Assignment Due 10/12 @ 10pm

I actually skimmed through a number of different articles that caught my eye, but I decided to discuss an article by The Washington Post called "Conspiracy Theorists Find Validation From Glenn Beck". I personally do not know who Glenn Beck is so I did a little of research on him, but what caught me was the title. How does someone find ways to make conspiracy theories valid? I had always heard they were overexaggerations or just simply untrue. As I read through the article, however, it wasn't what I expected at all.
For starters for those of you like me who didn't know, Glenn Beck is a member of the Fox News team and has been since 2008. He also hosts his own shows, including radio, where he discusses popular topics from his unique point of view.
Now the article I read was actually about the opinions of Glenn's friend, aka big fan, Byron Williams. According to Byron it is easy to watch Glenn and think he is just talking nonsense, but if you actually do the research you can see that Beck knows what he is talking about. The twish I didn't expect in the article is that Byron is actually in prison because he has been accused of being involved in a freeway shooting with police officers. Byron of course claimed to be innocent, but interestingly enough he said he was on his way to "kill people at the Liberal Tides Foundation". According to the article this is a place that Beck speaks of often in his shows.
The ultimate question raised in this article isn't whether Williams is guilty or not guilty of the shootout, but how much Beck is to blame for such actions. He may not be committing the violent acts himself, but on his shows he is often advocating and supporting them. This can send out both persuasive and wrong ideas to his viewers.
In my opinion this points out just how easy the human mind can be to influence. Although we have not talked about manipulation or influence much in class, we have discussed how delicate people are (witnesses). We as people have a need to please, to belong, to conform, and to fufill a purpose. Williams is a great example of this. He has grown to respect Beck and his ideas, in his mind what he was going to do was going to make a positive difference. He honestly believed that. This article also addresses the idea that once we decide to believe in something we will come up with reasons to support that decision. This is something I am actually reading in my book for the report at the end of the semester. People don't want to feel that they have made a bad decision and so they become greaty confident and faithful to what they do. In Williams case he began believing so strongly in Beck that even when evidence against support for violence appeared Williams ignored it. When interviewed Williams actually said that Beck would deny any support for violence, but that Beck supplies you with everything you need to believe it.
So it also got me thinking about what crime really is. I mean society decides it and we as individiuals decide what is wrong and what is right, but are our thoughts and opinions safe from this labeling and judegment? Are actions the only criminal thing out there? Although Beck claims his intentions were not to bring about actual violence, the way in which he influenced Willams is nothing new. In elaborate crimes the person who plans and creates the whole crime may not be the same person who does the actual crime, but does that make one of them innocent? It is important to remember the roles we play in the lives of others.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130108008
http://www.examiner.com/pop-culture-in-cincinnati/doped-up-teenage-mom-duct-tapes-toddler-to-the-wall-for-laughs

The title of my article was “Ohio Mom Please ‘Not Guilty’ To Giving Toddler Pot.” This article is actually from September and is about a mom who is c charged with corrupting another with drugs, child endangerment, and tampering with evidence, and allegedly gave her 2 year old daughter pot and used her cell phone to tape her smoking. If convicted, she would get 11 and ½ years in prison.

In finding this article I was actually looking for an article I read the other day (on a different website) about a teenage mom who came home with her boyfriend high and taped her toddler to the wall with his sippie cup inches above his hand and took pictures, which they put on social networking sites. This mom was sentenced to 10 days in prison… her boyfriend had an outstanding issue with guns and was charged with 60 months. The child was placed in state custody.

These stories are ridiculous. In both cases the mothers are very much not ready for parenthood. If they will ever be, regardless the children in their care could grow up very disturbed if left there. So in a way, thank God they were caught while their children were young. Although they are already going to have a few issues from either these incidents themselves, the consequences of these incidences, or perhaps the treatment they have been getting their whole lives so far. At least they will hopefully be taken to families who are much more fitting for a child to grow up in.

In these cases, these women were charged with felonies, which are serious charges that mean jail time, fines and sometimes death. Presumably the victims did not have to come forward in this case, and the eyewitnesses would have been those who received the video/ saw pictures on the internet, or if anyone was living with these mothers. There is little question of who the perpetrator was. However the first mother’s lawyer will probably try to convince a judge or jury that it was not this mother, since I’m assuming that the tampering with evidence means that there is a way to twist the story so that it looks like someone else may have done it. In the second case the mother’s lawyer will most likely blame the boyfriend for influencing and having a heavy hand in the situation altogether.

In these cases it would have been more difficult to deal with crime scene evidence because the police were not called immediately after the crime. Presumably there was time for the mother in both cases to cover up what had happened. Clean, throw away duct tape, get rid of the pot, etc. However there could still have been CSI called in to comb the scenes to find all they could, if the investigation needed much more proof then what was already provided.

Terms used: felonies, crime scene evidence, police, CSI, perpetrator, victim, eye witnesses

My article is entitled "Student released from hospital after spiked-drinks incident" I have actually been following this story for a few days now and find it pretty interesting. Another reason why I chose this article is because movies and sometimes the media make it seem like a laughing matter when someone talks about "roofieing" someone else. This article talks about a party that took place about 30 minutes outside of Central Washington University at a students parent's rental cabin. It started as a small party but then grew after other students started to text the address of the party. Police estimated that about 50 students attended. Police also reported that 12 people were believed to have been targeted, 11 of them female, at this party to be "roofied", even though the police are not sure what actual drug was used to spike the drinks. After interviewing many witnesses at the party, the police believe that someone had spiked a bottle of vodka that people had been using to mix drinks with. There was also word around the party that you were not suppose to "drink from the red cups". People that brought their own drinks, drank beer, or didn't consume any alcohol at all were not affected. Police Chief Scott Ferguson reported that after only one or two drinks, the victims reported that they had felt ill, and some even lost consciousness.
This article uses a few of the processes that we have learned in class so far. The article seemed to have used many of the eyewitness and victim interviewing techniques that we have learned or me personally have used for our project. The police also made an arrest at the scene when they found a man having sex with a semi-conscious woman. Police later found out that the woman was the mans girlfriend, but she did show signs of consuming a spiked drink and was treated. The man was detained, questioned, but not booked. Also the University is taking a stance on the issue as well. "Students identified as being involved with the party will have a conduct hearing that could result in an intensive education course, referral to counselors, or suspension." This investigation is still ongoing.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/10/washington.students.overdose/index.html

I read the article "Teen who killed family on Donaldson ranch goes free." Cody Posey was just fourteen years old when he brutally murdered his family on the ranch that they lived/worked on. He and witnesses testified that he killed them after snapping from years of physical and psychological abuse from his father and step mother. The prosecuting attourneys wanted him to be dealt the maximum adult sentance of life in prison without parole but he ended up instead being freed at the age of 21.
I find this to be a very fascinating story, and a hard one to take sides upon. The article does go into detail some of the abuse that Cody endured growing up, that was very evident and obvious to not only him but the 40 defense witnesses during his trial. Apparently the night before he murdered his family his father summoned him to his bedroom and attempted to force Cody into having sex with his stepmother, and then later the next day beat him for it-- eventually Cody snapped, stole a gun, and shot his father, step mother, and his stepsister. He then tried to cover it up like it was a burglary by burying them and then driving his father's pickup to stay at a friends and lying about the whereabouts of his family. This meaning he couldn't plead insanity because he obviously knew his actions were wrong if he was trying to cover them up.
It's a sticky situation when someone is under such inflicting abuse. But should we let them go free for it? Apparently Cody had evolved into a very "healthy" and bright man while in prison, studying and mentoring other younger inmates. However, I think that with his history of abuse, he could still very well be repressing an enormous amount of rage and other harmful emotions under whatever he is portraying. Many murderers and criminals are the way they are BECAUSE of psychological trauma or abuse-- but many of them don't get to go free because of it. Perhaps it's a different circumstance because he was so young. Nonetheless, I still think it's kindof rash for them to just completely let him go completely free when he DID murder three people.
terms: Witness, Judge, Sentence, testify, trial, jury, defense, prosecute, vertict
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/08/new.mexico.posey.release/index.html

I read an interview transcript titled "Forensic Artists Use Talent To Solve Crimes". This article was a transcript from an interview of foresnic artist. I chose this article for a couple of reasons. First, I am really intrested in the foresnic aspect of crime solving. We get a heavy dose of this topic of mainstream television, but so much of it so dramatized you can't be sure what is realistic and what is not realistic. Second, I am the sketch artist in our mock trial, therefore, I thought it made sense that I would do a bit more research on my role and learn as much as I can on the topic.

Before I read the transcript I was expecting the interviewee (foresnsic artist) to disprove many of the myths that accompany poilice sketches, facial reconstruction, etc. Like I stated earlier this topic is widely covered in popular meida, but like I said earlier, much of its credibility is questionable. Thus, I expected this article to shine some liight on some of the common misunderstandings.

Two things I find most intresting was that using anthropology foresenic scientist can find out what ethnicty, gender, and age a victim was by just examining the bones. The hip bones gives us the most information about a person's age. However, one thing I found a bit suprising is that race is one of the hardest things to find out. They say they can narrow it down between a couple of ethnicities, but it hard to narrow it down to just one.

One other thing I found intresting was that forensic artist do use celebritity faces to jog a person's memory. Many times wittness/victims say the person loooked like.... so and so... Therefore, they found it very helpful to have a databse with popular faces the clinet can related to and give information about the actual suspect.

This article realtes to class in several different ways. First, in the interview it discusses memory and how its trace evidence, and it takes special training and skills to extract the memory properly and accurately. It also comments on the fact that memory sometimes is more clear when the person is in the same (mind set, mood, emotional state) they were in at the time of the crime. So when a person is very frightned their memory might become more clear if the attempt to recollect in the similar condition.

The article also talks about how they use cognitive psychology in their field of work. The forsenis artist in this interview says, its common to believe we remember key aspect of a person apperance (their eyes, nose, hair, etc.),but its more common for individuals to remember an overall generalization of the person. We look at the person in a more hollistic perspective. We don't just focus on one aspect of their face. We observe their overall apperance.

Key terms: Cognitive psychology, trace evidence, memory, foresnic artist, anthropology, foresnsice science, Conditonal memory, sketch artist.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130104055

The article that I chose involved a witness that was barred from testifying at the first civilian trial for Guantanamo Bay Detainees. The reasoning behind the judge’s decision was that the only reason prosecutors knew of this witness was because the suspect was put through harsh interrogation methods by the CIA. The judge stated “It is acutely aware of the perilous nature of the world in which we live. But the Constitution is the rock upon which our nation rests. We must follow it not when it is convenient, but when fear and danger beckon in a different direction.'' With this statement it reinforces America’s views to provide rights for people that are backed by the Constitution. This is a good case in how if the police or interrogators do not lawfully obtain evidence they need then it will not be available for useable evidence. This is the law and judges must act with the law even if they know that something that a suspect did is wrong, but they can’t use the evidence because of illegal ways of obtaining this evidence. The witness was the most important witness for the case because he would be able to tell the jury how he was able to sell explosives to the suspect who is Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani. I picked this article because it interested me in the fact that even though the prosecutors know that the suspect did the crime that killed many people, they obtained their evidence illegally and now it must be thrown out. This leaves a chance for a suspect who might have killed a bunch of people to walk free. From the title I expected that a witness was barred from testifying because they might have lied about what they knew, but the only reason the witness was barred was because the suspect gave him up after harsh interrogations. I’m glad the United States has Judges that are not being biased on this situation, but I do think when someone commits acts of terrorism on this country that they no longer have rights in this country especially if they are not a citizen. This is a criminal law case because it is an offense against the community. Not only were people killed there were 224 people that were killed. The fact that this man knowingly committed a crime is all the more reason to put him away. This man could not plead that he had a mental illness because the extent of the crime is so extensive that it would be hard to believe someone who is mentally ill could have the capability of committing such mass murder in such a small amount of time. I don’t think this man would be able to plead insanity because killing 224 people all together at two different locations would have to be planned out and had a lot of thought put in to it.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130379179

Terms-Police, Criminal law, Crime, Mental illness, Witness

The article I chose was from NPR titled “Man Guilty Of 6 Murder Counts In Memphis Rampage”. I picked this article because it involves murder, which I wanted to research about because of the murder for our class project took place this week. When reading the title, it becomes clear that this is a very tragic incident that involves the death of many individuals. However, the good news is that they have charged an individual with this crime.

The article was about a man named Jessie Dotson, who shot his brothers in an argument, and then killed or attempted to kill everyone who had witnessed the crime. This included Dotson’s two brothers, 4-year-old Cemario Dotson, 2-year-old Cecil Dotson Jr. II, Cecil Dotson's girlfriend, Marissa Williams, and friends Hollis Seals and Shindri Roberson. He attempted to kill two of his nephews CJ Dotson and Cedric Dotson by stabbing them and leaving them in the house to die. Miraculously the boys were found alive 40 hours after the incident occurred. This was their link to the suspect because they told police that “Uncle Junior” killed everyone.

The prosecution argued that Jessie Dotson committed the crime and used some of the 460 pieces of evidence collected at the scene by the crime scene investigators. They also had the two boys, CJ and Cedric testify against Jessie on the witness stand. The jury who was selected from Nashville since the media coverage was so extensive in Memphis, only took 2 hours to decide that Jessie Dotson is guilty of the murder of 7 people.

The defense argued that this killing rampage was not committed by Jessie but was the result of angry gang violence. The area that the crime occurred was in a heavily gang populated area, and the first time CJ told who stabbed him, he said it was “Roger”, and then later changed his answer to “Uncle Junior” the next time that he was asked. The prosecution argued that gangs very rarely would attack and kill a family, and obviously the jury believed the prosecutors. Today the jurors are determining if Dotson will receive a life sentence for this crime.

I found it interesting that the boy changed who he said committed the crime. This was not mentioned until the bottom of the article, so I went from thinking this guy definitely killed all these people, but that part got me thinking. I really hope that they got the right person in this crime, because it was so brutal that the person who did it needs to be caught. It also said there was no DNA evidence to convict him. I felt like the author of this article was biased in their writing because it stated so much about how he did this and the jury convicted him, but never gave strong factual evidence for the murders, and later would reveal some counter-evidence but never went in to detail. Therefore, I am unsure that they have the right man behind bars.

This article relates to this class because it is involving a crime and the legal system. It described how this crime occurred, who the victims and witnesses were, the eyewitness testimonies, the evidence collected, told both the prosecution and the defense’s arguments, as well as talking about the jurors and how they were selected. All these things have been discussed in the book and/or our class. This applies some of the concepts we have learned to a real life event that occurred.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130392213

I chose to read a radio show transcript titled “CSI Iraq: Teaching Iraqis Crime Scene Investigation”. I also listened to the interview. I chose this article for a couple of reasons. First, I really enjoy news articles, television shows, etc about CSI-related topics. I would never be any good at it in real life so I resort to reading about it or watching it on TV. I also chose this article because of the location the article was focusing on—Iraq. All I really hear the things I hear about related to Iraq are usually things about our military and the Iraqi War. It’s interesting to read about how Iraq is just getting started with using forensics within law enforcement.
I really didn’t know what to expect to read from the article. Iraq is a country that has nowhere near the resources the U.S. has when dealing with forensic evidence so I didn’t expect to read about how much forensic science Iraqi law enforcement officials were using to solve crimes.
As most of us know, the United States is starting to withdrawal troops from Iraq. With this process underway, U.S. military forces are upping training of Iraqi forces including their law enforcement. One of the key subjects included in this training is forensics. Iraqi law enforcement uses forensics in similar ways that the United States does for murders, robberies, etc. One crime that people in Iraq witness almost every day is bombings which is way more than what people in the U.S. witness. One of the key leaders in training the Iraqi law enforcement is a guy named Terence Glennon who worked in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department for many years. He is now the international police adviser in Iraq. Glennon is in charge of teaching the law enforcement officials in Iraq how to investigate a crime scene and gather evidence including collecting fingerprints, collecting DNA, measuring blood splatter, etc.
Training Iraqi law enforcement officers the techniques of crime scene investigation has taken the judicial system in the country to a whole new level. For example, not too long ago, evidence from DNA of a fingerprint was used for the first time to arrest a suspect. The suspect’s fingerprint was on a piece of tape which held an unexploded bomb together. With judges allowing forensic evidence to be submitted in criminal cases, judges and law enforcement officials are relying less on creating cases almost soled based on eye witness testimony. Iraq has a long way to go in terms of mastering the techniques of forensics. Partly due to the frequent bombings that have damaged their lab from time to time and also because the subject is very new to law enforcement officials.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128458136

key terms used: CSI, law enforcement, forensics, murders, robberies, crime, witness, eye witness, crime scene, evidence, fingerprints, DNA, blood splatter, suspect, judge, criminal cases, testimony

I chose to talk about the article "Excess Coal Dust Found In Massey Mine". This is about a mine in Virginia that exploded and killed 29 miners. The article cites this as being the nation's worst minning accident in 40 years. Investigators have been looking for clues as to what happened and they are now saying that excess coal dust could be the cause of the explostion.

The investigators say that coal dust could be the key to this investigation because "Coal dust is highly explosive and both accelerates and spreads smaller ignitions underground. Federal mine safety rules require removal of accumulated coal dust and the use of crushed limestone or "rock dust" to neutralize the combustibility of fine particles of coal that naturally cling to mine equipment, floors, pillars and roofs." There are people called "fire inspectors that check for safety issues before and after each shift and they had noted a large amount of coal dust on conveyer belts as little as 30 min before the explosion. Kevin Stricklin, who directs the coal mine division of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration stated that 79% of his dust samples taken did not meet the requirements of the coal dust standards. Also Stricklin says that Coal dust is most likely a factor because "the explosion traveled more than two miles, turning corners and spreading in opposite directions. That suggests the blast was fed, directed and accentuated by an accelerant."

Massey Energy the owner of the mine is trying to discredit Stricklin by saying that his dust samples had been thrown out in past trials so they are more than likely not accurate now. Massey believes that the explosion was caused by a sudden burst of Methane gas through the cracks in the floor. Investigators said that the joint state and federal investigation has already interviewed 235 witnesses and there are about 20 more but a lot of them are people who work for Massey and have ignored subpeonas from the Safety organization. A federal criminal investigation is also under way and a federal grand jury in Charleston, W.Va., has also been issuing subpoenas and taking testimony.

This relates to exactly what we are doing in class right now. The crime just happened and now the investigation process will begin. The police officers and the CSI officers will be conducting an investigation and subpeoning people and attorneys will begin getting testimonies together.

Terms:Subpeona, Testimony, Federal and State investigation, Police, CSI, Attorney.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129937945

I chose an article entitled "Defense Seeks Delay In Fort Hood Shooting Case". The article is about the trial of Maj. Nidal Hasan who is suspected of killing 13 people and wounding another 30 in a shooting at Fort Hood Texas.
The article 32 hearing which is the equivalent of a preliminary hearing is being held to decide several issues one that pertains in particular to our discussions in class is to decide if the "insanity defense" is to be allowed and if so a sanity review board will have to be convened to determine the mental health of Hasan.
My interest in this article is that the insanity plea that we hear so much about is actually almost never used in military court. The reason for this is that the medical boards that decide the competency of a defendant often declare them to have a mental health issue but it is almost unheard of for them to actually declare the defendant incompetent to stand trial.
Also another interesting relation is that military juries in capital cases are made up of officers of equal or greater rank than the defendant making them much more educated than the average civilian. Another difference is that the jurors may ask questions of anyone on the stand thus allowing jurors to go to areas of questioning that a counsel will not go and this tends to derail any attempts at a carefully constructed set of leading questions as might occur in civilian trials.
These differences allow a different dynamic for psychological issues to influence the outcome of the case and the same trial might in fact turn out with different outcomes. I find this to be a very interesting idea and maybe civilian trials will someday take a road similar to this.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130516105

After searching many websites and reading news articles trying to find one of particular interest, I came across a slew of articles concerning a murder of an american, David Hartley on the Falcon Lake so I decided it mush have some interesting facts. This article goes right along with what were doing in class. Its investigating a crime that has occured and going through all of the procedures. Right now I watched an interview of David's wife, Tiffany Hartley and when she was asked if she would be able to give an identification of the shooters, she said probably not because she was focused on the guns. This is weapon focues that we talked about before. When something dangerous or something that sticks out, our eyes automatically go there. This can make all other memories go out the window, making the eyewitness testimony a lot less credible, especially if she actually tried, it could make it worse.

In cases that involve spouses, I tend to lean toward the living spouse automatically, which is almost always where police and investigators start. In class we learned that the spouse is almost always the lead suspect until proven wrong, such as in a few of the cases we discussed in class. For now it seems that most are pointing their directions at the drug cartels, which have been known to habitat that lake. But they did find blood splatter on Tiffany's life vest, so the DNA from the lab could pick that out, but it also could have been a splatter from when her husband was shot, only CSI would be able to tell and right now there it nothing further on that.

Some short background details to this case, is Tiffany and David Hartley went out on Falcon Lake, between US and Mexico borders to go sight seeing. Tiffany saw 3 ships she couldn't remember the exact number of men, maybe two, shoot her husband and then he went missing. According to some authorities there are two suspects in this case, brothers, but other sources say they have no sources right now. This communication error can happen when there is both Mexican and US authorities working on a case. They are saying that the cartels in Mexico most likely have something to do with this, so its difficult for Tiffany to understand why anyone would think she could do this. This could be a simple cover up on her part or it could be the truth. Tiffany is very open to the media and wants someone from the white house to call her, I feel this could be just a need for attention, but maybe not. Since the crime occured on the Mexican side of the border, the US cannot make any arrests, or prosecute anyone. As of this time right now there are no advances or named suspects. Tiffany keeps broadcasting and waiting for her husband and I hope that something happens soon, because its very sad to be going through something like this.

Terms: weapon focus, memory, eye witness testimony, police, suspect, blood splatter, DNA, CSI, prosecute

Egyptian Ministry Officials Jailed Over Van Gogh Theft

An Egyptian court found eleven Culture Ministry employees guilty of negligence after a theft of a Van Gogh paintings. This is not the first time this museum has been robbed, in fact only seven cameras in that museum was working out of forty-three and none of the alarms in the Museum were working at the time. The head of the Department of Arts asked the Culture Minister for nearly seven million dollars to upgrade the security system which only approved $88,000 and during trial the Culture Minister dismissed the complaints. An Egyptian billionaire offered $175,000 for any information leading to the recovery of the painting. The painting is valued at more than fifty million dollars. Two Italians were apprehended after arousing suspension when seen leaving the premises in a hurry, but later on they were released.

Well the Allibi used by the Italians were the fact that they were students in a group just looking at some paintings. So that right away eliminated them from the suspect pool because they had corroborating evidence to support their alibi. Looking at the Person history of the Leader or the Money granting person of the Culture Ministry, he has a bad history of keeping people from robbering the museum in the past and denied a huge sum of money needed to properly secure the museum and with that type of same attitude when he dismissed the complaints that just auroses suspension. The most likely for a motive for this guy would be for financial wanting or need. No eye witnesses were much of help and no type of latent finger prints or other possible clues were mentioned.

Key Terms: Alibi, suspect pool, corroborating evidence, peronal hisorty, attitude, motive, financial, latent finger prints, and eyewitnesses.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11529187

The piece I chose is entitled “Can Your Genes make you Murder?” on the NPR website. This article/radio clip discusses the possibility that there is a gene, or set of genes, that causes one to become very violent and commit crimes, especially murder. This argument was used in the case of Bradley Waldroup, a Tennessee man accused of killing a family friend and attempting to murder his wife by chopping her with a machete. He was charged with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder of his wife. The prosecutors thought it would be a fairly straight forward and simple trial until the defense brought up a very controversial piece of information. Waldroup was given a psychiatric evaluation and a sample of his blood was sent for testing to Vanderbilt’s Molecular Genetics Laboratory. They analyzed his DNA in search of MAO-A gene, also known as the warrior gene for it is associated with violence. It was found that Waldroup had a high-risk version of the gene. Waldroup’s defense lawyer noted that "His genetic makeup, combined with his history of child abuse, together created a vulnerability that he would be a violent adult.” This was a major piece of Waldroup’s defense. Along with this analysis of DNA, the defense also used the fact that Waldroup was depressed and suffered from intermittent explosive disorder (a disorder I personally had never heard of previously) to support their stance that the crimes were not premeditated.
With this major piece of the defense, a biological explanation for the crime, the jury did not believe that the crime was premeditated and was simply a crime of passion. They believed that Waldroup’s genetics and history of child abuse played a large role in the crime. After 11 hours of deliberation the jury found Waldroup guilty of voluntary manslaughter and attempted second-degree murder. One of the jurors was quoted saying "A diagnosis is a diagnosis, it's there…A bad gene is a bad gene."
When I found this report, I was completely shocked. I had never heard of anything like it before. The fact that there is a gene that people believes plays a major factor in violence and the tendency towards murder seems very suspicious to me. This wasn’t the first case that this defense was used; there are in fact over 30 other cases where this information was put forth. In my opinion there are too many other factors to weigh such a heavy decision on genetics and one particular gene. While reading through the article I expected that this piece of information would be disregarded by the jury and Waldroup would be convicted of his original charges. So I was very surprised to learn that the jury used this piece of information so heavily in reaching their decision. The fact that was most interesting to me is that this has been used on other cases before Waldroup’s case, and so many people believe the gene is to blame for the murders. I just have a hard time believing that the gene can play such a big role in the murder, enough to give the defendants lesser charges.
One way this relates back to the class is the discussion of nature vs. nurture in psychology. There is a big debate – and this report reflects this – about whether people are born criminals or if they become criminals depending on their environment and background.
Another way this relates to psychology and law is a psychologist was interviewed at the trial to put his expert opinion in about the topic. The expert psychologist didn’t believe the gene theory was enough evidence to let the suspect go.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128043329

After skimming through several articles online, I came across a particular one entitled, “Shrink-wrapped killer David Tarloff will plead insanity in psychiatrist's vicious cleaver slay”. I thought the title was interesting and it seemed like the article would give me lots of good, juicy information dealing with psychology and law. And to my enjoyment, I was right! I didn’t really know what to expect – I thought the article might just be the story of the murder and/or trial. But in addition to some facts about the murder and the trial, they article also listed some statistics pertaining to insanity defense.

I found the statistics dealing with pleading insane to be most interesting. I figured many people try to plead insane to get out of their punishment, but the article told me otherwise. A lawyer by the name of Kevin Canfield said, “it's the hardest defense,” which I found worthy of note. I can now see why this would be a tough defense considering the people who are found insane are punished differently. If someone is found insane at the time of the crime, they are sent to a locked psychiatric institution and can be released when doctors find the patient is no longer dangerous. Eek! This is the very reason why it is only used one percent of the time in felony cases – and of that one percent, 80% are unsuccessful in receiving insanity. Majority of the criminals who are given insanity are unable to stand trial.

Even though the article heavily discussed the insanity defense, they also talked about the actual crime. David Tarloff committed the murder of his psychologist, Dr. Kathryn Faughey, in her Manhattan office. He repeatedly stabbed her with a meat cleaver. His attempt to plead for insanity has baffled the family members of Faughey. Her brother, Michael, spoke of Tarloff: “He knew what he was doing was wrong. I want guilty - not not guilty by reason of insanity”. I believe these words tie in strongly with the material we’ve been reading in our class. This deals with the 7 Principles. One of the principles, concurrence, deals with the intent. For something to be seen as a crime, it must have intention along with it. Apparently, family of the victim believes Tarloff had intent to kill.

The article also mentions that this ongoing trial will be a battle of experts arguing whether Tarloff knew right from wrong when the murder was committed. This also has to deal with the 7 Principles. Mens Rea is the sixth principle and explains that the behavior is assumed to have been committed intentionally and with free will. Therefore, Tarloff knew that stabbing someone to death with a meat cleaver is wrong, but he did it anyway.

Overall, I believe this article was very informative and also tied in very nicely with the material from our class.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/10/11/2010-10-11_shrinkwrapped_killer_will_plead_insanity_in_psychiatrists_vicious_cleaver_slay_p.html