Some of Today's State News Headlines
Today is Monday January 28, 2008
DNA testing program for Ohio inmates deeply flawed
COLUMBUS (AP) - The state's DNA testing program for inmates seeking to prove their innocence is so flawed that police and courts routinely discard evidence after trials, The Columbus Dispatch reported Sunday.
Judges also ignore requests for DNA testing, leaving inmates in legal limbo, and nearly a third of the denials examined by the newspaper failed to cite a specific reason, as required by state law.
In other cases, there is no indication that anyone even read the inmate's request for DNA testing, The Dispatch reported.
Gov. Ted Strickland told the newspaper he is calling for an overhaul that would speed up the review process, open up testing to more inmates and establish statewide standards for preserving evidence.
Across the country, more than 200 inmates have been freed because of DNA tests, including six from Ohio. Four of those came before the state created a formal DNA testing program in 2003.
Since then, 313 Ohio inmates have applied but only 14 tests have been done. In some cases, evidence has been lost or destroyed, The Dispatch said.
(Refer to page 5 of today's Daily Chief-Union)
‘Indian Head' boulder sparks Kentucky-Ohio rift
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - When an Ohio historian helped pull a massive sandstone boulder from the bottom of the Ohio River this summer, he did not think it would set off a charged dispute between Kentucky and Ohio.
It did. One Kentucky legislator is demanding the 8-ton rock's return, and another believes the matter ultimately will be decided in the courts.
Rep. Reginald Meeks, D-Louisville, who is a member of Kentucky's Native American Heritage Commission, is sponsoring a resolution in the Kentucky General Assembly that condemns the rock's removal and calls for its return to Kentucky.
"Basically, this was a raid," Meeks said of the efforts to extract the rock and take it to Portsmouth, Ohio, about 110 miles southeast of Cincinnati. "We're going to use all legal means to get them to return it to its rightful place in the commonwealth. And if that doesn't work, we may need to send a raiding party into Portsmouth."
Steve Shaffer, who has a degree in historical interpretation from Ohio University, scoffs at characterizing the operation as a raid. Shaffer says the rock had been submerged since at least 1920.
(Refer to page 5 of today's Daily Chief-Union)
Governments see dollar signs in nonprofit hospitals
OLUMBUS (AP) - At first glance, two big news items of last week - a projected state budget deficit of up to $1.9 billion, and Attorney General Marc Dann's probe into the finances of Ohio's nonprofit hospitals - may seem only distantly related.
But look again.
There is a reason Dann, fellow state attorneys general, congressional Republicans and the Internal Revenue Service all are pushing nonprofit hospitals for more thorough financial reporting: Hospitals represent the largest piece of a nonprofit sector that has been succeeding as other, taxpaying industries fail.
According to the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, the number of charitable nonprofits filing with the IRS jumped 68 percent between 1993 and 2003, to 837,027. Such businesses are not required to pay the taxes other businesses pay because they are deemed to provide charitable benefit to their communities.
Dann wants Ohio's 174 nonprofit hospitals, including the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic, to come forth with evidence that they are worthy of their charitable status. In theory at least, failure on the hospitals' part to make a convincing case could mean an influx of new tax revenue for Ohio's dwindling reserves without the whisper of a statewide tax increase.
(Refer to page 5 of today's Daily Chief-Union)
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