A detective garda who brutally assaulted his wife in front of their young children walked free from court without a custodial sentence, raising serious concerns about justice.
Pat Salmon, who was sentenced for the repeated sexual assault of a five-year-old girl, died in the Mater Hospital after serving only four months of his three-year sentence.
James Broadnax, who is 37, describes how he writes: 'I've been here umpteen days never forgetting To forget the absence of my fate. Sloppy ciphered sentences become rage, Provoking thoughts into words spoken Across this blank page.'
Jason Thompson, a guard at HMP Isis, was suspended as the Metropolitan Police investigated his involvement in smuggling drugs and contraband into the prison. He was sentenced to four years and six months for conspiracy and misconduct.
The Irish Prison Service confirmed that the inmate died in custody on April 1. All deaths in custody are investigated by the Irish Prison Service, the Inspector of Prisons and An Garda Síochána, where circumstances warrant.
Under the reform, courts must stop handing out such short prison terms other than in a number of specific or exceptional circumstances. MPs passed the measure as part of the government's plan to end the population crisis in prisons.
The high-ranking role comes with a $180,000 to $230,000 salary, the listing states, and "will serve as a trusted advisor to the mayor, first deputy mayor, and the administration's senior leadership on all matters related to the closing of Rikers."
He said not to tell anybody," one of Johnson's victims testified. Both children later testified that they were too afraid to tell any adults about what they had endured, according to trial records obtained by NPR. "We were scared," Johnson's other victim testified. "Like, we didn't realize that this stuff was not okay because we were 12 years old."
Andrew Paul Johnson, 45, is among several January 6 defendants who have been charged with new crimes since Trump's sweeping act of clemency for Capitol rioters. On his first day back in the White House last year, Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences for or ordered the dismissal of cases for all 1,500-plus people charged in the attack.
Every state now has a legal avenue where people can request DNA testing of evidence after being convicted. But in many cases, it's not clear if those statutes apply once convicts have died, said Brandon Garrett, a law professor at Duke University.
RDAP is a voluntary program that lasts between nine and 12 months (ordinarily, it requires roughly 38 weeks to complete in five-day workweeks, three-hour-a-day segments). The 500-hour program strives to educate inmates on the dangers of addiction. Most importantly, relapse prevention is stressed with the goal of helping inmates during post-release stay clean and sober to avoid reoffending. Congress appropriates more than $100 million annually for RDAP.
Donald Marler, 31, was transferred to North Kern State Prison on Jan. 7, two months after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of 38-year-old Nicholas Lord. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors threw out a murder charge, court records show. At Marler's preliminary hearing last April, a woman who was one of Lord's roommates testified that the two men started arguing about a stolen car inside their shared residence on June 7, 2022.
The open-ended sentences, which were scrapped in 2012 and have been described as psychological torture by the UN, have left thousands trapped in jail for up to 22 times longer than their original tariff. This includes many who were children at the time of their offence and handed a type of IPP sentence for under-18s called a Detention for Public Protection (DPP) jail term.
