As we countdown the top stories of 2009, for a small group of Americans there's no top-100 list, top-20 or top-10 list. For these few dozen Americans there's only one story worth recapping: their exoneration.
This is nothing but sad for Sheen, for his father Martin Sheen, and of course for his very extended family -- five kids by three women and counting.
A mass, collective pardon of nonviolent offenders would reunite hundreds of thousands of families, save billions of dollars in incarceration costs, and might foster a national spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Wal-Mart workers and one bystander held Patrick Donovan down, while one leaned on his back and another held down his arms and head.
In the case of the fatal beating of Luis Ramirez, a federal grand jury recently delivered indictments that included the commission of a hate crime, obstruction of justice, official misconduct, and extortion.
On Independence Day, somebody somehow slipped a pill into my wine glass at a dinner dance, and I left about three minutes before it really hit. Date rape drugs are a weapon.
I've asked six of the most renowned crime fiction critics in the country to weigh in with their thoughts on the state of the crime novel. I hope you find their responses as interesting as I did.
Maurice Clemmons is now dead. But treatment for his illness would have been better for all. We have to stop denying violence and start treating it.
Governor Rick Perry of Texas brought up the specter of Secession recently and upon polling, a fair amount of Texans and other Americans seem to think Texas seceding from the US would be a good idea.
As much as the details of Felicia Lee's life and death would seem sensational enough for widespread media coverage, unlike Annie Le's murder, Lee's has largely failed to capture the public's imagination.
In 2009-2010, it is about time that we turn our attention to the plight of homeless people -- a forgotten hate crime group -- who are being attacked in growing numbers, based simply on an ugly stereotype.
We need to be able to take complete responsibility for ourselves and to think through our problems with rational clarity. All psychiatric drugs impair those higher mental functions.
If anything should be explored about the state of the law relating to sex offenders, it's the huge issue of a lack of prosecution--not too much of it, as the Economist asserts.
My new plan, Innovation First: Using Technology to Fight Crime, will combat the fiscal, legal, and public safety problems that Californians deal with on a daily basis. This is a call to action.
As bad as America's foreclosure crisis is -- and it's very bad, with over 300,000 homes receiving a foreclosure filing every month -- it's being made even more devastating by the lack of legal assistance available to beleaguered homeowners. READ MORE More HuffPost Game Changers: Politics and Style Announcing My First Pick for the HuffPost Book Club: In Praise of Slowness Attention Fellow Book Lovers: HuffPost's New Books Section Is Here WATCH: Arianna Discusses Race Relations, Letterman Scandal On Joy Behar Show
In the case of Coleman v. Lantz, Connecticut has argued for the right to force feed a hunger-striking inmate in an excruciatingly painful manner.
How do you wind up in prison serving two life terms for a robbery that netted 11 dollars? That question has haunted first time offenders Gladys and Jamie Scott for the past 15 years.
I swore to myself I would never return. But over a decade later, here I was, back at the maximum security prison where I served a 15 years for a non-violent drug crime under the Rockefeller Drug Laws.
In the confused minds of many, Polanski is a real-life Batman, a flawed anti-hero living outside the law because that's the only way he can truly overcome his tortured history.
In the wake of a series of highly-publicized killings of young children by Texas mothers suffering from post-partum mental disorders, a state representative from Houston has introduced long overdue legislation that will recognize the mitigating circumstances surrounding such acts.
Late on Monday the Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky suffered a rupture of the abdominal membrane causing death. How many more dead Russians will it take before the world takes notice?
