Criminal Law Stories

February 15th, 2001. A seasoned convict is set free after 28 years. Michael Pardue embraces his wife Becky who he married while in prison. This was no ordinary release. The man, with the help of his wife and his attorneys, won an unprecedented legal battle against the state of Alabama. They managed to overturn multiple convictions against him, including being freed for murder. But the debate still rages.. was he guilty of the murder he confessed to three decades earlier or was he wrongly convicted? You decide this mystery for yourself.

Picking cotton at sunrise in a hot field in Mississippi. It's someplace that a lot of men wouldn't want to be. But Ernest Willis doesn't mind. He is a free man. Free at last after 17 years on Texas' death row. After thousands of days trapped in a nightmare, working out in the hot sun feels like a dream Willis never dared to have. He was waiting for his execution not for a crime he didn't commit but for something that wasn't even a crime at all. He says he was railroaded. Now the real experts agree that bogus testimony caused him to be wrongly convicted. There are other cases too, where overly zealous prosecutors used distorted evidence and relied on junk science to damage lives and send innocent men to their deaths. This is a story about Fatal Flaws in American Justice.

Every year a large number of murders go unsolved but some gain such infamy that they remain in the public mind for many years to come. This is a list of the ten most famous murders in modern history. The only rule followed was that there had to be a body for the murder to be on this list.

Jack The Ripper was the first modern serial killer. Over ten weeks in the year 1888 he butchered five women and the police couldn't catch him. All the things that we would do at a crime scene now were not done back then. They didn't have fingerprints, blood groups or even blood types. Laura Richards is a behavioral psychologist with the violent crime command at Scotland yard. She has agreed to reexamine the case that have been troubled by conspiracy theories and myths. Laura brings the experience of a decade of studying the most dangerous criminals. She will bring together a team of experts using modern techniques to help her get inside the killer's mind. So the hunt for Jack the Ripper has begun again.

The case of the Boston Strangler riveted the nation and everyone was just in a frenzy. They were crimes that terrorized a city. So when Albert DeSalvo confessed to killing 13 women, everyone thought the case was closed. After all when he was incarcerated the stranglings stopped. The last victim was 19 year old Mary Sullivan. But her family is convinced the real killer got away. They have launched an investigation to prove it. Can new evidence and modern science turn this case upside down and will this mystery ever be solved?

On December 26, 1996, early in the morning hours, a six-year-old beauty pageant star named JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in her home on 755 Fifteenth Street in Boulder, Colorado, in a wealthy suburb known as University Hill . Over the next several months, the investigation of the murder and its subsequent tabloid coverage would create a nationwide sensation. Even as the case failed to show much progress and remains unsolved, speculation and discussion has never been lacking. The crime involved many issues that immediately struck a nerve with the public: it unfolded during the holidays, it involved a wealthy and socially prominent family, it possibly involved an unthinkably brutal crime between parent and child, and it occurred not long after the O.J. Simpson and Susan Smith cases, and the racially, sexually, and socially charged publicity that surrounded both of these cases.

Everyone has heard the phrase "you can run but you can't hide". Well, that is not always the case. This is a story about just such a case. The murderer has never been caught despite the best efforts of the police in two countries. He has eluded capture in both countries and remains at large. Now, nobody knows where he is and they have no leads. It is as if he has vanished off the face of the earth.

There some crimes for which there is absolutely no rhyme or reason for. This is the story of one of those crimes. A couple go missing in Memphis Tennessee. They are finally located in the attic of their uncles attic, dead. But before the police can capture the uncle, him and his Father both commit suicide before ever telling anyone the reasoning behind the killings, leaving a whole lot of questions with very few answers.

For Homicide Detectives, the clock starts ticking the moment they are called. There chance of solving a murder is cut in half if they don't get a lead within the first 48 hours. This story is about one of those unsolved cases. It's about a man who had a double life and no one, not even those closest to him, knew why. It is truly a mystery in Miami.

Al Capone rose to power with a deadly combination of raw brutality and brains. He wanted the public to love him but those who crossed him knew better. Scarface Al Capone was a very very evil man. For the big fellow, killing was just part of his business plan. The plan was to become the CEO of organized crime. If he had decided to go legit he could have become the head of General Motors. Stupid he was not. But as king of bootleggers during prohibition, Scarface Al became more of a Celebrity than any corporate executive. He became the most famous Gangster in the world. Al Capone was a first generation American born on on January 17th, 1899. His parents had many dreams when they left Naples Italy. They moved to Brooklyn and found hardship. They first lived in the tenements of the crime filled Navy Yard. Life was rough for the Capone's as they struggled to escape the waterfront. They finally moved, when Al was ten, to a better neighborhood. He had a perfectly fine Mother and father.