News Roundup

President Trump deployed the D.C. National Guard, took control of the Metropolitan Police Department, and reassigned FBI agents from their regular duties to patrol the streets of Washington, D.C. this week. At a press conference on Monday, Trump identified rising crime rates and the threat of violent crime as the primary reasons for his attention to law enforcement in the District. In response, the New York Times and CNN have published reports showing crime rates have steadily dropped since the pandemic, and are dropping as part of a larger trend since the 1990’s. Also this week, a federal judge in California is considering whether President Trump violated the law when he deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles. Read on for more criminal law news. Minnesota prosecutor seeks to overturn 1998 conviction. 27 years ago, Bryan Hooper Sr. was convicted by a jury of premeditated murder, felony murder while committing burglary, and felony murder while committing kidnapping. He received three life sentences with the possibility of parole after 30 years. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said her office’s Conviction Integrity Unit was already in the process of reviewing Hooper’s case when they learned the state’s key witness in the 1998 trial recanted her testimony and confessed to committing the crime herself. Since the conviction, jailhouse informants who also implicated Hooper in the crime have recanted their testimony as well. Representing Hooper, attorneys for the Great North Innocence Project filed a petition to vacate his conviction. At a press conference, Moriarty addressed [...]