The media has been abuzz in the last two weeks about the capture of Joran van der Sloot, a Dutch national charged in the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores of Peru. van der Sloot was also a suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old Alabama resident who disappeared on a high school graduation trip in Aruba.

Stephany Flores was killed in a Lima hotel on May 30th, 2010; five years to the day after Natalee Holloway disappeared. van der Sloot was arrested twice in the Holloway case but was freed for lack of evidence.

In its third Miranda ruling this session, the Supreme Court ruled today that a suspect must “unambiguously” state his or her desire to invoke their Miranda rights (referring to the right to remain silent in this case) in order for those rights to be protected.

This case came to the Supreme Court after the lower courts conflicted on whether a confessional statement from a suspect, who remained mostly silent throughout a three plus hour police investigation, was valid in court.

Specifically, in this case, the suspect, Van Chester Thompkins, offered little verbal response throughout his interrogation, but three hours into his interrogation, he implicated himself in the crime by giving an affirmative answer to one of the officer’s questions. He later tried to revoke his confessional statement by stating that he was using his right to remain silent, hence why he was so quiet throughout the rest of the interrogation.

Comstock Images

Stephen Griffiths, a 40-year-old graduate student in criminology, was charged with the murder of three prostitutes from the West Yorkshire area of England. Griffiths is alleged to have killed Suzanne Blamires, Susan Rushworth, and Shelley Armitage within the city’s red light district in the past 11 months.

Griffiths was reportedly conducting research on serial killers, and told a neighbor he was “getting a PhD in murder and Jack the Ripper.”

Griffiths was caught after review of closed circuit security footage revealed him beating up a woman and then shooting her in the head with a crossbow. Later, the woman’s head and body parts were discovered in a local river.

Last week the Supreme Court ruled that “sexually dangerous” inmates could be held indefinitely in prison, or civil commitment hospital settings, after their prison terms are complete.

The case, decided with a 7-2 ruling, was raised after four men who were deemed sexually dangerous, were held after their prison sentences were over with no end date in sight. The men attempted to prove in the lower courts that indefinite imprisonment based on suspected “future crimes” was unconstitutional.

Twenty states already have laws that allow for indefinite imprisonment of sexually violent predators. This recent Supreme Court ruling supports those states’ decisions and allows other states to institute similar laws.

This topic is one of great debate, because while most people agree that the protection of the public against sex offenders is primary, the implication behind the government being allowed to impose indefinite imprisonment on someone brings up thoughts of Guantanamo Bay.

A study presented at the recent British Psychological Society Annual Conference revealed that younger jurors are more lenient and sympathetic to offenders with a mental illness than older jurors.

“The study used two groups of participants (the first aged 18 to 30 and the second 50 plus) who were shown videos of courtroom scenes depicting female defendants, either displaying overt behavioral symptoms of borderline personality disorder or not displaying any symptoms to examine whether the two age groups had different attitudes towards the defendants.”

The authors found that the participants from the older group felt that the defendant was “more guilty” than those in the younger group. In addition, they tended to recommend longer, harsher sentences than the younger participants.

In my last several posts, I’ve reviewed what mental health court is, and the pros and cons of such a system. In my final post on this topic, we’ll take a look at what the future holds for mental health courts in the United States and some of the recommendations to improve upon this system.

In my last post, I detailed the strengths of the mental health court system, but as with all things, there are two sides to every story, and in this post, I will take a look at the criticisms of mental health courts.

With half a million individuals with mental illness incarcerated at any given time, the need for services within the criminal justice system goes beyond humane treatment of mentally ill offenders; it becomes an issue of money, and, like it or not, that is where your average citizen becomes interested.

Mental health courts are a fairly new institution in the United States. They are courts designed to meet the needs of mentally ill offenders. Similar to drug courts that address substance abusing offenders, mental health courts focus on treatment, rather than punishment.

Continue reading… »

“It is an article of jailhouse faith that poor people get what they pay for in lawyers: Nothing.” A recent article in the New York Times gives an inside look at how vulnerable populations (the poor, the mentally ill, etc.) are treated within the legal system.

The article details one woman’s encounters with a public defender’s office; however, her situation is not unique. Low salaries and high caseloads often permeate public defenders’ offices, contributing to the problem of unbalanced representation for disadvantaged individuals.