The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/author/stephenh/)
Death rates from opioids soared in towns, cities and counties that were saturated with billions of prescription pain pills from 2006 through 2012, according to federal data and a database of opioid shipments made public this week and analyzed by the Washington Post.
Preliminary Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures show that nearly 68,000 drug overdose deaths were reported last year. The number may go up as more investigations are completed, but the agency expects the tally will end up below 69,000. Overdose deaths had been climbing each year since 1990.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) says President Donald Trump is “enthusiastic” about his idea of using any assets of convicted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán and other drug lords to pay for construction of a wall at the Mexican border.
The state’s 2011 “realignment” policy shifted many state inmates to county jails and provided $2.1 billion to fix antiquated jails. Eight years later, only 11 of 65 construction projects are finished.
Herman Quay, former warden of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, has been promoted to oversee three federal prisons. An aide to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler calls the move “certainly not acceptable.”
Prosecutors concluded their investigation into campaign finance violations involving President Donald Trump and must publicly release some of their files. It was not clear if any more charges would be filed.
The California city becomes the third, after San Francisco and Somerville, Ma., to prohibit municipal departments from using software its council president calls “flawed” and “biased.”
Massachusetts prosecutors dropped a case accusing Kevin Spacey of groping a young man at a Nantucket bar in 2016 after the accuser refused to testify about a missing cellphone the defense says contains information supporting the actor’s claims of innocence.
Superior Court Judge James Troiano barred adult criminal charges against a boy accused of sexually assaulting an intoxicated girl at a party, saying he “came from a good family.” Protesters gathered outside the courthouse to demand his departure.
The family of Aaron Doty doesn’t expect to collect from two men who are serving life prison terms for burning him alive seven years ago. Relatives consider the verdict a symbolic message.