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Justice System Timeline
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CRIMINAL RECORD
Criminal record was created to help maintain offenders. Records are maintained by various agencies in all levels of government. -
STATE POLICE FORCE: ORIGINS
The Pennsylvania State Police became the first state police agency established in the United States -
NELLIE WICKS
A Head Attendant for the New York State Department of Corrections, becomes the first female law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty when she was fatally stabbed by an inmate. -
FIRST US POLICEWOMAN HIRED
Lola Baldwin was paid $75 dollars a month during the four-and-half month event and was given arrest authority. She recruited volunteers from Portland’s women’s clubs to provide surveillance of the 400-acre fairgrounds. She was officially sworn in as the nation’s first paid policewoman in 1908. -
FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), formerly the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States, and its principal federal law enforcement agency. -
CREATION OF PUBLIC LANDS
Attorney General Wickersham established "The Public Lands Division" in response to the need to "properly attend to the enormous and increasing volume of business relating to the public lands of the United States, and of Indian affairs. -
District Courts
To create more efficient federal judiciary, Congress votes to abolish the US circuit courts and transfer their jurisdiction to district courts. -
POLICE AUTOMOBILES
The Berkeley (CA) Police Department becomes the country's first agency to have all patrol officers using automobiles. -
AUTO THEFT ADDRESSED
Congress in 1919 passes the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, also known as the Dyer Act. This act authorizes the FBI to investigate auto thefts that cross state lines. Prior to the passage of this act, jurisdictional boundaries between states hampered the ability of law enforcement officials to thwart (prevent someone from accomplishing something) interstate auto theft rings. -
ACLU FORMED
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that was created to defend the Constitutional rights and liberties of all Americans. Well-known pacifist and author Roger Nash Baldwin, alongside feminist lawyer Crystal Eastman and law professor Walter Nelles, are credited with founding the organization in 1920 -
FIRST POLICE CRIME LAB ESTABLISHED
n 1923, The Los Angeles Police Department establishes the first police department crime laboratory in the United States. -
THE LIE DETECTOR INVENTED
John Larson, a University of California medical student, invented the modern lie detector (polygraph) in 1921. Used in police interrogation and investigation since 1924, the lie detector is still controversial among psychologists, and is not always judicially acceptable. The name polygraph comes from the fact that the machine records several different body responses simultaneously as the individual is questioned. -
Judges' Bills
The Supreme Court justices recommend the Judges' Bill to Congress for approval. Congress agrees to give the Court greater authority in determining which cases it will hear. -
COLORADO STATE PENITENTIARY
Eight Correctional Officers are killed at the Colorado State Penitentiary, the most ever to die in one incident at a correctional institution -
UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS
The United States Congress granted Attorneys Generals office the ability to collect, classify, and preserve identification. -
POWELL VS ALABAMA
Overturned the convictions of nine black men who had allegedly raped two white women. Among other provisions, court reasoned that the right to a lawyers fundamental to a fair trial and the trial judge must inform a defendant of the right. -
FIRST FIELD STAFF
An August 1953 Division Memo on "Organization and Personnel of the Lands Division" indicates that "The Field Staff was employed beginning about 1932, at the start of the "New Deal" program for duties in connection with the Resettlement Program, the acquisition of lands under the "Weeks Forestry Act" -
BONNIE AND CLYDE
These lovers met in 1930 and after Clyde escaped from jail in 1931 and was brought back in, he got early parole. After Clyde was released, Bonnie joined along and they went on a robbing rampage, killing those who stood in their path. Eventually their fun came to an end in 1934 when they were shot and killed by a group of four Texas officers -
JOHN DILLINGER
The successful investigation catapulted the largely-unknown agency to worldwide fame and was the beginning of the end of the lawless gangster years. -
RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
The United Nations adopts the Declaration on the Rights of the Child, which recognizes that children need special legal protections because of their immaturity. The United States ratifies. -
SUPREME COURT: RIGHT TO COUNSEL
Gideon v. Wainwright (1963 Supreme Court decision). At the time that Clarence Earl Gideon was charged with breaking and entering into a Panama City, Florida pool hall and stealing money from vending machines, the state of Florida provided attorneys to criminal defendants only in cases where a possible penalty was death. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. -
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
A gang of 15 men was waiting to make their move.
The robbers had befriended train employees and studied schedules and routines of postal workers. Over £2.5 million was taken from the train.However, one man, Ronnie Briggs, maintained his notoriety by continuing to terrorize the authorities after escaping from jail. -
DALLAS POLICE OFFICER
Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit is shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald after Oswald assassinates President John F. Kennedy. -
CIVIL RIGHTS ACT
It is a landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations. -
ESCOBEDO VS ILLINOIS
It was a United States Supreme Court case holding that criminal suspects have a right to counsel during police interrogations under the Sixth Amendment. -
MIRANDA RIGHTS
On this day in 1966, the Supreme Court hands down its decision in Miranda v. Arizona, establishing the principle that all criminal suspects must be advised of their rights before interrogation -
911
, the National Fire Chief’s Association suggested a national emergency phone number in 1957. But it wasn’t until 1967 that President Lyndon B. Johnson helped get the ball rolling. Why the numbers 9-1-1? Simply put, the phone number 9-1-1 is short, easy to remember, and can be dialed relatively quickly given the few digits -
IN RE GAULT OF 1967
The Supreme Court affirmed the necessity of requiring juvenile’s courts to respect due process of juveniles during their proceedings”. This gave the individuals the right to receive a fair treatment under the law of minors -
Federal Judicial Center
Congress establishes a Federal Judicial Center to help Supreme Court justices better manage their growing caseload. -
CHARLIE MANSON AND THE TATE LABIANCA MURDERS
It took nearly 5 months to track down Charles Manson. After finally being caught and put through trial he was issued a death sentence which was vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s declaration of the penalty’s unconstitutionality. -
RICO ACT DRAFTED
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act was enacted as part of the larger Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. It was drafted by G. Robert Blakey to strip organized crime of the protection and profits it received by influencing and infiltrating legitimate business. -
WINSHIP CASE
In 1970, in the Winship case, the Court decided that in juvenile court proceedings involving delinquency, the standard of proof for conviction should be the same as that for adults in criminal court—proof beyond a reasonable doubt” -
CALIFORNIA PATROL SHOOTOUT
Four California Highway Patrolmen, James Pence, Roger Gore, Walt Frago and George Alleyn died in a 4 minute gun battle with two heavily-armed suspects. The Newhall Incident, as it became known, reverberated throughout the law enforcement community and led to major reforms in training procedures, firearms use, and arrest techniques. -
DEATH PENALTY RULED CONSTITUTIONAL
the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty systems then in place were unconstitutional violations of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual” punishments -
KEVLAR: POLICE PROTECTION TAKES A HUGE STEP FORWARD
The National Institute of Justice initiates a project in 1972 that leads to the development of lightweight, flexible, and comfortable protective body armor for the police. The body armor is made from Kevlar, a fabric originally developed to replace steel belting for radial tires. -
JUVENILE JUSTICE AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION ACT
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) is based on a broad consensus that children, youth, and families involved with the juvenile and criminal courts should be guarded by federal standards for care and custody, while also upholding the interests of community safety and the prevention of victimization. -
ADAM WALSH AND CODE ADAM
6-year-old Adam Walsh was abducted from a Sears department store in Florida. His decapitated head was found 16 days later. Named in his honor, the Code Adam Program helps ensure that children are recovered safely and quickly if they are lost in stores by having employees announce “Code Adam” warnings along with the child’s description over their intercom systems to alert patrons to be on the lookout for lost children -
US COURT OF APPEALS
Congress establishes a national court of appeals defined by its jurisdiction rather than by geography -
HONORING LAW ENFORCEMENT
President Ronald Reagan signs Public Law 98-534, authorizing the Law Enforcement Officers Fund to establish a Memorial in Washington, D.C. to honor law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty. -
DNA FIRST USED FOR BIOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION
In September 1984, University of Leicester geneticist Dr. Alec Jeffreys found what he called “a horrible, smudgy, blurry mess” on a slide containing biological material from his assistant, Jenny Foxon. After studying the sample closer, he identified a family group in the sample and realized he could distinguish all three members of Foxon’s family by a simple pattern of inheritance. -
FAWAZ YOUNIS, TERRORIST
Fawaz Younis becomes the first suspected foreign terrorist arrested for a crime against Americans on foreign soil. In March 1989, Younis is sentenced by a U.S. District Court to 30 years for the hijacking of a Jordanian plane carrying two Americans on Sept. 13, 1987. -
VIOLATING 8TH AMENDMENT
The courts ruled that executing an individual under the age of 16 violated the Eighth Amendment. It was seen as cruel and unusual punishment, therefore, the jury of the Supreme Court had to consider the age of the offender rather to impose the death penalty or not -
JEFFREY DAHMER: SERIAL KILLER’S INSANITY DEFENSE FAILS
The legal importance of the Dahmer case was to illustrate the difficulty of succeeding on a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. -
MEGANS LAW
Megan's Law is the name for a federal law, and informal name for subsequent state laws, in the United States requiring law enforcement authorities to make information available to the public regarding registered sex offenders. -
ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY
The policy is made to promote concerns and prevent the possession of the use of drugs or weapons on the grounds of a school. Therefore, the one who possess the item will be banned from the item and punished. -
AMBER HAGERMAN
9-year-old Amber Hagerman who was kidnapped and murdered in Texas in 1996. Her mangled body was found face down in a creek four days after her abduction, however, her killer has never been identified. The AMBERr Alert system provides repeated broadcasts via television, radio, highway notification signs, and text messages about child abductions and perpetrator details in efforts to garner tips from the public to ultimately locate missing children. -
LAW ENFORCEMENT MUSEUM
President William Jefferson Clinton signs into law Public Law 106-492, authorizing the NLEOMF to build the National Law Enforcement Museum -
PATRIOT ACT
President George W. Bush signs the USA Patriot Act in 2001, a controversial anti-terrorism law that allows law enforcement agencies to employ court-approved wiretaps on suspected terrorists, share criminal investigative information with counterterrorism investigators andother government officials, and work with other government agencies with the aim of securing U.S. borders and attacking international money laundering. -
HOMELAND SECURITY
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a cabinet department of the United States federal government with responsibilities in public security. Its stated missions involve anti-terrorism, border security, immigration and customs, cyber security, and disaster prevention and management It was created in response to the September 11 attacks and is the youngest U.S. cabinet department -
JUSTICE FOR ALL ACT
George Bush signed the Justice for All Act, which significantly enhanced funding and guidelines for the use of DNA technology in the judicial process. -
ROPER VS SIMMONS
The case of Roper verses Simmons in 2005 was the decision of the Supreme Court that it is unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes when under the age of 18. It abolished the juvenile death penalty and sentenced them to a youth offender system or to an adult prison -
CHANGES MADE IN LIFE SENTENCES FOR JUVENILES
In 2005, the U. S. Supreme Court forbade the death penalty for juveniles. In 2010 the Supreme Court limited life sentences without parole for young criminals who commit murder. It was ruled unconstitutional to give a criminal who was under 18 at the time of the crime, a life term in prison with no chance for parole for crimes other than murder. -
JUVENILE DEFENDERS SENTENCED TO LIFE
As of 2010, the Supreme Court holds that “juvenile offenders may not be sentenced to life in prison without parole… [unless they are found guilty of homicide. It is said that the punishment violates the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment
