Why the Death Penalty Does Matter (Even in New Jersey and California)

• Article on the new Crimeweek site

How to Smuggle a Bomb Through Airport Security

(Okay, I hope that title doesn’t get me a visit from Homeland Security…)

According to a government report released last week, the U.S. Transportation and Security Administration agents made almost 300 attempts last year to smuggle bombs past security screeners at three major American airports. Twenty percent of the bombs passed through undetected at San Francisco International Airport, sixty percent at Chicago O’Hare, and seventy-five percent at Los Angeles International Airport.

Clark Kent Ervin, a former Homeland Security inspector general, calls this “a huge cause for concern” and says that the screeners’ poor performance might encourage terrorists to try smuggling bombs and other weapons on board planes.

Okay, now here’s a thought: Is it possible that terrorists might be less emboldened by the screeners’ poor performances themselves than by the fact that the government saw fit to release the report including specific details?

This is nothing new, by the way: A few years back, the government released a study of which American port cities were most vulnerable to terrorist attack and why.

• More Crimeweek

Why Fred Goldman Must Be Smiling Now

All that sports memorabilia O.J. Simpson allegedly tried to steal at gunpoint last week, claiming it was legally his… whether or not Simpson is found guilty, any of the memorabilia that turns out to have been legally owned by Simpson… will get handed over to the Goldmans.

And the publicity generated by the robbery couldn’t not have increased sales of the book (as of Tuesday morning, it’s the #2 best seller at Amazon.com).

• If Who Did It (September 17): Okay, what’s the weirdest thing about last week’s release of O.J. Simpson’s hypothetical double-murder confession (as if this whole affair needed any more weirdness)? No mention of Simpson’s name on the cover. It’s a confession without a confessor.Or even worse than no confessor: Amazon.com is marketing the book as “If I Did It by the Goldman Family”.
• September 6
  Barnes and Noble decides to carry O.J.’s book after all, and Lisa Nowak will try an insanity defense (article)
• August 14
  O.J. Simpson’s hypothetical double murder confession, the rights to which are now owned by the family of murder victim Ron Goldman, has been contracted to a publisher [updated article].
• July 30
  So… Now that the rights are owned by Ron Goldman’s father, who plans to rename it Confessions of a Double Murderer, is anybody more inclined to read the thing? And will it become the best-seller HarperCollins originally expected it to be? [article]

9-Year-Old Jessica Lunsford’s Killer Sentenced to Death (OT)

• The story

July 19 Crimeweek

• In Court: John Couey, Melanie McGuire, Craig Stebic, Michael Devlin, and Mark Dean Schwab

Texting Drivers, Swimming with Suspects, and Jurors in Love

July 16 Crimeweek

Crimeweek, 6/12/07

Now It’s Mike Nifong On Trial / Young Enough Cute Enough White Enough / Lisa Stebic, Tara Grant, Shawn Hornbeck and the Death Penalty for Child Molesters