Criminal Justice

Seventy years ago, in a book called Convicting the Innocent, the Yale Law School professor Edwin Borchard produced a classic study of how the wrong person gets sent to prison or to death. The hapless innocents Borchard profiled included a coal miner and a doctor, Central European immigrants and American blacks, an unemployed religious visionary and an Algerian john named Frenchy. In those days exoneration was almost always a matter of luck -- occasionally, for example, a supposed murder victim… more

Did you hear about the government's new plan to launch anticipatory strikes against evildoers?

No, not President George W. Bush's policy, announced on June 1, of "preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives." That's old news. Now it's time to look ahead, to "Minority Report," the new Steven Spielberg movie, which offers a window into the dystopic future when government power is taken to extremes. If the film scares you, remember, it isn't… more

Had Alexey Vladimirovich Ivanov been born in Chicago rather than Chelyabinsk, he'd likely be well on his way to joining the geek elite. His three-page resume lists computer skills that would dazzle any Silicon Valley headhunter. According to his employment history, Ivanov began working at a regional telephone company in Russia while still in his mid-teens, installing Web servers and Cisco routers. His programming talents include tricky languages like C++ and Perl, and he has mastered 18… more

The recent Post series documenting Prince George's County police as among the most brutal in the nation exposes a long-hidden truth: A racially diverse police force under the command of black elected officials is no guarantee against police violence.

The notion that racial diversity is the key to fighting police brutality has deep historical roots. In the wake of riots across American inner-cities in the 1960s, the Kerner Commission called for "increased Negro participation in police departments" because "for police… more

The growing national crusade against racial profiling is being called the civil rights movement of this generation. Polls have shown that a majority of Americans believe … more

Maryland police, claiming that Liberian college student Nelson Walker wasn't wearing a seat belt, dismantled his car searching for drugs; hours later, having found none, they handed him a… more