A group of Pinellas teens today spent part of their holiday break painting over graffiti as part of a new program implemented by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. Launched last month, the Graffiti Response Team gives teens who are in trouble for minor criminal offenses an option. "We want to give the children who have committed minor nonviolent crimes an opportunity not to go through the criminal justice system and come out here and work off community service hours," said sheriff's Cpl. David DiSalvo. ...more

December 23, 2009

Mike Huckabee doesn't deserve the bad press he is getting. In 2000, when he was governor of Arkansas, Huckabee commuted the 108-year prison sentence of a man named Maurice Clemmons. ...more

December 14, 2009

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four co-conspirators will be tried in a Manhattan federal courthouse, the Justice Department announced Friday, the most concrete demonstration yet of the Obama administration's desire to reassert the primacy of the criminal justice system in responding to terrorist acts. ...more

November 14, 2009

As Xuan-Nuong Lam Tran pulled her Mercedes ML 350 into a parking spot at a post office, another customer flung open her own car door, causing minor damage. ...more

November 8, 2009

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd has waited 28 years for Paul Johnson's execution. It looks like he's going to have to wait a little longer. ...more

October 29, 2009

Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober was in the state Capitol on Wednesday making a plea for money in a place where it's in short supply. ...more

April 2, 2009

Jails are the wrong place to warehouse the mentally ill. Yet for years Florida has taken this approach toward those who are sick and turn to crime: Lock 'em up and don't worry about the treatment they need. ...more

March 29, 2009

The news story on March 7 regarding the organized theft of baby formula provides an interesting commentary on the cost of crime. ...more

March 11, 2009

Alan Crotzer: Pardons Are Ticket To New Life Then: Lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist gave the former inmate $1.25 million last spring to compensate him for the 241/2 years he spent in prison for crimes he did not commit. ...more

December 28, 2008

The death of former Circuit Judge Vincent Giglio last week probably went unnoted by most Hillsborough residents. ...more

November 25, 2008