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Brad Heath

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DC reporter for @reuters on crime and justice. Ex-@usatoday. Data, documents and "convoluted KGB style back-door" stuff. 202-527-9709, brad.heath@tr.com
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The ones that get away

The ones that get away

USA Today — PHILADELPHIA - For a man on the run from charges that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl, Thomas Terlecky has surprisingly little to fear from the law. The police here know exactly where to find him, but they will not go get him. Terlecky got away by catching a Greyhound bus to Miami. The police in his new hometown know that Terlecky is a fugitive, and they have tried repeatedly to return him to Philadelphia - both before and after he was convicted of having sex with two other underage girls in Florida.
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A license to commit crime

A license to commit crime

USA Today — AIKEN, S.C. - Before they killed him, the intruders bound Frederick Tucker's hands and feet with duct tape, beat him with a pistol and seared his hips and neck with the tip of a screwdriver they heated on his kitchen stove. Then one of them shot Tucker in the chest. The crime was stunning for its brutality, but in another way it was remarkably ordinary: One of the murderers - the man Tucker's family is convinced orchestrated the crime - was a fugitive whom the police in Philadelphia repeatedly allowed to go free because he had left their state.
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How snitches buy their freedom

How snitches buy their freedom

USA TODAY — At least 48,895 federal convicts - one of every eight - had their prison sentences reduced in exchange for helping government investigators, probe shows. Marcus Antonio Watkins, jailed for armed robbery, sold information about other criminals to trim years from his prison sentence. Watkins and others said the scheme operated with the knowledge of the federal government.
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Locked up but innocent?

Locked up but innocent?

USA TODAY — Terrell McCullum did not commit a federal crime by carrying a shotgun and a rifle out of his ex-girlfriend's house. But he is serving a federal prison sentence for it. And the fact that everyone - including the U.S. Justice Department - agrees that he is legally innocent might not be enough to set him free. A USA TODAY investigation, based on court records and interviews with government officials and attorneys, found more than 60 men who went to prison for violating federal gun possession laws, even though courts have since determined that it was not a federal crime for them to have a gun. Many of them don't even know they're innocent.
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Hundreds of federal prisoners could be freed

Hundreds of federal prisoners could be freed

USA TODAY — WASHINGTON - A U.S. Justice Department review has identified at least 175 federal prisoners who must be released or resentenced because they have been locked up improperly. The review, which followed a USA TODAY investigation, found that some of those prisoners shouldn't have been imprisoned because they hadn't committed a federal crime. Others received sentences vastly longer than the law allows. The problems stem from a misunderstanding about which North Carolina state convictions were serious enough to outlaw gun possession or require extended prison sentences under federal law.
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Sexual predators rarely committed under Justice program

Sexual predators rarely committed under Justice program

USA TODAY — Six years ago, the federal government set out to indefinitely detain some of the nation's most dangerous sex offenders, keeping them locked up even after their prison sentences had ended. But despite years of effort, the government has so far won court approval for detaining just 15 men. Far more often, men the U.S. Justice Department branded as "sexually dangerous" predators remained imprisoned here for years without a mandatory court hearing before the government was forced to let them go, a USA TODAY investigation has found. The Justice Department has either lost or dropped its cases against 61 of the 136 men it sought to detain.
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Prosecutors' conduct can tip justice scales - USATODAY.com

Prosecutors' conduct can tip justice scales - USATODAY.com

USA TODAY — Federal prosecutors are supposed to seek justice, not merely score convictions. But a USA TODAY investigation found that prosecutors repeatedly have violated that duty in courtrooms across the nation. The abuses have put innocent people in prison, set guilty people free and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees and sanctions. Judges have warned for decades that misconduct by prosecutors threatens the Constitution's promise of a fair trial. Congress in 1997 enacted a law aimed at ending such abuses. Yet USA TODAY documented 201 criminal cases in the years that followed in which judges determined that Justice Department prosecutors - the nation's most elite and powerful law enforcement officials - themselves violated laws or ethics rules.
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