Word: murder
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...often happens in great constitutional dramas, the starring player was a nobody: Danny Escobedo, 26, 5 ft. 5 in., 106 Ibs., a Chicago laborer serving 20 years for first-degree murder. Like most convicts, Danny was sure he had taken a bum rap. In his case, the Supreme Court agreed. Danny had confessed to complicity in his brother-in-law's murder, but only after Chicago police had refused to let him see his lawyer, who was in the station house trying to see him.* Not only did the court void Danny's confession: it held that every...
...crime, street violence, anonymous people, and a crime rate rising five times faster than the rate of population growth. To cope with such conditions, the police argue that they must have all reasonable authority to question any citizen. Investigation alone, they say, cannot solve many crimes, such as burglary, murder and mugging, in which the culprits leave no physical traces. "I defy anyone to find any meaningful evidence at the scene of a purse snatching," says Cincinnati Police Chief Stanley...
...confessions were "essential" in 20.9% of Detroit's murder cases; in 1965, with warnings, Piersante's men actually got more confessions, and yet they were considered "essential" in only 9.3% of murder cases -all because of sharper sleuthing before arrest...
Grace and Danny claim that they have been constantly threatened since the murder of her first husband. Whatever the connection between those threats and Mits's murder, the police have yet to find Mits's killer. Twice police have stopped and searched Danny's car while he was driving Grace and her children. Last month they stopped him again, found a pistol, arrested him and impounded his car. Facing trial next month, Danny groans: "I just hope that great court in Washington makes a new law greater than mine. Then maybe we'll be left alone...
...soon as they suspected anyone of being "involved." After that comes a six-question written warning that detectives carefully read aloud and suspects sign. By last month 76% of all felony suspects had nonetheless made voluntary statements; the confessors ranged from 68.8% of robbery defendants to 82.6% of murder defendants. To the Supreme Court, on the other hand, such statistics may suggest that a suspect who waives his rights to silence is obviously in need of a lawyer to tell him precisely what he is waiving...