.”

Sharp Shooting owner Robin Ball said sales set a store record on Saturday. The most popular seller is the AR-15 style of semi-automatic rifle that was used in the Connecticut and Aurora, Colo., shootings. Ball said it’s a sporting rifle, usually used for hunting or competition.

Full article can be found here.

Delta Air Lines Subpoena Compliance

Delta Air Lines, Inc.
1030 Delta Blvd., Dept. 982
Atlanta, GA. 30354
Attn: Judith A. Gorham, Paralegal Specialist


Corporate Office: (404) 715-5212
FAX:   (404) 677-3221

Chief of Change

By Jacob James from the Inlander:

It would seem to take a strange kind of masochist to want to assume responsibility for the Spokane Police Department.

Considered misunderstood at best and dangerous at worst, the Lilac City’s police force remains plagued by widespread public cynicism, ongoing legal entanglements and a fractured sense of purpose.

Who would be crazy enough to take on this mess?

With three brass stars on his collar and a two-month-old badge over his heart, Frank Straub can at first glance appear surly, a bit unenthusiastic. He is not an overly animated public cheerleader, wearing his passion on his sleeve. He asks engaged questions, but rarely smiles. He speaks at a deliberate, analytical pace.

Hardly unpacked in his new city, Straub brings with him broad experience in regional and federal law enforcement. He carries the title “doctor” from a Ph.D. in criminal justice. He also carries a loaded .40-caliber Glock on his hip.

Perhaps surprisingly, considering the task ahead of him, he seems of sound mind.

But before Straub could even take his oath, two potential allies — Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich and the Spokane Police Guild — had already questioned his selection as chief. City officials had eyed cuts to his budget and staffing. Union negotiations had stalled for nearly a year, and the sticky issue of marijuana legalization had gone to voters. Above all, crime rates had continued to spike within a community long estranged from its police force.

Straub took the job anyway.

On this recent afternoon, Straub has called together more than a dozen local mental health experts to discuss cross-agency partnerships. Around the conference table, he asks for their support and expertise, promising them reform in return. Hospital directors, nonprofit leaders and psychiatry professors nod along with his suggestions.

“All I hear is the department sucks at helping the homeless or the mentally ill,” Straub tells the group. “I know we don’t suck. … We need to figure this out collectively because it’s better for all of us.”

They nod again. Not one questions his sanity.

Straub knows he still has much to prove to his own officers and the city they serve. Many local leaders, weary of in-fighting and perceived institutional incompetence, have high hopes for his administration. But they also have little tolerance left for failure.

Revealing a hidden optimist, Straub says he sees only opportunity. He sees officers too long held back from the work they love. He sees a police department too long distracted by politics and tragedy. He sees a city too long divided. But, beyond that, despite its bitter and broken history, he sees a community yearning for a new direction.

“We need to change the story,” he says.

Full article can be found here.

The House I Live In (2012)

State Drunk Driving Laws

All states define driving with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above 0.08 percent as a crime, although specific laws and penalties can vary substantially from state to state.

Administrative license suspensions allow law enforcement to confiscate a driver's license when he or she fails a chemical test. Several states grant limited driving privileges – such as driving to and from work – to drivers whose license has been suspended if the driver is able to demonstrate special hardship.

All states have some type of ignition interlock law, in which judges require all or a portion of convicted drunk drivers to install interlocks in their cars. These devices analyze a driver's breath and disable the engine if alcohol is detected.

Federal programs transfer surface transportation funding to the Section 402 highway safety grant program for states that fail to adopt open container and repeat offender laws.

Alcohol exclusion laws let insurance companies deny payment for treatment of drunk drivers' injuries, but they have limited doctors' abilities to diagnose alcohol problems and recommend treatment. Some states have repealed such laws.

Highlights of current state drunk driving laws include the following:

• All 50 states and the District of Columbia
 have enacted some sort of ignition interlock legislation.

• 17 states
 (and 4 California counties) have made ignition interlocks mandatory or highly incentivized for all convicted drunk drivers, even first-time offenders.

• 42 states, the District of Columbia, the Northern Mariana Islands and the Virgin Islands
all have some type of administrative license suspension on the first offense.

• 48 states, the District of Columbia and Guam
 have increased penalties for drunk drivers found guilty of driving with a high BAC (often .15 or higher).

NOTE: GHSA does not compile any additional data on drunk driving laws other than what is presented here. For more information, consult the appropriate State Highway Safety Office.

State	Inc. Penalty for High BAC	Admin. License Susp. on 1st Offense	Limited Driving Privileges During Susp.	Ignition Interlocks	Vehicle and License Plate Sanctions	Open Container Laws*	Repeat Offender Laws*	Alcohol Exclusion Laws Limiting Treatment
						*Meeting Federal Requirements
Ala.	.15	90 days		Mandatory for high BAC (>.15) convictions		Yes	Yes	Yes
Alaska	.15 (at judges' disc.)	90 days	After 30 days	Mandatory for all convictions	Vehicle impoundment			Yes
Ariz.	.15	90 days	After 30 days	Mandatory for all convictions	Immobilization or impoundment	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ark.	.15	6 months	Yes	Mandatory for all convictions	Vehicle confiscation		Yes	Yes
Calif.	.15	4 months	After 30 days	Discretionary Mandatory for all convictions in Alameda, Los Angeles, Tulare and Sacramento counties (pilot project)	Impoundment, vehicle confiscation	Yes		Yes
Colo.	.17	3 months	Yes	Highly incentivized for all convictions		Yes	Yes
Conn.	.16	90 days	Yes	Mandatory for all convictions			Yes
Del.	.16	3 months		Mandatory for high BAC (>.15) and repeat convictions	Vehicle sanction and license plate impoundment		Yes	Yes
D.C.	.20 and .25	2-90 days or until disposition	Yes	Discretionary		Yes	Yes
Fla.	.20	6 months for DUBAL	After 30 days	Mandatory for high BAC (>.15) convictions	Impoundment, vehicle forfeiture	Yes	Yes	Yes
		12 months for refusal	After 90 days
Ga.	.15	1 year	Yes	Mandatory for repeat convictions	Vehicle confiscation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Guam	From .08 to .10					Yes	Yes
Hawaii	.15	3 months	After 30 days	Mandatory for all convictions		Yes	Yes	Yes
Idaho	.20	90 days	After 30 days	Discretionary		Yes	Yes	Yes
Ill.	.16	6 months	After 30 days	Mandatory for all convictions	Impoundment, vehicle confiscation	Yes	Yes
Ind.	.15	180 days	After 30 days	Discretionary	Vehicle confiscation	Yes	Yes
Iowa	.15	180 days	After 30 days	Discretionary		Yes	Yes
Kan.	.15	30 days		Mandatory for all convictions		Yes	Yes	Yes
Ky.	.18	30 - 120 days	Yes	Discretionary	Impoundment	Yes	Yes	Yes
La. 1	.15 and .20	See footnote		Mandatory for all convictions	Vehicle confiscation			Yes
Maine	.15	90 days	Yes	Discretionary	Vehicle confiscation	Yes	Yes
Md.	.15	45 days	Yes, under certain circum- stances	Mandatory for high BAC (>.15) convictions		Yes	Yes
Mass.	.20 (applies to ages 17-21)	90 days	Yes	Mandatory for repeat convictions	Vehicle confiscation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mich.2	.17	See footnote	After 30 days	Mandatory for high BAC convictions	Vehicle confiscation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Minn.	.20	90 days	After 15 days	Mandatory for high BAC and repeat convictions	Impoundment, vehicle confiscation, special plates/ markings	Yes		Yes
Miss.		90 days		Discretionary	Impoundment, vehicle confiscation		Yes	Yes
Mo.	.15	90 days	After 30 days (restricted)	Mandatory for all convictions (eff. 10/1/13)	Vehicle forfeiture or impoundment (cities w/ 100,000+ allowed to enact ordinance)			Yes
Mont.	.16			Mandatory for repeat convictions	Impoundment, vehicle confiscation	Yes		Yes
Neb.	.15	90 days	After 30 days	Mandatory for all convictions	Vehicle immobilization, continuous alcohol monitoring	Yes	Yes	Yes
Nev.	.18	90 days	After 45 days	Discretionary		Yes	Yes
N.H.	.16	6 months		Mandatory for high BAC convictions		Yes	Yes	Yes
N.J.	.10			Mandatory for high BAC (>.15) and repeat convictions		Yes	Yes	Yes
N.M.	.16 (w/ mand. jail on all offenses)	<21: 1="1" br="br" yr.="yr.">>21: 6 mo.	Immediately w/ Ignition Interlock	Mandatory for all convictions	Immobilization of vehicle for driving while revoked	Yes		Yes
N.Y.	.18	Variable	Yes	Mandatory for all convictions	Vehicle confiscation	Yes	Yes	Yes
N.C.	.15	30 days	After 10 days	Mandatory for high BAC (>.15) and repeat convictions	Vehicle confiscation	Yes	Yes
N.D.	.18	91 days	After 30 days	Discretionary	Vehicle confiscation, license plate removal	Yes	Yes	Yes
M.P.		30 days - <6 months="months" td="td">				Yes	Yes
Ohio	.17	90 days	After 15 days	Discretionary	Impoundment, vehicle confiscation or immobilization, restricted plates	Yes		Yes
Okla.	.15	180 days	Yes	Mandatory for high BAC (>.15), repeat convictions, and refusals		Yes	Yes	Yes
Ore.	.15	90 days	After 30 days	Mandatory for all diversions		Yes	Yes
Pa. 3	.16		See footnote	Mandatory for repeat convictions		Yes	Yes	Yes
R.I.	.15			Judicial discretion on 3rd or subsequent conviction	Judicial discretion on 3rd or subsequent conviction	Yes
S.C.	.15	1 month (for >.15 BAC)	Yes	Mandatory for repeat convictions	Vehicle confiscation	Yes	Yes	Yes
S.D. 4	.17	See footnote	Yes	Discretionary		Yes
Tenn.	.20			Mandatory for high BAC and repeat convictions	Vehicle confiscation		Yes	Yes
Texas	.15	90 days if .08 or greater; 180 days for refusal	Yes	Mandatory for repeat convictions	Vehicle confiscation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Utah	.16	120 days		Mandatory for all convictions	Impoundment	Yes	Yes	Yes
Vt.		90 days		Discretionary	Impoundment, vehicle confiscation	Yes		Yes
V.I.		Variable	Yes		Revoke license plate	Yes	Yes
Va.	.15 and .20	7 days		Mandatory for all convictions	Vehicle confiscation		Yes	Yes
Wash.	.15	90 days	With an ignition interlock driver’s license	Mandatory for all convictions	Mandatory tow and 12 hour impound	Yes
W.Va.	.15	6 months	After 30 days	Mandatory for high BAC (>.15) and repeat convictions			Yes	Yes
Wis.	.17, .20 and .25	6 months	Yes	Mandatory for high BAC (>.15) and repeat convictions	Impoundment, vehicle seizure/ forfeiture	Yes	Yes	Yes
Wy.	.15	90 days	Yes	Mandatory for high BAC (>.15) and repeat convictions				Yes
Total States	48 + D.C., 1 Terr.	42 + D.C., 2 Terr.	36 + D.C., 1 Terr.	Mandatory For All (17) High BAC (5) Repeat (6) High BAC & Repeat (9) Discretion-ary: 13 + D.C.	Varies	39 + D.C., 3 Terr.	37 + D.C., 3 Terr.	37

¹ Louisiana requires a 45 day hard suspension of driving privileges for a second DWI conviction.
² Michigan has administrative license suspension for for refusal to submit to chemical test.
³ Pennsylvania uses a program called Occupational Limited Licenses (OLL).
⁴ South Dakota has administrative license suspension for 30 days for refusal to submit to chemical test.

Sources: Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and State Highway Safety Offices.

NACDL Restoration of Rights Project

NACDL has put together a resource that profiles the law and practice in each U.S. jurisdiction relating to relief from the collateral consequences of conviction. The information available includes individual profiles from each of the 54 state and federal jurisdictions as well as a set of charts that allows for side by side comparisons. Included are provisions on loss and restoration of civil rights and firearms privileges, legal mechanisms for overcoming or mitigating collateral consequences, and provisions addressing non-discrimination in employment and licensing. NACDL has made this information available to its members as well as the general public to aid in determining the types of relief available from the collateral consequences of convictions. The information is available on NACDL's site available here.

Crime in the United States 2011

Since 1996, editions of Crime in the United States have been available on the FBI’s Web site www.fbi.gov. First released in Portable Document Format (PDF) files, more recent editions have been published in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) files. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program staff are committed to improving their annual publications so that the data they collect can better meet the needs of law enforcement, criminologists, sociologists, legislators, municipal planners, the media, and other students of criminal justice who use the statistics for varied administrative, research, and planning purposes. For more information about how the UCR Program collects data, see About the Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

Data provided

Crime in the United States, 2011, presents data tables containing information on the topics listed below. Data users can download Microsoft Excel spreadsheets of the data tables and Adobe PDFs of most of the text shown.

Offenses Known to Law Enforcement—Includes information about violent crime offenses (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) and property crime offenses (burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson).

Expanded offense data—Provides additional data that the program collects on the eight offenses. Depending on the offense, these details may include the type of weapon and the type and value of items stolen. For the offense of murder, expanded homicide data include information about murder victims, offenders, and circumstances that are collected as supplemental homicide data.

Clearances—Furnishes information about crimes “solved” either by arrest or exceptional means.

Persons Arrested—Provides the number of arrests made by law enforcement and the age, gender, and race of arrestees for the 28 offenses (see Offense Definitions) for which the UCR Program publishes arrest data.

Police Employee Data—Supplies information regarding sworn officers and civilian law enforcement personnel.

Agencies contributing data

The table below shows the number of law enforcement agencies contributing data to the UCR Program within each population group for 2011. Information published in Crime in the United States, 2011, reflects data from these agencies.

Population Group	Number of Agencies	Population Covered
I (250,000 inhabitants and more)	75	56,398,148
II (100,000 to 249,999 inhabitants)	209	31,323,512
III (50,000 to 99,999 inhabitants)	473	32,816,692
IV (25,000 to 49,999 inhabitants)	888	30,762,527
V (10,000 to 24,999 inhabitants)	1,929	30,586,844
VI (Less than 10,000 inhabitants) 1, 2	9,499	26,669,678
VIII (Nonmetropolitan County)2	3,049	30,821,138
IX (Metropolitan County)2	2,111	72,213,378
Total	18,233	311,591,917

¹Includes universities and colleges to which no population is attributed.

²Includes state police to which no population is attributed.

National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) participation

In 2011, 29.4 percent of state programs and the District of Columbia reported all of their crime statistics via the NIBRS. This represented 28 percent of the U.S. population covered by UCR participants and accounted for 27 percent of all crime reported to the UCR Program. Thirty-six states are currently certified to report via the NIBRS. Among agencies within those states, more than 40 percent reported all of their statistics via the NIBRS.

What do you think?

The E-Government Act of 2002 (E-Gov), enacted by Congress, promotes more efficient uses of information technology by the federal government. This Web publication is a result of the UCR Program’s response to that Act. We welcome your feedback via our short evaluation form. Your comments will help us improve the presentation of future releases of Crime in the United States.

What you won’t find in this publication

Rankings by crime levels—Any comparisons of crime among different locales should take into consideration numerous other factors besides the areas’ crime statistics. Therefore, the UCR Program does not provide rankings of localities by crime levels. Cautions Against Ranking provides more details concerning the proper use of UCR statistics.

Information about unreported crime—Crime in the United States features data collected from law enforcement agencies regarding only those offenses known to police. However, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), another agency within the Department of Justice, administers the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Using data from the NCVS, the BJS publishes information regarding crimes not reported to the police. For more information about the NCVS and how its data differ from information presented in Crime in the United States, see The Nation’s Two Crime Measures.

County crime totals and “raw data”—Crime in the United States offers crime data from local and county law enforcement agencies in separate tables. These data, which are also presented individually within a county (Crime by County), and other 2011 “raw data” from the UCR Program’s master files will be available sometime after the release of the 2011 publication. For more information, contact the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division via e-mail at cjis_comm@leo.gov.

Special studies—In previous years, Crime in the United States included special studies analyzing UCR data. Such studies are now released separately from the publication as monographs on www.fbi.gov.

Crime data for 2012—Preliminary statistics for January through June 2012 will be available on the Web in the fall of 2012 and replaced with preliminary data for all of 2012 in the spring of 2013. Crime in the United States, 2012, will be published on the Web in the fall of 2013.

The Central Park Five Trailer

Chris Rock on Gun Control

Everybody is talking about gun control. Got to control guns. Fuck that . . . I think we need bullet control. I think every bullet should cost five thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars for a bullet. Know why? 'Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars . . . people would think before they shot some. "Man, I would blow your fucking head off, if I could afford it. I'm gonna get me a second job, start saving up, and you a dead man." - Chris Rock

Justice Nice

Idaho Supreme Court Data Repository

Idaho State Judiciary

Idaho Supreme Court Data Repository

Name Search

Case Number Search

Court Calendars

As of May 27, 2008 case information is available for examination from all 44 Idaho Counties. 

This information will be displayed according to Idaho Court Administrative Rule (ICAR) 32.

The status of both pending and closed cases is available to the public. However, to ensure personal privacy, the following information is not provided to the public: 

• the first six characters of social security numbers
• street addresses
• telephone numbers
• any personal identification numbers (including motor vehicle operator's license numbers and financial account numbers)