Mindhunters | American Civil Liberties Union

Fair and Smart Justice

By Mark Olshaker On November 13, 2013 · 5 Comments

American Civil Liberties Union

In today’s edition of The Washington Post, there is a full-page ad sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union promoting what it calls “Fair Justice. Smart Justice.” It asks, “Why are thousands of people spending their lives in prison with no chance of parole for a nonviolent offense?”

If you then go to www.aclu.org/fairandsmart, you can read a book-length report entitled, A LIVING DEATH: Life without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses.

And the report makes a pretty damn good case.

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DNA and the Supreme Court

By John Douglas and Mark Olshaker On June 4, 2013 · 2 Comments

Human DNA

In an interesting voting split, the U.S. Supreme Court this week narrowly upheld a Maryland law allowing police to collect DNA samples when booking individuals accused of serious crimes. The usual swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, wrote the opinion for the majority, which included Justices John Roberts, Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

The dissenters, including Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, were led by Justice Antonin Scalia. Strange bedfellows, indeed. Their argument was that the act of swabbing a suspect’s cheek lining for DNA constitutes illegal search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment definition.

We believe the court made the correct decision and that no constitutional rights were compromised.

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