Carrie Johnson

Sick Inmates Dying Behind Bars Despite Release Program

Carrie Johnson — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:05:00 +0000

Prison is a tough place, but Congress made an exception nearly 30 years ago, giving terminally ill inmates and prisoners with extraordinary family circumstances an early way out. It's called compassionate release.

But a recent investigation found that many federal inmates actually die while their requests drift through the system.

One of them was Clarence Allen Rice.

Rice operated a leasing company in Iowa for decades.

Key Charge Against Ex-BP Official In Spill Case Dismissed

Carrie Johnson — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:11:00 +0000

It's another bad day for the Justice Department.

A federal judge in Louisiana has thrown out the central criminal charge against a former BP executive because prosecutors failed to prove he knew about a pending congressional investigation into oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico three years ago. U.S.

Justice Department Secretly Obtains AP Phone Records

Carrie Johnson — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:25:00 +0000

The Associated Press is protesting what it calls a massive and unprecedented intrusion into its gathering of news. The target of that wrath is the U.S. Justice Department, which secretly collected phone records for several AP reporters last year. The AP says it's caught in the middle of a Justice Department leak investigation.

The scope of the Justice Department subpoenas is what gives David Schultz, a lawyer for AP, pause.

"It was a very large number of records that were obtained, including phone records from Hartford, New York, Washington, from the U.S.

Head Of Environmental Crimes Unit Is Leaving Government

Carrie Johnson — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:03:00 +0000

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Ignacia Moreno, the point person at the Justice Department for prosecuting environmental crimes, says she will leave government service next month.

Moreno, the first Latina to lead the department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in November 2009. Her tenure spanned one of the worst disasters in U.S. history, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April 2010.

Study: Release Program For Terminal Inmates 'Poorly Managed'

Carrie Johnson — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:47:00 +0000

A new watchdog report (PDF) says a Federal Bureau of Prisons program designed to help terminally ill inmates get early release is "poorly managed and implemented inconsistently."

The study by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, which was released Wednesday morning, finds that in 13 percent of cases in which prisoners were approved for the program, inmates died before bureaucrats in Washington made a final decision.

Congress gave the Bureau of Prisons the authority to reduce an inmate's sentence for "extraord