A gap in the Illinois law is part of the reason why most sex offenders living in nursing homes aren't listed on state police's online registry.

An investigation by the Chicago Tribune found facility administrators don't have to divulge the identities of sex offenders living in the homes. Instead, the law only requires homes to inform people of the state police online registry, which allows them to search for sex offenders by name (if known), city, county and ZIP code.

Jamar Pinkney Sr. lost control.

Fueled by anger when he heard disturbing news about his son having inappropriate sexual contact with his 3-year-old half sister, he reacted with rage.

Investigators say that rage could be why Pinkney allegedly made his son strip his clothes off and kneel in a vacant lot before he was killed by a single bullet execution style, CBS and the Associated Press reports.

A new bill requiring ignition interlock devices for everyone convicted of driving while intoxicated is expected to reach the New York State Governor's desk this week.

The measure has passed the State Assembly and now needs a nod from New York's Senate.

President Barack Obama has drawn criticsm lately not only for his administration's decision to go forward with the New York trial of the professed Sept. 11 mastermind but for his opinion that if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is convicted he will face the death penalty.

Last week in the media, Obama said he is "absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people will insist on it and my administration will insist on it."

Investigators are still searching for clues about why and where a 5-year-old North Carolina girl was killed.

The body of Shaniya Davis was found on Monday on a rural road about in Lee County, about 30 miles northwest of Fayetteville.

Authorities need to determine where the killing occurred to in order to add new charges in the slain girl's case, CNN reports. These charges won't be added until the question of jurisdiction is answered.  

New information has come to light about Ohio serial killing suspect Anthony Sowell.

A woman who claimed she was attacked and raped by Sowell in his house last year says the police did not take her seriously.

The 14-year-old accused of molesting and killing a 4 year old and stuffing him in a dryer plead not guilty today Fresno County Superior Court.

As discussed in a previous FindLaw Blotter post, Raul Renato Castro is being charged as an adult in the October 30 killing.

Army cook and single mom Spc. Alexis Hutchinson had to choose between serving her country or the responsibility of being a new mom.

That tough decision now has left Hutchinson, 21, of Oakland, CA possibly facing criminal charges for refusing Afghanistan deployment.

A Georgia high school teacher is under suspicion of making terroristic threats against one of his students, and has been accused of attempting to place a hit on the 16 year-old boy.

Randolph Forde, a 10th-grade special education teacher at Mundy's Mill High School in Clayton County, was arrested last month on suspicion of trying to persuade another student to kill a 16 year-old, the Associated Press reports.

He could lose his job.

Hundreds of people will participate in a rally in Kennett Missouri today for Heather Ellis, a young black woman accused of cutting in line at Walmart.

The incident three years ago set off a racially charged dispute and now Ellis faces a trial that could send her to prison for 15 years.

The Associated Press reports that witnesses told authorities that Ellis cut in front of waiting customers at the Walmart in Kennett on Jan. 6, 2007 and became belligerent when confronted, according to court filings.

Two months after Ohio had to stop a botched execution, the state now has become the first to adopt a new single drug lethal injection protocol.

Ohio, unlike 35 other states that use lethal injection, switched to a single drug, rather than a three drug cocktail in its death penalty procedures, according to the New York Times.

The victims of evangelist Tony Alamo, who was convicted of taking five underage girls across state lines for sex, showed him no mercy.

U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes acknowledged their sentiments at the sentencing hearing.

On Friday, the judge sentenced the Texas minister to 175 years but said he hoped a greater judge would have mercy on his soul for his sex crimes.

A judge charged five member of a Missouri family yesterday in a bizarre sex abuse case involving a string of child abuse allegations.

The men, Burrell Edward Mohler Sr., 77, and his four sons were charged with forcible sodomy, rape of a child younger than 12 and use of a child in a sexual performance.

Who gets a civilian versus a military trial and why?

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other alleged plotters of the 911 attack will be tried as terrorists and criminals in a federal court, the US Attorney General announced today.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who along with four other detainees is accused of planning the 2000 USS Cole bombing in Yemen, will go before a military commission.

In addition to wondering what evidence in any of these cases will have to be tossed out due to having been obtained through "enhanced interrogation tactics" that violated international torture laws, many are wondering why some alleged terrorists will be tried in federal court, while others will get a military tribunal.

As discussed in FindLaw's Legally Weird, a teenager in New York recently was saved by a playful message posted on his Facebook page.

Rodney Bradford, 19, wrote that he was craving pancakes on his Facebook status. His Facebook evidence of an alibi prevented him from being charged with robbery.

The couple behind last month's balloon boy hoax will plead guilty Friday to some charges in order to keep the family together, their lawyer said.

According to the Associated Press, Richard Heene will plead guilty in the alleged hoax to attempting to influence a public servant, a felony charge and his wife Mayumi will plead guilty to false reporting, a misdemeanor.

Formal negotiations to settle a civil law suit officially broke down between lawyers for Massachusetts prison officials and the Disability Law Center.

Apparently, negotiations fell a part after stalled plans to build special treatment units for hundreds of seriously mentally ill inmates.

Maybe a death sentence isn't so bad for the more than six hundred California inmates facing capital punishment.

The state not only has the nation's largest death row population but a wait list with long delays. The appeals process can last decades.

Shocking video footage from an interrogation tape of two of convicted teenage killers was released Tuesday.

The tape shows the police interrogation of 16-year-old Daniel Russell and 16-year old Calvin Pearson, just 3 days after they had broken into the North Sacramento home of a 90-year-old woman and beaten her to death using her cane.

Going once... Going twice... Sold to the highest bidder!

The U.S. Marshals Service is selling jewelry and other items from the disgraced financier Bernard Madoff.

The auction Saturday in New York City is a part of the continuing effort to raise money for the victims of Madoff's Ponzi-scheme.

California's DUI laws that allow repeat offenders to get licenses has raised brows for some legislators.

Under state law, drunken drivers have to hurt or kill someone before they permanently have their license revoked.

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday reinstated the death sentence of a Ohio killer convicted of murdering a man he met in a gay bar.

This overturns a decision last year by a federal appeals court in Cincinnati that ruled the lawyers who represented Robert J. Van Hook, 49, during the sentencing phase of his trial in 1985 failed to do an effective job.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused Fort Hood gunman who last week opened fire in a processing center on the base, killing 13, now will likely face a long and complicated legal proceeding.

As he lay injured and under heavy guard at Fort Sam Houston, Hasan could become the first serviceman executed through military death penalty in almost 50 years.

California's new law designed to bring much-needed transparency into the process of disclosing information about child deaths falls short of legislators' intent.

The L.A. Times describes how the law known as Senate Bill 39, aimed at allowing public scrutiny of fatal child abuse and child neglect is unevenly enforced and leaves many unaccounted for.

A Florida woman, Chrystina Lynn Mercer, was arrested and charged Thursday for taking part in the abduction of her the 7-month-old daughter. The child's babysitter, Susan Elizabeth Baker, was also charged in the alleged conspiracy.

Mercer was charged today with giving the infant to Baker, a woman who was a suspect in the disappearance of her own son 22 years ago, according to ABC News. 

The missing baby, Shannon Lea Dedrick was found alive in a large box under Susan Elizabeth Baker's bed.

Jaycee Dugard was allegedly abducted, sexually abused and held captive for 18 years in a concealed compound at the back of residence of convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido.

Now, a new report released by a governmental watchdog agency blasts parole officials who missed repeated opportunities to discover Dugard and Garrido's other victims.

A 14-year-old boy from Central Valley California faces charges as an adult for killing 4-year-old Alex Christopher Mercado and stuffing him in a dryer.

The Associated Press reports that Raul Renato Castro told investigators he drowned Alex Christopher Mercado, his 4-year-old neighbor, in a bathtub then hid the murdered boy in a dryer because the child was going to reveal the teen molested him, according to an affidavit released when he appeared in court Wednesday.

Instead of mentally ill people awaiting trial behind bars or on the streets, Miami-Dade courts are taking a different approach.

The courts have rolled out a new pilot program for mentally ill people which allows prosecutors to drop felony charges if defendants finish one year of treatment.

The program is featured in the Miami Herald, which explains how it works.

Convicted Ohio rapist Anthony Sowell was ordered held without bond today during his first appearance in court on charges for five aggravated murder counts.

So far, a total of 10 bodies have been discovered in the basement, buried in the backyard, in an upstairs living room and in the crawl space of his Clevland home, the Associated Press  reports.

After Sowell's court appearance authorities said they will continue their investigation and tear apart walls inside the house in search of more evidence or bodies.

As Sowell was a registered sex offender required to keep regular contact with police, many are wondering how he may have been allowed to embark on such a gruesome series of murders, keeping bodies stashed all over his property, and not have anyone notice.

This week Jessica's Law, which was designed to keep convicted sex offenders from living near parks or schools, is coming under review by the California Supreme Court.

The law severely restricts where sexual offenders can live after they are released from prison.  Those convicted of rape or child molestation or even misdemeanor indecent exposure cannot live within 2,000 feet of a school or a park under its provisions.

The state Supreme Court is looking at the cases of four ex-convicts as it considers whether the residency restriction contained in Proposition 83 is so broad and intrusive that it violates the constitutional rights of registered sex offenders, the San Jose Mercury News  reports.

The California Highway Patrol is cracking down on cyclists under the influence.

Police have begun to cruise streets looking for bicycles (and cars) being driven erratically or in a way that suggests impairment, such as weaving or crossing a center line.

CHP officers recently charged seven bicyclists with riding under the influence during a one-night crackdown in Sacramento, reports USA Today.

Anna Nicole Smith's former long time boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, along with two of her doctors, will stand trial later this year for illegally supplying the deceased star with drugs.

The Playboy model died of an overdose from a cocktail of prescription drugs in 2007. Smith died in a hotel room in Florida shortly after the birth of her daughter Dannielynn and the death of her adult son Daniel also from a drug overdose. She was 39.

See this previous post for information on the charges originally filed against Stern and two doctors who treated Anna Nicole -- Khristine Eroshevich, 61, and Sandeep Kapoor, 40.

As reported by the L.A. Times, after a 13 days of preliminary hearings, the judge in the case ruled that all three defendants will stand trial. It should be noted that the level of proof prosecutors must to show in order to proceed to trial is far lower than what they will need to prove to secure convictions.

The gang rape and beating of a 15-year-old girl after a Richmond High School homecoming dance has caused a lot of pain not only for the victim but for the entire community.

The case sparked nationwide media attention and public outrage after learning that as many as 20 people witnessed the rape or knew about the incident and did not report it.

No one called police until a woman who was several blocks away heard people who heard people discussing what was occurring and notified the police.

Now, students and teachers will have to find a way to come together and heal.

Some educators say, bringing bystander-awareness programs to schools is a good start.