Criminal Justice

U.S. military veterans from three decades pass through Judge Sarah Smith's courtroom here, reporting on their battles with drug addiction, alcoholism and despair. Those who find jobs and stabilize their lives are rewarded with candy bars and applause. Those who backslide go to jail. Smith radiates an air of maternal care from the bench. As the veterans come before her, she softly asks: "How are you doing? Do you need anything?"

Roman Polanski rushed up to the British Airways counter at LAX in late January 1978 with an American Express card and an urgent desire to get out of town. He bought the last seat on an overnight flight to London and 15 minutes later, he wrote in his autobiography, watched Los Angeles gradually disappear out a jet window. The criminal case that Polanski was fleeing never went away, as his recent arrest in Zurich attests. But how a Los Angeles court would restart the case if Switzerland extradites the film director, 76, is a question complicated by the passage of decades and recent allegations of judicial misconduct.

Arline Mathews' age-spotted hands shake ever so slightly as she sorts through manila envelopes stuffed with police reports, letters and newspaper clippings, the chronicle of a quarter-century-old crime spree arrayed across her dining table. At 82, the portrait artist, community leader, mother and grandmother should be spending her time in leisurely pursuits, playing golf or bridge or having the kids over. Instead, Mathews' days are consumed by fear that the man who raped her 22 years ago could soon be released from prison and follow through on threats to kill her. The files in her dining room recount the battle she fought a generation ago to see Lloyd Anthony Roy punished for shattering her sense of security and her faith in the goodness of people.

Three-quarters of California's elected district attorneys refused to disclose how they choose defendants to face the death penalty, according to a report slated for presentation at a public hearing in Los Angeles today. In a report to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, which is examining how the death penalty is applied in California, Pepperdine law school professors Harry M.

The FBI is submitting nearly 40% fewer criminal investigations to the Justice Department for prosecution than it did two decades ago, a study indicated Thursday. The bureau has focused on terrorism investigations in recent years. Other federal agencies also heavily engaged in white-collar criminal investigations are showing similar changes, said the study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a private group at Syracuse University.

Freedom, the saying goes, isn't free, and it turns out that justice isn't either. A panel of California prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges and others with a vital interest in the state's criminal justice system concluded two years of work last week by making recommendations on how to protect the rights of the accused. But many remain on indefinite hold because the state has no money to act on them.

As with most people who land in traffic court, Dae Lee, Denise Milton and Felix Arellanoramirez were defiant. Lee indeed was impeding traffic, Milton did pass through that stop sign, and it was true that Arellanoramirez was driving without a license, they told the judge. But, they argued, they still did not deserve a ticket.

More than six years after the Bush administration sent hundreds of foreign prisoners to Guantanamo Bay, the rules for deciding just who can be held and for how long remain unclear. Comments Monday by the attorney general and congressional Democrats suggest such issues will not be resolved soon -- and not before a new administration takes power. Roughly 270 prisoners remain at Guantanamo, of whom about 20 are slated to be tried as war criminals.

The state of Mississippi moved Tuesday to improve what critics have called one of the nation's most poorly monitored criminal autopsy systems -- one that may have resulted in two innocent men spending years in prison. State Public Safety Commissioner Stephen B.

Just five minutes. That's what Iraqi soldiers said they needed when they took Ahmed-Hussein Juma in for questioning in February 2007. "And now here we are, 1 1/2 years later," Juma said with a hopeless laugh last month as he stood in a holding cage, metal handcuffs on his wrists and a prison number stitched crookedly on his green jumpsuit. Dozens of other men sat on benches at Baghdad's Rusafa detention center, all waiting to visit a new U.S.