Welcome to another Sum it up! The UK Police is breaking the law by keeping DNA of the innocent in national database. The Chief who refuse to drop those profiles act unlawfully and violate privacy rights of those involved.
“The ruling by the most senior judges in England and Wales says that the current police policy of indefinitely keeping DNA profiles of people arrested but never convicted is excessive and violates privacy rights. Chief constables have continued collecting the DNA profiles of everyone arrested, whether they are convicted or not, and keeping them indefinitely on a national database. This is despite a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights more than three years ago that it was a breach of privacy rights.”
New legislation is going through parliament now in the protection of freedoms bill proposed by the Home Secretary, Theresa May. It would ban the police from retaining the DNA profiles of those arrested but not convicted of minor offences. It will also enable hundreds of thousands of such people already on the database to have their profiles destroyed. The DNA profiles of those charged but not convicted of serious sexual or violent offences will, however, be kept for an first period of three years, with a possible further extension of two years. The DNA of convicted criminals will be kept on the database indefinitely.
Keith Dunn has finally placed all the art work of his Evil Barista online, see here. He tweeted (Is that the correct past tense of to tweet? Correct me , please!) that the Evil Barista a.k.a. Kristina, will be leaving Starbucks so, to make sure that he had another way of teasing her, he opened a Twitter account for her: @theevilbarista!
The Portland Cold Case Unit has made an arrest in the 1994 murder of Raymond Lee Johnson. Terry Lavell Haynes will be arraigned on Wednesday May 18, 2011. A Multnomah County Grand Jury will consider the case against Haynes this week. This is an ongoing investigation and no additional details can be released at this time.
An arrest has finally been made in the 1989 stabbing murder of Richard Gleason. Eugene Sutton is due back in court on June 21 for a pre-trial conference. A trial date has been set for May 7, 2012. UPDATE: He was sentenced to 19 to 20 years in prison, the maximum for the offense.
My good friend Taz the Spaz alerted me to a very interesting article: “How to spot a psychopath” by Jon Ronson, published in the Guardian. One quote: “It was the French psychiatrist Philippe Pinel who first suggested, early in the 19th century, that there was a madness that didn’t involve mania or depression or psychosis. He called it “manie sans délire” – insanity without delusions. He said sufferers appeared normal on the surface, but they lacked impulse controls and were prone to outbursts of violence. It wasn’t until 1891, when the German doctor JLA Koch published his book Die Psychopathischen Minderwertigkeiten, that it got its name: psychopathy.”
Last, I discovered a great series of articles well worth your time reading. “After Joey Awe’s Marquette County bar (Wisconsin) burned down in 2006, authorities immediately suspected the gregarious, disabled Gulf War veteran and owner of arson. The state’s case was built largely on an investigation paid for by Awe’s insurance company, which had a stake in the outcome: If someone set the blaze, the company wouldn’t have to pay out. Experts, meanwhile, are calling into question long-held assumptions about how fires start and spread.”
Part 1: Burning Questions: After 2006 blaze destroys bar, insurer leads search for cause
Part 2: Burning Questions: Insurance company led fire probe
Part 3: Burning Questions: Trial, Conviction – justice or frame-up?
Part 4: Burning Questions: old assumptions hard to put out
This series of course, brought up the Willingham case again for me. If you are interested in arson detection, research the cases of Willingham, Dougherty and Richey for information about arson, accidental fire, and burn patterns and check the experts involved. Look them up online and see how arson detection has evolved.
Kindly note that with the summer months coming up and everyone relaxing away from the Internet, things will slow down here at DCC and on Twitter. The cold case chats we normally have every Friday from noon-1pm EST will take place once a month. The next chats will be May 27, June 3, July 15, and August 5, 2011, all from noon-1pm EST.
As soon as Joe and I have had time to choose themes/cases we wish to focus on during the chats, I will post them here on DCC’s homepage and on Twitter. Make sure you check both Joe’s and my own Twitter account for more details.