The Forensic Nurse

If you test positive for HIV, the sooner you take steps to protect your health, the better. Early medical treatment and a healthy lifestyle can help you stay well. Prompt medical care may delay the onset of AIDS and prevent some life-threatening conditions. There are a number of important steps you can take immediately to protect your health:

• See a licensed health care provider, even if you do not feel sick. Try to find a health care provider who has experience treating HIV. There are now many medications to treat HIV infection and help you maintain your health. It is never too early to start thinking about treatment possibilities.
• Have a TB (tuberculosis) test. You may be infected with TB and not know it. Undetected TB can cause serious illness, but it can be successfully treated if caught early.
• Smoking cigarettes, drinking too much alcohol, or using illegal drugs (such as methamphetamines) can weaken your immune system. There are programs available that can help you stop or reduce your use of these substances.
• Get screened for other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Undetected STDs can cause serious health problems. It is also important to practice safe-sex behaviors so you can avoid getting STDs.

There is much you can do to stay healthy. Learn all that you can about maintaining good health.

Not having (abstaining from) sex is the most effective way to avoid transmitting HIV to others. If you choose to have sex, use a latex condom to help protect your partner from HIV and other STDs. Studies have shown that latex condoms are very effective, though not 100%, in preventing HIV transmission when used correctly and consistently. If either partner is allergic to latex, plastic (polyurethane) condoms for either the male or female can be used.

children’s author K.P. Bath  was sentanced to six years in prison for possession of child pornography. The author has written books such as “The Secret of Castle Cant” and “Escape from Castle Cant”.

Authorities found Bath’s collection included images depicting sadistic conduct, rape, sodomy and bestiality.  Prosecutors were originally seeking more serious charges of distribution and transporting child pornography as well, but were later dropped as part of a plea agreement in exchange for the guilty plea.

A man who has been unofficially known as the “grim Sleeper” for the past twenty years has finally been arrested. The suspect, Lonnie David Franklin Jr., a 57 year old man from Los Angeles is alledged to have committed at least 11 unsolved murders dating back to 1985.

A judge has denied mr. Franklin bail. He will be arrained in a Los Angeles court in August 2010 on ten counts of murder and one count of attempted murder as of today.

The case has been very long and drawn out process spanning multiple decades. The break in the case finally came using DNA evidence. The DNA match was found using what is sometimes viewed a controverial tactic known as familial DNA Searching.

Everyone has their own unique DNA signature that specificly can be used to identify an individual, family members share enough common DNA markers to help identify family members as potential matches as well. 

In this case one of Mr. Franklins family has a previous unrelated conviction on a felony weapons charge. It has become standard procedure in many jurisdictions now to collect DNA samples on felony offenders.  Investigators were able to run a DNA sample found at a murder scene against the DNA database. a Partial hit was found on Mr. Franklins family member DNA sample.  Because it was only a partial match it ruled that individual out, but also was able to conclusively prove that a very close relative may have been involved in the murder, which drastically narrowed down the search.

The Grim Sleeper is suspected in at least 11 murders . He like most serial killers chose victims within his own ethnic profile, in this case targeting black women, some of which who worked as prostitutes. Prostitutes are often targets of serial killers because of the lower social profile. Friends and Families often don’t report the victim missing for longer periods of time allowing for more evidence to be lost during the critical hours after the murder.

Serveral years ago another arrest was made by police who claimed they had ballistic evidence for the murders, but that case did not lead to a conviction. Margaret Prescod, who founded the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders and worked with the families of victims in the case said that she is “cautiously optomistic” regarding this latest arrest.

Aerial footage was taken on Wednesday showing police searching cars in the garage of the suspect’s home in south Los Angeles.  The garage was not far from the corridor where the victims’ bodies were dumped.

The close proximity to the body dumping ground is another tell tale sign that the murderer may have personal and intimate knowledge of the area allowing him to elude detection for so many years. Serial killers often tend to be invisible to nearly everyone. Because they do not raise suspision they can lull people into trusting them, and allowing them to get victims to let their guard down, or be placed into vulnerable positions that they may not do with a person they feel uncomfortable with.

Every year over a million women and children become enslaved into a world of sexual slavery. This problem is not just a problem in developing countries of the world, but very much a problem here in the United States as well. By some estimates between 150,000 and 300,000 are sold for sex here in the US.

On January 25, 2010 actors Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher launched a new charity organization called DNA aimed at putting an end to the global sex trafficking trade.

For More information visit http://demiandashton.org/

Many victims of sexual crimes live the remainder of their lives, or a good portion of it, in fear that they will be victimized again. They often want to see their attacker locked up forever as punishment for the torment they experienced.

 Some states actually do have laws on their books to do just that. Most people dont even know such laws exist. They are called civil commitment laws and basically say that when a person becomes and has repeatly shown to be an emminent threat to the community as a whole, the govenment has the ability to incarcerate that individual indefinately.   

“The primary goal is incapacitation, that is, protecting society from people who are predicted to be dangerous in the future,” said Eric Janus, author of “Failure to Protect” and dean at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. “The second goal is to provide treatment to these individuals.”

In 1990, Washington state became the first state to pass a civil commitment law specifically for violent sex offenders. Twenty states now have civil commitment laws.

Indefinate confinement of individuals to mental hospitals or treatment centers for those with severe mental illness has been acceptable in the United States since its close to its birth as a nation. Around turn of the 20th century many laws dealing with sexual psychopaths were passed as women gained more and more rights. But as the century progressed the laws were either repealed or rarely applied.

This week the United States Supreme Court is re-evaluating its position on civil commitment based on an appeal. They have upheld the use of such laws in the past when the goal has been rehabilitation and not further punishment. These laws can mandate indefinate treatment even after their criminal time behind bars has ended. Some argue that these treatments could happen while the person is incarcerated rather than after their sentancing.

The case being heard by the Supreme Court this week centers around a lay that has been used in as many as 77 cases where inmates were held in a federal prison in North Carolina under indefinate commitment.  “The justices will decide whether the program enacted under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 is constitutional by infringing on a traditional state function”.

Alan DuBois, attorney for the federal prisoners, said it was wrong for the United States to claim a public safety argument when justifying continued incarceration.

“This statute is not written constitutionally,” he added. “It effectively does require no connection between the underlying criminal charge and the subsequent commitment. You can be in custody for any crime whatsoever. ”

Lawyer David Hargett convinced the Virginia Supreme Court that his client had a constitutional right to contest his civil commitment.

“I have found talking with people they are shocked to hear somebody can be sentenced by a judge, serve out that entire sentence and then say, ‘Wait a minute, we’re not going to let you go,’ ” Hargett said, calling it a legal “black hole.”

The full story can be viewed on cnn.com

For well over two hours outside a school gymnasium in Richmond, a 15 year old california girl was allegedly beaten and gang raped while a a crowd of approximately 20 people stood by and watched. The crowd managed to stand by and watch, snicker, and even “tweet” about the incident on twitter, the popular social networking site. Not one of them intervened or called the authorities to report the crime.

The reasoning behind why no one got involved gets a little more complex. Some say there was fear of repercussions from the gang conducting the rape and beating. Others say the crowd was overcome with what is known as the bystander effect. The bystander effect is when individuals in a crowd see that everyone else in the crowd is doing or not doing something, and that behavior becomes the accepted social norm. In essense, because no one else was doing anything, it must be ok for me to do nothing.

Some of you may remember the story of Kitty Genovese who was brutally raped, beaten, robbed, and eventually stabbed to death in Queens New York back in 1964. The story gained national attention when it was later revealed that several witnesses heard her scream during the attack during the night, and no one notified the police. One man shouted from his window to leave the girl alone, and the attacker fled, only to return a few minutes later when the police never arrived, and dragged her into a stairwell and stabbed her again leaving her to bleed out in a stairwell.

California has a law that makes it illegal to witness a crime against a child and not report it to police. But in this case technically the crowd did not violate the law which specifies that age of the minor child is 14 or less. The victim in the California gang-rape case was 15 years old.

  “This just gets worse and worse the more you dig into it,” Lt. Mark Gagan of the Richmond Police Department. “It was like a horror movie. I can’t believe not one person felt compelled to help her.”

To date the AP is reporting that five people have been arrested so far in connection with the crime. Three juveniles and two adults.  Richmond police spokesman, Lt. Mark Gagan said that  the three juveniles will be charged as adults. While the complete list of charges is not final yet, the suspects will be facing felony charges like “rape in concert” which can carry a life sentance.

The police were eventually notified when a person called in who had overheard others who were at the scene of the assault talking about the incident. The girl was found unconscious and “brutally assaulted” under a bench shortly before midnight Saturday 

Police have posted a $20,000 reward for anyone who comes to them with information that helps arrest and convict those involved in the attack.

* State only pays for abortions when necessary to protect the woman’s life.

Source: Guttmacher Institute 2009

Source: http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/aborlaws.htm

Background on the National Sex Offenders Registry Our Crimes Against Children Unit at FBI Headquarters coordinated the development of the National Sex Offenders Registry (NSOR) and continues to lead its implementation.

The Pam Lychner Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act of 1996 (Lychner Act) required the Attorney General to establish a national database at the FBI to track the whereabouts and movements of certain convicted sex offenders under Title 42 of the United States Code Section 14072. The National Crime Information Center (NCIC) run by the FBI enables the NSOR to retain the offender’s current registered address and dates of registration, conviction, and residence.

The Lychner Act imposed two major obligations on the FBI that became effective October 3, 1997:

1. To establish a national database that tracks the location and movements of each person who has been convicted of a criminal offense against a victim who is a minor, has been convicted of a sexually violent offense, or is a sexually violent predator.

2. To register and verify the addresses of sex offenders who reside in states without a “minimally sufficient” sex offender registry (SOR) program. Today, all 50 states have minimally sufficient SOR programs.

Under the Act, the FBI may release relevant information to federal, state, and local criminal justice agencies for law enforcement purposes only. Public notification will only be made if it is necessary to protect the public. However, the Act specifically states that in no case shall the FBI release the identity of any victim of an offense that required registration of a sex offender.

The legislation also made it a criminal offense for a registered sex offender to move to another state and knowingly fail to notify the FBI and authorities in the new state. Notification to the FBI and state authorities must be made within 10 days upon moving to a new state and/or establishing residence following release from prison or placed on parole, supervised release, or probation. Upon release, each sex offender is notified of their lawful duty to register with the FBI and appropriate local authorities.

The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexual Violent Offender Registration Program, enacted in 1994, provides a financial incentive for states to establish registration programs for persons who have been convicted of certain sex crimes.

Megan’s Law, enacted in May 1996, amended the Wetterling Program legislation to give states broad discretion to determine to whom notification should be made about offenders, under what circumstances, and about which offenders.

Drug Faciliated sexual assaults are unfortunately a common happening in america and around the world. This video tells the story of a young woman’s experierence on a date with a friend which she had known for a while.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqF9ciGaEpI

Ways you can try to protect yourself from being slipped a drug:

• Never Accept Drinks from a stranger
• Never accept an open drink
• Never lose sight of your drink
• If you leave the table or area where your drink is, take it with you.
• if you forget to take your drink with you, get a new one
• Have trusted friends with you to help keep an eye out
• If your drink has a strange odor or color, throw it away.
• Know your limits.