Image: Wiki Commons
For at least the second time in recent memory, a person’s life potentially hinges on critical information that is being withheld by a social platform. Joseph Colone, a man accused of murder and sentenced to death in Texas in 2017, is seeking code stored on GitHub, which could show that key evidence in his case was flawed. The company has declined to share it. After years of winding through the courts, Colone’s last hope rests on the U.S. Supreme Court, if it decides to hear his case.
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Colone, who was indicted in 2010, hopes to investigate a program used to analyze DNA presented as evidence of guilt. In 2017, an expert witness for the prosecution testified that a victim’s blood was found in Colone’s car, as well as a mixture of Colone’s and the victim’s DNA on a glove near the crime scene. As Colone’s Supreme Court petition notes, the prosecution depended on a probabilistic genotyping program, STRmix, because examiners were unable to m
New York City Trying to Improve Latinos’ Low COVID-19 Vaccination Rates
Plus: Tax documents are keeping undocumented workers from relief funds, bill would end ICE contracts with local governments, and more.
When Myrna Lazcano, a community activist from Mexico who lives in East Harlem, got COVID-19, her symptoms dragged on for months. This long-haul illness drove Lazcano to get the COVID-19 vaccine and to share her experience to encourage other Latinos to get it as well. Latinos have been twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as whites and had the highest infection rates in New York City. But vaccination rates among New York City Latinos remain low. Some residents say they distrust the vaccine, but most say they haven’t been able to access it. For example, many undocumented immigrants have struggled to get proper documentation to prove their eligibility. The New Yorker
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A Detective Was Accused of Lying. Now 90 Convictions May Be Erased.
The Brooklyn district attorney will move to dismiss old convictions in which a former narcotics detective, accused of perjury in Manhattan, played a key role.
Joseph Franco, a former New York Police Department detective, was charged with perjury in 2019. Credit.Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times
April 6, 2021, 8:45 p.m. ET
Over nearly two decades as a police officer and narcotics detective, Joseph E. Franco made thousands of arrests, many for the possession and sale of drugs. Mr. Franco often worked undercover, and his testimony secured convictions for prosecutors around the city.