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The sudden or unexplained death of an individual has a profound
impact on families and friends of the deceased and places significant
responsibility on the agencies tasked with determining the cause of
death. Increasingly, science and technology play a key role in death
investigations. One of the hallmarks of science is adherence to clear and
well-grounded protocols.

In many jurisdictions, responsibility for conducting death investigations
may rest with pathologists, medical examiners, or coroners, in
addition to their other duties. There is little training available in the best
procedures for handling these crucial and sensitive tasks. To help fill the
gap, the National Institute of Justice, joined by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, supported
the development of the guidelines presented in this report.

These guidelines were produced with the vigorous participation of
highly experienced officials and professionals who served on the National
Medicolegal Review Panel. A technical working group of 144 professionals
from across the country provided the grassroots input to the panel’s
work. I applaud their willingness to take the time to serve in this effort
and to hammer out this consensus on the best approach to conducting
thorough and competent death investigations.

Jurisdictions will want to carefully consider these guidelines and
their applicability to local agencies and circumstances. By adhering to
agreed-upon national standards, death investigators can arrive at the truth
about a suspicious death. Families and friends can be consoled by knowing
what happened to their loved one, and justice can be administered on the
foundation of truth that must always guide our work.
Janet Reno
Attorney General ... Read more

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Investigation conducted when the FBI learned that John Lennon contributed $75,000 to a group planning to disrupt the Republican National Convention in 1972. ... Read more

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Desi Arnaz was born March 2, 1917 in Santiago, Cuba. He left Cuba in approximately 1933 and immigrated to America with his parents. However, he and his Mother remained in the U.S. when his Father returned to Cuba. He was a Hollywood actor, musician and a television star. He along with his wife, Lucille Ball, starred in the "I Love Lucy" television show and they formed "Desilu Productions," with Desi Arnaz as its President. This production company produced several television programs.


... Read more

Product Description
Desi Arnaz was born March 2, 1917 in Santiago, Cuba. He left Cuba in approximately 1933 and immigrated to America with his parents. However, he and his Mother remained in the U.S. when his Father returned to Cuba. He was a Hollywood actor, musician and a television star. He along with his wife, Lucille Ball, starred in the "I Love Lucy" television show and they formed "Desilu Productions," with Desi Arnaz as its President. This production company produced several television programs.



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Elvis Presley was not the subject of an FBI investigation. However, the FBI maintains records filed under his name that are comprised of more than 600 pages. These records consist of copies of letters from members of the public commenting on his performances, newspaper clippings, and documents reporting that Mr. Presley was the target of extortion attempts. ... Read more

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The summary is of events leading up to the death of John Dillinger on July 22, 1934. He was shot by FBI Special Agents when he grabbed for his gun while leaving the Biograph Theater in Chicago, Illinois. ... Read more

Product Description
Elvis Presley was not the subject of an FBI investigation. However, the FBI maintains records filed under his name that are comprised of more than 600 pages. These records consist of copies of letters from members of the public commenting on his performances, newspaper clippings, and documents reporting that Mr. Presley was the target of extortion attempts. ... Read more

Product Description
Elvis Presley was not the subject of an FBI investigation. However, the FBI maintains records filed under his name that are comprised of more than 600 pages. These records consist of copies of letters from members of the public commenting on his performances, newspaper clippings, and documents reporting that Mr. Presley was the target of extortion attempts. ... Read more

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Albert Anastasia, born in 1902 in Italy, became a naturalized citizen in 1943 while serving in the United States Army. Mr. Anastasia allegedly controlled racket business ran strong arm activities on the New York City waterfront and was a strike buster. He was also a leading figure in a criminal group located in Brooklyn, New York referred to as "Murder, Incorporated". Mr. Anastasia faced a deportation hearing in 1953 due to his criminal activity. On October 25, 1959, he was killed by a masked gunman while sitting in a barber's chair at the Hotel Park Sheraton located at 7th Avenue and 55th Street in New York City.
... Read more

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The summary is of events leading up to the death of John Dillinger on July 22, 1934. He was shot by FBI Special Agents when he grabbed for his gun while leaving the Biograph Theater in Chicago, Illinois. ... Read more

Product Description
Elvis Presley was not the subject of an FBI investigation. However, the FBI maintains records filed under his name that are comprised of more than 600 pages. These records consist of copies of letters from members of the public commenting on his performances, newspaper clippings, and documents reporting that Mr. Presley was the target of extortion attempts. ... Read more

Product Description
Elvis Presley was not the subject of an FBI investigation. However, the FBI maintains records filed under his name that are comprised of more than 600 pages. These records consist of copies of letters from members of the public commenting on his performances, newspaper clippings, and documents reporting that Mr. Presley was the target of extortion attempts. ... Read more

Product Description
Albert Anastasia, born in 1902 in Italy, became a naturalized citizen in 1943 while serving in the United States Army. Mr. Anastasia allegedly controlled racket business ran strong arm activities on the New York City waterfront and was a strike buster. He was also a leading figure in a criminal group located in Brooklyn, New York referred to as "Murder, Incorporated". Mr. Anastasia faced a deportation hearing in 1953 due to his criminal activity. On October 25, 1959, he was killed by a masked gunman while sitting in a barber's chair at the Hotel Park Sheraton located at 7th Avenue and 55th Street in New York City.
... Read more

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The summary is of events leading up to the death of John Dillinger on July 22, 1934. He was shot by FBI Special Agents when he grabbed for his gun while leaving the Biograph Theater in Chicago, Illinois. ... Read more

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In recent years hate crimes and related legal issues have received a significant
amount of coverage and commentary in the news media. As a result
of several dramatic incidents of hate crimes and domestic terrorism, public
awareness and concern over bias-motivated crimes have heightened, and
the topic has steadily moved up the political agendas of leaders at every
level of government. These developments have led Attorney General Janet
Reno to seek an assessment of laws and strategies designed to fight, gauge,
and prevent bias-motivated offenses; this monograph both reflects and
helps meet that commitment.

A Policymaker’s Guide to Hate Crimes is the product of a review of recent literature
on hate crimes, interviews with hate crime experts, and attendance
at congressional hearings and a planning meeting on hate crimes and terrorism.
It is meant to explain, in layperson’s terms, the scope and nature of
the Nation’s hate crime problem and to provide a general overview of the
current responses to hate crimes by local, State, and Federal government
agencies; law enforcement authorities; and civil rights groups.
This monograph examines the significant strides made by the Federal
Government in creating a baseline of raw data on hate crimes and the
problems that impede the reporting of hate crime incidents. In addition,
the monograph summarizes current State laws and U.S. Supreme Court
decisions regarding hate crimes. Preventive measures and tactics for dealing
with hate crime offenders also are discussed with references to vanguard
programs in specific communities.

We hope that this monograph will educate and guide public officials in
developing policies that address one of the Nation’s most insidious
problems. ... Read more

Product Description
Desi Arnaz was born March 2, 1917 in Santiago, Cuba. He left Cuba in approximately 1933 and immigrated to America with his parents. However, he and his Mother remained in the U.S. when his Father returned to Cuba. He was a Hollywood actor, musician and a television star. He along with his wife, Lucille Ball, starred in the "I Love Lucy" television show and they formed "Desilu Productions," with Desi Arnaz as its President. This production company produced several television programs.


... Read more

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This concerns Lucille Ball's testimony at the 1953 House Select Committee on Un-American Activities hearings which reflected her registration to vote as a communist in 1936 due to the insistence of her grandfather. ... Read more

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This is the story of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, through its extraordinary fifty years at the heart of the civil rights movement and the struggle for justice in America.

Mary Frances Berry, the commission’s chairperson for more than a decade, author of My Face Is Black Is True (“An essential chapter in American history from a distinguished historian”—Nell Painter), tells of the commission’s founding in 1957 by President Eisenhower, in response to burgeoning civil rights protests; how it was designed to be an independent bipartisan Federal agency—made up of six members, with no more than three from one political party, free of interference from Congress and presidents—beholden to no government body, with full subpoena power, and free to decide what it would investigate and report on.

Berry writes that the commission, rather than producing reports that would gather dust on the shelves, began to hold hearings even as it was under attack from Southern segregationists. She writes how the commission’s hearings and reports helped the nonviolent protest movement prick the conscience of the nation then on the road to dismantling segregation, beginning with the battles in Montgomery and Little Rock, the sit-ins and freedom rides, the March on Washington.

We see how reluctant government witnesses and local citizens overcame their fear of reprisal and courageously came forward to testify before the commission; how the commission was instrumental in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965; how Congress soon added to the commission’s jurisdiction the overseeing of discriminating practices—with regard to sex, age, and disability—which helped in the enactment of the Age Discrimination Act of 1978 and the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990.

Berry writes about how the commission’s monitoring of police community relations and affirmative action was fought by various U.S. presidents, chief among them Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, each of whom fired commissioners who disagreed with their policies, among them Dr. Berry, replacing them with commissioners who supported their ideological objectives; and how these commissioners began to downplay the need to remedy discrimination, ignoring reports of unequal access to health care and employment opportunities.

Finally, Dr. Berry’s book makes clear what is needed for the future: a reconfigured commission, fully independent, with an expanded mandate to help oversee all human rights and to make good the promise of democracy—equal protection under the law regardless of race, color, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or national origin.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A story worth telling
I did not realize the major role this little known government agency played in turning the hopes of the civil rights movement into law thathas changed America. The author details how Commissioners courageously held hearings and made investigations even when threatened by local opponents of the change the civil rights protestors sought. Moreimportantly. people who suffered abuse from beatings and shootings and whose livelihoods were threatened came to tell the Commission their concerns and received help. The commissioners also took on government officials even presidents who were slow to enforce the law so many had struggled to achieve. It is a wonderful story. beautifully written,that celebrates without over romanticizing our history. "

A compelling story
Dr Berry has written a compelling story of the troubled history of the Civil Rights Commission.It focuses on the people who came to the Commission for help and not just on the Commissioners. It includes numerous pictures of the ordinary people who were helped.It also includes details of the conflicts with successive Presidents who were reluctant to enforce civil rights - some of whom will surprise you.It traces the history of the Commission which time and again had to struggle to maintain it's existence against numerous forces bent on it's destruction.
Not only is it a very scholarly book with abundant notes including White House documents and oral interviews, but it is also a very readable book.It makes a persuasive case for a human rights commission patterned after the original Civil Rights Commissionto deal with today's problems and issues.Anyone who is interested in how we continue to move forward and how we came this far should be interested in this book

How the civil rights commission didn't get enough respect
Mary Frances Barry's biased, self-congratulatory, polemic of the trials and travails of the civil rights commission over the past decades and her brilliant participation in it.Lots of minutae especially in discussing how presidential administrations, after Eisenhower, were not as deferential to the commission as she believes they should have been. She blames the Reagan administration particularly for inflicting permanent damage on the commission. Barry reaches the conclusion du jour that there has been progress in civil rights since Eisenhower was president but there is still a long way to go, notwithstanding the successes of black Americans including Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama. Nothing new or insightful. This overlong book would have benefited from competent editing.

A Changing Country, Past and Present
In And Justice for All: The United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Continuing Struggle for Freedom in America , Mary Frances Berry chronicles the formation of and work undertaken by the United States Commission on Civil Rights since its inception in 1957. The commission's chairwoman for a decade, Berry tells the story of the commission from the beginning, from its struggles with uncooperative administrations to its successes.

More than merely chronicling the commission's work with various minority groups, the book is a portrait of a country in transition and the still-changing civil rights landscape that makes the role of the commission so vital to our country's well-being and continued evolution. As an historical document, And Justice for All tells the too-rarely acknowledged history of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and is a testament to the progress that has been made--and continues to be made -in this country in civil rights. This book is an important reminder of the changes that have occurred, and those that still need to occur.

Reviewed by Ashley McCall ... Read more