Recent News Articles of Interest to Prosecutors
Please note that these news articles are drawn from independent sources. The NDAA does not verify or endorse any of these articles, and takes no responsibility for their contents.
2008 NDAA CAPITAL CONFERENCE
JANUARY 29 – 30, 2008
NEIGHBORHOOD ACCOUNTABILITY BOARDS OFFER A SECOND CHANCE
The girl anxiously tapped her bright pink fingernails on the folding table that separated the 15-year-old from her fate.
She had stolen seven T-shirts from a Wal-Mart in August. But because she was a first-time offender, she was offered a chance to stay out of the court system and keep her record clean.
To do so, she had to appear in the fellowship hall of Friendship Baptist Church, where a group of neighbors would determine her punishment. But first, they wanted an explanation.
"I wanted to be part of a group," the girl said at the meeting in November. An older teen and young adult apparently persuaded her to take the shirts.
"When you do this, it makes it hard for others," said Angela Newsom, a longtime West End resident who serves on one of the city's Neighborhood Accountability Boards.
Shortly after the shoplifting, the girl's mother was told about neighborhood boards, an initiative the juvenile division of St. Louis City Family Court
started four years ago. The purpose is to provide a grass-roots alternative to juvenile detention.
So far, the results are encouraging.
MOTHER WHO DELIVERED STILLBORN 'METH' BABY IS CHARGED
A 27-year-old woman who delivered a stillborn baby in 2006 was charged this week with first-degree involuntary manslaughter for allegedly
using drugs during her pregnancy.
Mackenzie L. Gruenewald of south St. Louis County went to St. Anthony's Medical Center for a checkup Aug. 17 and a doctor could not find any signs of life from her 39-week fetus, officials said.
The physician induced labor and the child was born dead. Medical tests revealed that the child and Gruenewald both tested positive for methamphetamine, St. Louis County police said Wednesday.
Just last month in an unrelated case in St. Charles County, a mother pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sent to alcohol rehabilitation in the death of a baby born intoxicated.
The St. Louis County medical examiner's officer referred the Gruenewald case to county police late last year after autopsy results were completed.
Officials said involuntary manslaughter was the only charge available to prosecutors because the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District ruled in September that a woman could not be charged with child endangerment for using drugs before her baby was born.
ANOTHER MAN KILLED IN S.F. AFTER STRAYING FROM WITNESS PROTECTION
For the second time in two years, a San Francisco prosecution witness who strayed from witness protection has been killed in the city, authorities said Wednesday.
Justin Lee, 40, was chased down and slain Monday night in the Mission District, the very day he left a safe house in another part of the state and returned to San Francisco.
Lee was on probation at the time of his death for drug-related cases. He was arrested in October on a probation violation related to drugs. It unclear what happened in that case, but he was freed.
Then, in December, Lee reported to authorities that he had been threatened. On Dec. 14, he entered the San Francisco district attorney's witness protection program and was relocated to another part of the state, authorities said.
Lee, who authorities believed had a "price on his head," was repeatedly warned not to come back to the city, unless under armed escort to return to court, police and prosecutors said.
Lee, however, bolted from relocation sometime Monday and returned to San Francisco. At 11:35 p.m., he was attacked in the Mission District. He was shot as he ran and then shot several more times as he lay on 26th Street near Mission Street.
District Attorney Kamala Harris, in a statement, called the attack "an absolute tragedy and an outrage."
But, she emphasized, "The cardinal rule of witness relocation is: Stay in the program and stay where you've been relocated."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/10/BA00UCBN2.DTL
(Ms. Harris is on the NDAA Board of Directors.)
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