Crime Museum

Murder?

2025-09-16T14:39:04Z

Murder? Sir William Blackstone, an 18th-century English judge, is known for writing Commentaries on the Laws of England. This work was the original foundation for legal education in America and dominated the common law legal system for centuries. Blackstone broke the definition of murder down into five elements:

1. Unlawful
2. killing
3. of a human
4. by another human
5. with malice aforethought.

The law was designed to define the various degrees and circumstances of murder in order to provide and achieve justice for all. Even though Blackstone did his best to dissect and define murder, in today’s society, the definition is not so clear-cut. Murder is committed and discussed daily across the United States; however, the unique situations and circumstances of each murder can ignite chaos within courtrooms. In order to ensure that justice is achieved, it is not only important to examine the circumstances under which the murder was committed, but it is key to study the state of mind of the accused.

In the United States we typically classify murder in terms of degrees. The phrase “degrees of murder” refers to the intent or severity of a particular murder charge. The most common degrees of murder are first-degree and second- degree.

The degree in which a murder is classified is highly dependent on the state in which the case is set. Specific criteria for each degree of murder are established by statute in each state and by the United States Code in federal prosecutions. In both first-degree and second-degree murder, the result is the death of another person. The main differentiating factor in the two is determining the mental state of the perpetrator at the time of the killing.

First-degree
Although it varies from state to state, first- degree murder is generally a killing which is deliberate and premeditated. First-degree murder involves premeditated killing, such as lying in wait for someone with a gun. State laws include a list of felonies that qualify a homicide as first degree murder. Some of these felonies include: burglary, home-invasion robbery, kidnapping, and sexual battery.

A recent example of a first degree murder case is that of Jodi Arias, who was charged in the murder of Travis Alexander. The prosecution argued that Alexander’s murder was premeditated based on the fact that before arriving at Alexander’s house, Arias rented a car, dyed her hair, turned off her cell phone—apparently to make her harder to identify, her movements harder to track. Prosecutors believed her mission was murder. Alexander ended their relationship and started dating other women. Prosecutors argued that Arias became jealous and this jealousy led to Alexander’s murder. Arias admitted to killing Alexander. She shot him in the face, stabbed him more than 20 times, and slit his throat, claiming it was in self-defense. The jury, however, found her guilty of first-degree murder.

Second-degree
Second degree murder is defined as a non-premeditated or unplanned killing, resulting from an assault in which the death of the victim was a distinct possibility. Second-degree murder usually involves killing on the spur of the moment, or where the offender intends to inflict serious harm but also realizes it may cause death. Second degree murder may be caused by dangerous or reckless conduct and the offender’s obvious lack of concern for human life.

A recent example of a second-degree murder conviction is that of George Huguely V. Huguely was found guilty of second-degree murder and grand larceny involving the death of his on-again off-again girlfriend, Yeardley Love. Both Huguely and Love were college seniors who played on the nationally-ranked lacrosse teams at the University of Virginia. In 2010 Love was found dead face down on her bloody pillow by a roommate. Police answered a call of an alcohol overdose but after officers saw a hole punched in her bedroom door they treated Love’s bedroom as a crime scene. Huguely told interrogators that he went to Love’s apartment that night to talk to her. He said she freaked out and they wrestled on the floor. He said he tossed her in bed and left her apartment with her computer. The medical examiner ruled she died of blunt force trauma. Huguely’s defense attorney depicted his client as a stupid, drunk “boy athlete” who was incapable of murder, though he conceded that Huguely “contributed” to Love’s death.

In addition to first and second-degree murder, we often need to examine other crimes in which a life is taken, but the circumstances do not constitute murder. These are cases of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.

Manslaughter
A murder charge may be reduced to manslaughter, usually based on four conditions that must be fulfilled to warrant the reduction: (1) the provocation must cause rage or fear in a reasonable person; (2) the defendant must have actually been provoked; (3) there should not be a time period between the provocation and the killing within which a reasonable person would cool off; and (4) the defendant should not have cooled off during that period.

Manslaughter is defined as the unjustifiable, inexcusable, and intentional killing of a human being without deliberation, premeditation, and malice. The essential distinction between murder and manslaughter is that malice aforethought must be present for murder, whereas it must be absent for manslaughter. Taking it one step further, there are two types of manslaughter- voluntary and involuntary.

Voluntary manslaughter is intentional killing that is accompanied by additional circumstances that mitigate, but do not excuse, the killing. It is a separate concept from involuntary manslaughter and has several definitions depending on what state the crime occurs in. Federal law defines voluntary manslaughter as the unlawful killing of a human being without malice upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion. Generally the term “heat of passion” refers to an irresistible emotion that an ordinarily reasonable person would explore under the same facts and circumstances.

Involuntary manslaughter is defined as unintentional killing, without intent, that is the result of recklessness or criminal negligence, or from an unlawful act that is a misdemeanor or low-level felony such as a DUI. The difference between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter is the absence of the intent element. To establish involuntary manslaughter, the prosecutor must show that the defendant acted with “culpable negligence.” Typically, involuntary manslaughter does not result from a “heat of passion” but from an improper use, reasonable care, or skill while in the commission of a lawful act or while in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony.

Negligent Manslaughter: One form of involuntary manslaughter is criminally negligent manslaughter, often referred to as criminally negligent homicide. It occurs when death results from serious negligence, or serious recklessness. Negligent manslaughter or homicide is a lesser offense than first and second degree murder, in that the sentence will be comparable to manslaughter. U.S. states all define negligent manslaughter by statute. In some states, the offense includes the killing of another while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

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Pro Se: Representing Yourself in Court

2022-01-10T21:12:05Z

Pro Se is a legal term that comes from Latin, meaning ‘for oneself’. It essentially means that you are representing yourself in court by choice without the help of an attorney. In the United States’ legal system, every individual is guaranteed, by the sixth amendment, the right to an appointed counsel, and also the right to represent him or herself in court. People may choose to represent themselves in court for a variety of reasons, including: avoiding the expense of hiring a lawyer, for smaller cases, the matter is often simple enough that the individual can take care of it them self, and many individuals believe they know their own situation better than a lawyer, and therefore are in a better position to handle a case.

In landmark cases, the Supreme Court set standards for pro se cases, which include boundaries for not only those individuals who choose to represent themselves, but also for the standby counsel in these particular cases.

In Faretta v. California (1975), the Supreme Court ruled that the defendant, Anthony Faretta, had the constitutional right to refuse legal counsel and to represent himself in a state criminal trial. This case set the standards for pro se cases following it by upholding the constitutional right of an individual to represent him or herself in court. However, the Court also ruled that a defendant who voluntarily self-represents him or herself in court may not argue after the proceedings that they received ineffective counsel.
In Mckaskle v. Wiggins (1984), the Supreme Court considered what the role of ‘standby counsel’ should be in pro se criminal cases. According to the Court, Wiggins’s sixth amendment right had not been violated by the presence of a standby counsel at his criminal trial, as he was still able to defend himself in any way he saw fit. This case established limits on the role of the standby counsel in pro se trials by refining standards that were set by Faretta.
In Martinez v. Court of Appeal in California (2000), the Supreme Court ruled that an appellant who was the defendant of a state criminal case does not have the right to refuse the counsel of an attorney in a court of appeals; this ruling contrasts with the decision in the Faretta v. California case. The opinion of the Court was that the sixth amendment only extended to the defendant’s right to self-representation in criminal and civil cases, and that there is no such right in a court of appeals.

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Wildlife Trafficking

2022-01-10T21:12:05Z

In 2014 over 40,000 elephants and 1,200 rhinos were killed by poachers for their ivory horns and tusks, worth as much as $250,000 on the underground market. If this rate continues, both elephants and rhinos will be extinct within the next 10 years. In the past decade, 1,000 rangers have been killed in efforts to stop these illegal activities.

Conservationists and African officials are now turning to new techniques in their fight against poaching. One modern tactic is the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, better known as drones, to catch poachers in the act and protect endangered species such as rhinos, elephants, lions, Cape buffalo, and African leopards. These drones are used by rangers to not only track poachers, but to save injured animals as well.

Drones are perfect tools because they can go undetected where rangers cannot. They are outfitted with night vision cameras and infrared systems to track the poachers that normally hunt at night to avoid detection — poachers can go undetected by rangers from as close as 100 yards. Some NGOs have even developed software that can predict where poachers are going to be. Using data that tracks animal movements, ranger locations, and geographical information, the drones can increase the number of poachers caught and animals saved.

In 2014, Kenya decided to deploy drones to every national park in an effort to stop poaching. A trial run of the program saw poaching incidents drop by 96%. Drones can be used 24 hours a day, are about a yard long, and fly at about 500 feet, which makes them virtually unnoticeable to both the animals and the poachers.

In the future, drones may also play a role in conservation. The sensors and cameras on the drones could be used to collect data on plants and animals to create a natural “census.” This method of tracking animals saves time and money over the traditional system which requires manually counting from the air.

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Profiles in Crime: Rayful Edmond

2022-01-10T21:12:05Z

Rayful Edmond: The profile of a Kingpin. Called the John Gotti of Washington, D.C., notorious gangster Rayful Edmond terrorized and awed the Washington metropolitan area in the mid to late 1980’s with his tight control of the crack cocaine trade and accompanying lavish spending sprees. Known for dropping several thousand dollars a night at clubs, Edmond supposedly spent over $400,000 at a single store in the Georgetown neighborhood, whose owner was, coincidentally, convicted of money laundering soon after. Partially thanks to Edmond’s reign as drug lord, Washington, D.C. became known as the “murder capitol” during this period, as civilians grew too afraid to move about the city.

**A young Rayful Edmond, draped in expensive jewelry**

An entrepreneurial prodigy, Edmond controlled most of the drug trade within the city by his early twenties, importing millions of dollars in Columbian cocaine every week. His arrest at the age of 24 in 1989 and his subsequent trial created a media circus to rival Casey Anthony’s. Jurors were kept anonymous before, during, and after the trial, and the jury box was kept behind bulletproof glass. Edmond was transported to the court everyday from the Quantico maximum-security facility (also the location of the FBI Training Academy) via helicopter. Although these measures may seem extreme, authorities fears were far from unfound.

Edmond’s gang was notoriously violent. In one year, Edmond’s “employees” committed 30 murders. At his peak, Edmond moved 2,000 keys of cocaine a week, and brought in $70 million a month. Overall, the gang is believed to have committed over 400 murders over the course of their run, not including the attempted murder of a local pastor during an anti-drug march.

Edmond was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Several members of his family also received sentences, including his mother, several of his sisters, and some of his cousins. Being incarcerated did not stop Edmond at first, however, and, along with his new contacts in prison, Edmond conducted his drug business via phone privileges. He received another 30 years sentence after his misconduct was found out. Since his second conviction, Edmond has become a government informant, and is now a part of the Federal Witness Protection Program. His current location is confidential.

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Do You Have Your Father’s Nose?

2022-01-10T21:12:05Z

Do you have your father’s nose? There are 29 bones (hyoid included) in the human skull, and for many years anthropologists have been using markers from this area of the body to determine sex, age, race, and to make personal identifications. However, forensic anthropology is a science that is greatly affected by changes and new developments in social morays and folkways. Simply put, what was once socially unacceptable often becomes acceptable, and even encouraged, with time. This fact is abundantly clear when one thinks about the checkered history of the United States. While being a nation of freedom and equality, our history is colored with racism and intolerance as well. Allow your mind to travel back to the 1960s and 1970s, and think about how the idea of intermarriage and interracial relationships was taboo. Nowadays, however, these things are commonplace.

Now pseudo-science, phrenology was the science of determining an individual’s personality by studying their skull. There were 27 defined areas on the skull, including one that supposedly represented the likelihood of said individual committing murder. While phrenology is no longer a valid branch of science, it paved the way for the work that forensic scientists are doing today.

An ever-changing and in flux society makes the work of a forensic anthropologist difficult. As a result of social changes, there have been subtle and gradual changes to our skeletal make-ups. Those once clearly defined markers on the skull (as well as the rest of the body) are becoming a little less definitive. It is the responsibility of scientists to grow with the times and expand their arsenal of examination in light of these events.

For many years, it has been posited that the frontal sinus pattern in the human skull is unique to an individual, similar to the idea that fingerprints and DNA are unique. In 2008, a study was published in the Journal of Forensic Science by Roberto Cameriere and colleagues, that sought to test the accuracy of this position. As an added wrinkle, they sought to measure the rate of false positives between persons that were closely related (kin) to better understand the strengths of using sinus patterns to truly identify human remains.

Cameriere x-rayed skulls of 99 individuals from 20 families between the ages of 15 and 74 (from Northern Ireland). These specimens comprised the test group. The control group was comprised of 98 Caucasian individuals, aged between 17 and 98 years. This enabled the scientists to test the effect of closely related persons for false positives. After all the skulls were radiographed and digitally imaged with both anterior (front) and posterior (back) views, they were then statistically analyzed. They used functions and probability to measure the rates of false-positives within their sample.

The results showed that even when examining individuals from the same family group the probability of falsely identifying is very small. As well, based on their results, they posited that the rate for a false positive did not change significantly when family relation was a factor. This research and its results can be helpful when trying to solve cases (especially with closely related kin) where other heavily relied upon identifying methods (DNA fingerprints, etc.) are inconclusive. These results can provide a level of comfort to the scientist(s) attempting to make identification and serve to improve accuracy in
tough cases.

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Human Skulls and Forensic Anthropology

2025-09-16T14:44:56Z

Human skulls and forensic anthropology are changing together. There are 29 bones (hyoid included) in the human skull, and for many years anthropologists have been using markers from this area of the body to determine sex, age, race, and to make personal identifications. However, forensic anthropology is a science that is greatly affected by changes and new developments in social morays and folkways. Simply put, what was once socially unacceptable often becomes acceptable, and even encouraged, with time. Allow your mind to travel back to the 1960s and 1970s, and think about how the idea of intermarriage and interracial relationships was taboo. Nowadays, these things are commonplace.

As a result of social changes there have been subtle and gradual changes to our skeletal make-ups, making the work of a forensic anthropologist difficult. Those once clearly defined markers on the skull (as well as the rest of the body) are becoming less definitive. It is the responsibility of scientists to grow with the times and expand their arsenal of examination in light of these events.

For many years, it has been posited that the frontal sinus pattern in the human skull is unique to an individual, similar to the idea that fingerprints and DNA are unique. In 2008, a study was published in the Journal of Forensic Science by Roberto Cameriere and colleagues, that sought to test the accuracy of this position. They also sought to measure the rate of false positives between persons that were closely related (kin) to better understand the strengths of using sinus patterns to truly identify human remains.

Cameriere x-rayed skulls of 99 individuals from 20 families between the ages of 15 and 74 (from Northern Ireland). This enabled the scientists to test the effect of closely related persons for false positives. After all the skulls were radiographed and digitally imaged with both anterior (front) and posterior (back) views, they were then statistically analyzed. They used functions and probability to measure the rates of false-positives within their sample.

The results showed that even when examining individuals from the same family group the probability of falsely identifying is very small. They also posited the rate for a false positive did not change significantly when family relation was a factor. This research and its results can be helpful when trying to solve cases [especially with=”” closely=”” related=”” kin=””][/especially] where other heavily relied upon identifying methods (DNA fingerprints, etc.) are inconclusive. These results can provide a level of comfort to the scientist(s) attempting to make identification and serve to improve accuracy in tough cases.

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9 Early Warning Signs for Serial Killers

2022-01-10T21:12:05Z

9 Early Warning Signs for Serial Killers. Worried that antisocial kid in school might grow up to be a cold-blooded murderer? Here’s 9 early warning signs for serial killers. Remember, however, these traits and signs are just a guideline. Think twice before crying “serial killer” on your weird neighbor.

1. Antisocial Behavior
Psychopaths have a strong tendency towards antisocial behavior, so watch for extremely antisocial children. That being said, some children develop more slowly, and this is not a definitive sign. Pay attention if a child regresses from being extremely social to extremely anti-social.
Ed Gein, the inspiration for Psycho’s Norman Bates and Silence of the Lamb’s Buffalo Bill, had no social connections besides his extremely religious and abusive mother, who punished him whenever he tried to make friends. After she died in 1945, Gein began to murder and dig up graves, collecting body parts of women who looked like his mother and trying to make a “woman suit.”

2. Arson
Many serial killers start as arsonists. Arson is psychologically attractive because it involves manipulating power and control, something that serial killing also offers.
David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam” killer, was infatuated with pyromania as a child, to the point that other children called him “Pyro.” After being arrested, he took responsibility for dozens of New York arsons. Some sources indicate that he might have been responsible for up to 1,400 fires.

3. Torturing Small Animals
This is one of the strongest warning signs. Children who torture or kill small animals like squirrels, birds, cats, and dogs without showing remorse are highly likely to be sociopaths. Many serial killers kill to control others’ lives, and as children, small animals are the only lives they have the power to control.
Cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer would bike around the woods as a child, collecting dead animals to dissect. Dahmer even killed and dismembered his own puppy, mounting its head on a stake when he was done.

4. Poor Family Life
Many serial killers come from unstable families with criminal, psychiatric, or alcoholic histories. These killers often have terrible relationships with their families, and often use them as their first victims.
When he was only fifteen, Ed Kemper, “the Co-ed Killer,” killed his grandparents. After being released at age twenty-one, Kemper killed six female college students. The police finally caught him when Kemper killed his violent, alcoholic mother. He treated his mother’s corpse particularly brutally, decapitating her, using her head as a dart board, and throwing her vocal cords down the garbage disposal.

5. Childhood Abuse
Many serial killers are abused – physically, psychologically, sexually – as children by a close family member. This behavior instills in the child feelings of humiliation and helpless, feelings which they will later seek to instill in their victims.
Aileen Wuornos, the prostitute serial killer portrayed by Charlize Theron in Monster, was abandoned by her mother when she was four and never met her father, who was serving time in prison for raping a seven-year-old girl when Aileen was born. Aileen’s grandfather, who took over care of Aileen when her mother left, physically and sexually abused her until she ran away at age fifteen.

6. Substance abuse
Many serial killers struggle with drug and alcohol abuse.
Jeffrey Dahmer began drinking in his teens and was an alcoholic by his high school graduation. His alcoholism resulted in both his expulsion from college and his discharge from the military.

7. Voyeurism
From a young age, many serial killers are interested in voyeurism, sado-masochistic pornography, and fetishism.
Ted Bundy claimed that, as an adolescent, he would get drunk and stalk around his community at night, looking for undressing women or other titillating sights.

8. Intelligence
Many serial killers have IQs in the “bright normal” range. Organized serial killers who kill methodically, like John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy, have an average I.Q. of 113, while disorganized serial killers have an average I.Q. of 93.
Ed Kemper had an I.Q. of 136 (140 is often used as the genius mark in I.Q. tests). He used his intelligence to convince psychiatrists to release him after serving only five years for his grandparents’ murders, claiming to have reformed. He hadn’t, and he killed eight more women before being caught again.

9. Shiftlessness
Despite higher than normal intelligence, many serial killers have trouble keeping jobs or work in unskilled labor.
After leaving the military, David Berkowitz, who reportedly was of “above-average intelligence,” held several blue-collar jobs before he was captured, including his last one as a postman.

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Bass Reeves

2025-09-16T14:44:59Z

Bass Reeves was born in 1838 in Crawford County, Arkansas, a child of slaves. He grew up in Grayson, Texas after his owner, William S. Reeves relocated. During the Civil War, Bass claimed to have fought under the leadership of William Reeves’ son, Col. George Reeves in the Battles of Pea Ridge (1862), Chickamauga (1863), and Missionary Ridge (1863). Bass Reeves’ family however, claims an alternative story which suggests that between 1861 and 1862, Reeves attacked his owner in an argument over a card game and escaped into Indian Territory. Though the truth has yet to be determined, historians consider it unlikely that Reeves ever served in the last two battles. Regardless, after the war, it is understood that Reeves served as a guide for U.S. government officials as they passed through Indian Territory.

In 1875, Reeves began his career as a deputy U.S. Marshal under the guidance of Federal Judge Isaac Parker of the Western District of Arkansas. Roaming a 75,000 mile area in what is now mostly Oklahoma, Reeves was responsible for chasing and apprehending criminals. At 6’2″ Reeves learned from the Native Americans how to make himself appear smaller on his strong white and grey horse. At times he would surprise outlaws by adopting their clothing and mannerisms. Reeves apprehended more than 3,000 outlaws and killed 14 during his time as a marshal.

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Recent Supreme Court Decisions

2022-01-10T21:12:05Z

These cases may not be Marbury v. Madison or Brown v. Board of Education, but they are still landmarks in the legal system. Here’s a list of the top ten Supreme Court Cases from the last five years.

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012)—In what is casually known as the “Obamacare” decision, the Supreme Court limited the federal regulation of commerce, claiming that under the Commerce Clause the federal government doesn’t have the power to force states to expand their Medicaid programs under threat of stopping payments. Under the Taxing and Spending Clause, however, the federal government may levy taxes on individuals who choose not to make purchases. Lead by Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court upheld the “individual mandate” within the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare.” Aside from securing Obama’s place within history and giving his re-election campaign a large boon, the ruling has strongly limited federal spending and its coercion of states.
United States v. Antoine Jones (2012)—When the local police suspected a D.C. nightclub owner, Antoine Jones, of narcotics possession, they secretly placed a global positioning system device on his car. After being convicted on the strength of that evidence, Jones appealed the use of it, claiming that the device constituted an unwarranted search. The Supreme Court agreed, and ruled that attaching a GPS device to a vehicle and then using the device to monitor the vehicle’s movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. This ruling is just the beginning of the legal navigations that will follow as tracking and search technology advances.
Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC (2012)—The Supreme Court ruled that the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment bars the government from interfering in ministerial appointments for religious organizations, including hearing wrongful employment termination suits. Public opinion was divided on the ruling, with conservatives lauding the opinion and liberals asserting that religious organizations should abide by the same rules as other non-profits.
Miller v. Alabama (2012) and Graham v. Florida (2010)—In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that a sentence of life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole, may not be imposed on juvenile non-homicide offenders. In 2012, they expanded the decision to rule as cruel and unusual punishment mandatory life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders (including murder charges).
Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011)—In 2005, California passed a law criminalizing selling violent video games to minors. The Supreme Court struck the law down as unconstitutional, claiming that video games are protected forms of media speech, and states may not ban the sale of them to minors. The ruling sparked a large public controversy, with conservatives decrying the ruling as “disappointing,” and liberals invoking the threat to the First Amendment that the law had posed.
Padilla v. Commonwealth of Kentucky (2010)—In the middle of a frenzied immigration reform controversy, the Supreme Court ruled that defense attorneys must inform clients of deportation and other “collateral consequences,” or civil punishments that accompany criminal charges, under three circumstances.
1. Where the law is clear, attorneys must advise their criminal clients that deportation “will” result from a conviction.
2. Where the immigration consequences of a conviction are unclear, attorneys must advise that deportation “may” result.
3. When the immigration is ever in question, attorneys must inform their client; they cannot remain silent on the subject.
Berghuis v. Thompkins (2010)—In the investigation of fatal shooting in 2000, a suspect, after being read his Miranda rights, stayed silent for three hours. At the end of three hours of fruitless interrogation, the police switched to a religious tack, asking the suspect if he prayed for forgiveness for the murders. When he answered yes, the police used the admission as incriminating evidence. The suspect appealed his conviction on the premise that by refusing to talk for three hours, he had invoked his right to remain silent and that the police had violated his Fifth Amendment rights. The Supreme Court disagreed 5-4, claiming that the right to remain silent does not exist unless the suspect invokes it. The decision was highly controversial, and critics decried the erosion of Miranda rights and coercive power the ruling gives the police.
Ricci v. DeStefano (2009)—In 2009, the New Haven, Connecticut fire department administered a promotional exam to 118 firefighters. The test produced racially skewed results, where all top scorers were white with the exception of two Hispanics. Not wishing to violate Title VII, the city threw out the test results and promoted no one. The twenty candidates who received the highest scores protested, eventually bringing their case in front of the Supreme Court, who ruled that municipalities may not decline to certify the results of an otherwise fair exam merely because it would have made disproportionately more white applicants eligible for promotion.
Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008)—In a particularly brutual rape case, a man raped his eight-year-old step-daughter, causing serious internal damage, and the judge sentenced him to death. The man appealed the sentencing, claiming that capital punishment for a rape charge constituted cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eight Amendment. The Supreme Court upheld his claim 5-4, decreeing that a death sentence may not be imposed for the crime of rape, when the victim did not die and death was not intended. The decision received criticism of both the heinous nature of the crime and the restriction of states’ rights from both presidential candidates at the time.
Boumediene v. Bush (2008)—In another lawsuit concerning the U.S. War on Terror and Guantanamo Bay, a prisoner challenged the United States’ right to detain him at Guantanamo Bay without a writ of habeas corpus. The Supreme Court found that fundamental rights of the Constitution apply to the Guantanamo detainees as well, including habeas corpus.

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Update: Amanda Knox’s Story

2022-01-10T21:12:05Z

We have an update on Amanda Knox’s story. Read below to learn about the latest news in this ongoing saga.

January 30, 2014
Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were found guilty by an Italian appeals court for the 2007 murder of Knox’s roommate, Meredith Kercher.

They were first convicted of the murder in 2009 and each served four years in Italian prison; however, in 2011, an appeals court acquitted them of these charges due to a lack of evidence, and Knox returned to her hometown of Seattle.

In 2013, Italy’s Supreme Court dismissed the 2011 acquittal believing that during the appeal the court did not “consider all the evidence and discrepancies in testimony needed to be answered.” Italy’s Supreme Court designated a Florence appeals panel to further examine and reopen the case.

The retrial began on September 30th, 2013 in Florence, Italy. However, neither Knox nor Sollecito, were present at the start of the trial. Knox remained at home in Seattle throughout the entire trial, while Sollecito returned to Italy in November to defend his innocence.

After 12 hours of deliberations, the jury reinstated the original guilty verdicts against Knox and Sollecito that were given to them in the 2009 trial. The judge has sentenced Knox to 28 ½ years in prison and Sollecito to 25 years.

Knox watched the verdict live on television from her home in the U.S. and when the guilty verdict was read she said that she was “frightened and saddened” by the verdict, further commenting that “Having been found innocent before, I expected better from the Italian justice system… There has always been a marked lack of evidence. My family and I have suffered greatly from this wrongful persecution. This has gotten out of hand.”

So what happens next? The presiding judge has 90 days to write his arguments behind the jury’s guilty verdict and then the lawyers of Knox and Sollecito will have 90 days to appeal. Ted Simon, Knox’s attorney, said there will definitely be an appeal and that Knox’s extradition should not even be discussed at this time.

November 5, 2012
The past year of Amanda Knox’s life may have been better than the previous four years, but it was still far from normal.

Freed from Italian prison for now a little over a year, Amanda Knox is currently living in Seattle, lying low in a “seedy” part of town, and working on her memoir. She is dating a former boyfriend, James Terrano, a classical guitarist, and spends most of her time alone.

In September, her previous boyfriend and supposed-accomplice, Raffaele Sollecito, just completed his memoir, Honor Bound: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox. While Knox still hasn’t given her first formal interview, considered “one of the most coveted ‘gets’ being fought over by the American networks,” Sollecito has commented on his experience extensively, even admitting to being jealous of the attention that she got. Sollecito and Knox recently met up at Knox’s grandmother’s birthday party, which helped him come to terms with the girl he once dated. Says Sollecito, he realized almost immediately after seeing her after their release that she was not the she-devil that the media played her out to be, but instead “the Amanda that [he] loved for one week.”

Knox’s book is expected to come out in spring of 2013 and will supposedly net $4 million, most of which will go towards Knox’s staggering legal fees. Until then, Knox seems content to pass unnoticed through the ethnic neighborhood of Seattle in which she lives. Not surprising, considering her nightmarish four years spent in an Italian prison. As Sollecito explained, after getting out of prison, “everything was new…[it makes you] feel like a kid inside, just discovering.”

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