The Child Protection eNewsletter The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs' rape conviction for conducting the marriage of a 14-year-old girl. Christian Science Monitor story here 
Jeffs, known as the "prophet" of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), was convicted in September 2007 of two counts of rape and has been in prison since.
The Utah justices held that instructions given to the jurors were erroneous and ordered a new trial. Jeffs was originally found guilty of being an accomplice to rape for using his religious influence to coerce a minor into marrying her 19-year-old cousin. The justices said that the jury's deliberation should have been focused on whether Jeffs' intent in performing the "spiritual marriage" was for rape to occur, not on whether the action itself led to nonconsensual sex. "In particular, the court held that Mr. Jeffs had to have the intent to aid the rape that was committed," says Paul Cassell, professor of criminal law at S. J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. "That will be the issue on which the new trial will focus." Analysts say the court's opinion was narrow in the sense that they did not hold that Jeffs is innocent but rather simply that the jury was improperly instructed on the charges. See extensive analysis at TIME story here. The court opinion is available online at http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/07/27/supreme.pdf?hpt=T1 Even if Utah doesn't retry Jeffs, Texas and federal prosecutors are waiting to move forward with their own cases. AP story here Utah officials now have two weeks to seek a rehearing before the state's high court and then a month to decide if they'll retry the 54-year-old head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on charges of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice. Authorities in Texas are trying to get him sent there to face charges in connection with his own alleged marriages to underage sect girls in 2005. A federal indictment stemming from Jeffs' stint as a fugitive on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list is also pending. For more on this story, see vol4_iss37, vol5_iss65, vol6_iss39, vol6_iss78, and vol7_iss77. Pentagon workers tied to child porn... 
Federal investigators have identified several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances who allegedly purchased and downloaded child pornography, including an undisclosed number who used their government computers to obtain the illegal material, according to investigative reports. Boston Globe story here
The investigations have included employees of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - which deal with some of the most sensitive work in intelligence and defense - among other organizations within the Defense Department. The number of offenders is a small percentage of the thousands of people working for sensitive Pentagon-related agencies. But the fact that offenders include people with access to government secrets puts national security agencies "at risk of blackmail, bribery, and threats, especially since these individuals typically have access to military installations," according to one report by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service from late 2009. Some of the individuals have been prosecuted and other cases have been dropped, while more have languished several years without resolution, according to the previously undisclosed documents about the investigations. The more than 50 pages, compiled by the investigative service, part of the Pentagon's Inspector General's Office, contain summaries of investigations initiated since 2002, including some cases that remain open. Meanwhile, former U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Dennis Bell allegedly downloaded hundreds of images of child pornography onto his personal computers and admitted to downloading other child pornography onto government computers, according to a federal court affidavit. Politico story here In other news... 
Adults who were physically abused during childhood are more likely later to develop heart disease. CNN feature here In fact, abused children have 45 percent higher odds of heart problems later in life compared with children who are not abused, according to new research published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect. The study sample included 13,093 adults who were part of the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey. The study respondents were asked whether when they were a child or adolescent, they were physically abused by someone close to them. They were subsequently asked whether they had received a heart disease diagnosis from a health professional. Even when researchers ruled out other possible risk factors for heart disease such as being obese or physically inactive, smoking, alcohol abuse - and other potential heart stressors like depression, parental fights, or poverty - the odds of having heart disease was still markedly higher for adults who had come from abusive homes.
On a still night last month, a California fifth-grader walked to a bedroom closet, pulled out a jump rope and hanged himself - apparently to end the abuse that had tormented him for years. LA Times story here Just hours earlier, Los Angeles County mental health and child abuse investigators had visited the drab apartment building to examine 11-year-old Jorge Tarin. He had told a school counselor that day that he wanted to kill himself. After speaking to Jorge privately, the county workers left. A review following his June 8 suicide uncovered evidence that persistent communication breakdowns at the county Department of Children and Family Services may have contributed to the tragedy, according to county records reviewed by The Times. When county workers decided not to hospitalize or detain the boy, they were unaware of key pieces of information, according to documentation about the case. The social worker did not have one of the portable tablet computers that the department uses to pull case records in the field. The department paid $5.9 million for about 2,400 tablets in 2007, but purchased only 400 wireless cards to allow them to connect remotely. As a result, in a department with about 7,300 employees, the overwhelming majority of the tablets gather dust on social workers' desks. Many field workers instead rely on personal cell phones to connect to the office. See eGuide/teen suicide for more information on teen suicide.
An Oregon grand jury has been convened in the case of missing 7-year-old Kyron Horman ABC story here and rumors are rampant that an arrest in the case may be imminent. CBS story here For the latest on this story, visit oregonlive.com story index here. For every high-profile missing children's case that grabs the nation's attention, there are hundreds of foster children who disappear from state care whose cases are never even reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. ABC News story here CNNHealth.com has Dr. Charles Raison, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University, offering thoughts on new research on diagnosing bipolar disorder in children. CNN feature here An Irving, Texas, woman told a 911 operator that she strangled her two young children because they were autistic, according to a recording of the call. CNN story here Saiqa Akhter, 30, has been charged with a single count of capital murder in the deaths of her 2-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son, police said. A man who killed a toddler when he was just 10 years old in a crime that shocked Britain was sentenced to jail on Friday for new child pornography charges. Findlaw.com story here Jon Venables, who is now 27, was sentenced to two years in prison after he pleaded guilty to downloading and distributing dozens of indecent images of children. Venables became one of Britain's most notorious criminals in 1993, when he and another 10-year-old abducted 2-year-old James Bulger from a shopping center and beat him to death by an isolated railway line in northern England. A Portland multimillionaire who repeatedly molested a neighborhood boy has agreed to pay his victim $1.6 million and spend about nine years in prison. Oregonian story here A 12 year old Minnesota girl used her internet-enabled iPod Touch to fend off attempted rape by her mother's ex-boyfriend after he took away her cell phone. ABC News story here As the search continues for 2-year-old Syler Newton, who vanished from a northern Arizona campsite Sunday, new details of the police investigation are beginning to emerge. AOL news story here While "the first priority is to find Syler," Yavapai County Sheriff's Office spokesman Dwight D'Evelyn said, authorities are also conducting an extensive investigation "into the incident, the parties involved and anything else that might shed light on Syler's disappearance." *for access to member only sites like the New York Times, use the ID "JohnDoeID" and the password "whatever". On sites asking for an email address, feel free to use "info@childprotectionprogram.org" Subscribe Unsubscribe |
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