Jail

In the state's first decision involving juries and social media, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has called on judges to better police jurors' use of the Internet to make sure they do not discuss cases online, and thus risk a mistrial. The court said judges need to do more to explain to jurors that refraining from conversations about a case also means not posting anything about it on Facebook or Twitter, common practice in today's technology-driven world. "Jurors must separate and insulate their jury service from their digital lives," the court said in a ruling involving a Plymouth Superior Court...

HOUSTON - A Texas man convicted of trying to sneak out of the United States to give Al Qaeda restricted military documents, GPS equipment, and money was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison, the maximum punishment possible. Barry Walter Bujol Jr. was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine during his sentencing hearing before US District Judge David Hittner. Bujol was convicted in November on charges of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and aggravated identity theft.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- When August arrives in the nation's capital, Washingtonians stay inside to avoid the steamy heat. But after almost a month in jail, New York Times reporter Judith Miller says she would like nothing better than to get outdoors. "She joked that the swampy, humid air of Washington smelled as sweet as could be" on the couple of occasions that she was allowed outside at the Alexandria Detention Center, said Times managing editor Jill Abramson, who visited Miller last week.

The captain and the navigator of a ship that ran aground on a New Zealand reef last year in what authorities have called the country's worst maritime environmental disaster were each sentenced Friday to seven months in jail. About 400 tons of fuel oil spilled on Astrolabe Reef near Tauranga and at least 2,000 sea birds died in the Oct. 5 grounding of the cargo ship Rena. Judge Robert Wolff from the Tauranga District Court sentenced the ship's captain, Mauro Balomaga, and navigating officer, Leonil Relon, both of the Philippines.

DETROIT - Stoic and publicly silent through months of a sexual scandal, the woman whose relationship with former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick led to his downfall broke her silence yesterday, shedding tears as she pleaded guilty. Christine Beatty, a former aide to Kilpatrick, accepted a four-month jail sentence in exchange for admitting to obstruction-of-justice charges for her actions in a lawsuit brought by two police officers. The officers said that Kilpatrick retaliated against them when they suspected wrongdoing by members of his inner circle.

ATHENS -- Tammy Crow had to put it all aside for about four minutes. The sports utility vehicle veering off a snowy road. The two people who died. The three-month jail sentence awaiting back home. Shrugging off critics who said she had no place on the US Olympic team, Crow fulfilled her life's ambition by helping the Americans win a bronze medal in synchronized swimming last night. The Russians, overcoming a glitch in their music that forced them to start over, completed a sweep of the synchro golds with a team performance that received perfect 10s across the board in...

A fugitive indicted in the savage slayings of a Brockton woman and her toddler son will be released from an Ecuadoran jail in a few months unless the United States submits evidence to prosecute him there, a prosecutor in Ecuador said this week. Luis Agustin Guaman, a 41-year-old roofer, is halfway through an eight-month jail sentence in Ecuador for possessing another man's passport, which he used to flee the United States the night the bludgeoned bodies of his former housemate, Maria Avelina Palaguachi, and her 2-year-old son, Brian Caguana, were found in a large metal trash...

Mariano Malave was not the worst kid in the world, but all he wanted to do was smoke weed. To smoke it all the time he had to sell it all the time, and as he was not invisible he was frequently arrested by members of the Boston Police Department. This brought him into regular and unavoidable contact with Trina Higgins, a probation officer at Dorchester District Court. Higgins has been around the block and can tell the difference between a banger and a kid who is just hopelessly stuck in a rut, and it was in that second category that she placed Mariano.

A Delaware man convicted of fraud for faking his way into Harvard could be sentenced to substantial jail time for violating his probation by citing the Ivy League school on a resume. Adam Wheeler was sentenced last year to 2 ½ years in a county jail and 10 years on probation for identity fraud and other charges. Wheeler served one month in jail while awaiting trial, and the sentence was mostly suspended. Wheeler, originally from Milton, Del., was barred under terms of his probation from representing himself as a Harvard student or graduate.

A hostage situation was resolved swiftly Tuesday morning at the Essex County House of Correction in Middleton, the sheriff's office said. William Goddard, 42, of Worcester, an inmate who has been awaiting trial in the facility since June, took a computer teacher hostage. The standoff began at 8:10 a.m. and lasted 15 to 20 minutes, said Barbara Maher, chief of staff for Sheriff Frank G. Cousins Jr. Goddard appeared to be having a "mental health situation," she said. ". . . He wasn't thinking clearly.

An official says a court in central Vietnam has sentenced three political activists to up to three and a half years in prison for distributing anti-government leaflets. Presiding Judge Vi Van Chat said that the three were convicted of "spreading propaganda against the state" at Thursday's half-day trial in Nghe An province. He says they were also ordered to serve up to 18 months under house arrest, adding that the fourth defendant was given a two-year suspended sentence.

Re " State cuts jails' HIV programs: Sheriffs caution on health impact " by Maria Cramer (Page A1, May 14): The proposed cuts to HIV prevention and testing programs in Massachusetts' county jails would have not only devastating human consequences for incarcerated populations and their communities, but dire financial ones for an already overburdened health care system. As an HIV physician, I take care of a large number of patients who received their diagnosis while incarcerated.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday that sought to hold Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral and the superintendent of the county jail responsible for the death of a 49-year-old immigrant detainee. The detainee, Pedro Tavarez, fell ill while in custody and died in 2009 from a heart attack caused by a bacterial infection. US District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf said that Tavarez's family could not show that Cabral and Suffolk House of Correction superintendent Gerard Horgan were deliberately indifferent to the treatment of Tavarez, the standard to hold them...

Actor Charlie Sheen's former wife has received a deferred judgment in a drug case in Aspen, Colo., meaning her record will be cleared if she lives up to terms of a one-year probation. Brooke Mueller pleaded guilty in March to felony drug possession of four grams or less of cocaine. The charge stemmed from her arrest Dec. 3 after another woman reported being assaulted at a nightclub. Mueller's spokesman confirms that terms of a sentence handed down Monday bar Mueller from drinking alcohol while she is on probation.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — A former Rutgers University student who used a webcam to spy on his gay roommate was sentenced Monday to 30 days in jail — just a fraction of the maximum — in a case that focused attention on anti-gay bullying, teen suicide and hate-crime laws in the fast-changing Internet age. Dharun Ravi, 20, was also placed on three years' probation for his part in an episode that burst onto the front pages after his...

Two Americans jailed for allegedly driving a group of would-be soldiers during a protest demanding the restoration of Haiti's army face up to three years in prison if convicted on conspiracy charges, a prosecutor said Monday. Prosecutor Jean-Renel Senatus said in his office at the courthouse that one of the Americans, Jason William Petrie, was of concern because he had confessed in jail to having ties to criminal gangs. "He has a lot of information he can give us," Senatus told The Associated Press.

LACONIA, N.H. -- An elementary school principal in Massachusetts has been accused of trying to smuggle cigarettes and raw tobacco into the prison where her son was an inmate. Police said Linda McLaughlin, principal of Peter W. Reilly Elementary School in Lowell, left cigarettes, disposable lighters, and tobacco on the ground near the Lakes Region Facility in Laconia last month. Police had been investigating McLaughlin, 55, of Dracut, and arrested her Friday after watching her make a delivery, officials said.

A Falmouth man has been sentenced to a year in jail for secretly video recording a sexual encounter. Justin Mustafa pleaded guilty in Falmouth District Court on Monday to one count of photographing an unsuspecting nude person. He was sentenced to two years in the Barnstable County jail, with one year suspended. After his release he will remain on probation until 2014 when he must remain drug and alcohol free and is to have no contact with the victim. Authorities say the 23-year-old Mustafa set up a video camera in his closet and filmed an encounter he had...

A court in Bahrain granted bail Sunday for a jailed rights activist, but he remained in detention to await another court hearing later this week, a defense lawyer said. Mohammed Ahmed said bail was set at 300 dinars ($798) for Nabel Rajab, who was arrested earlier this month as part of the Gulf kingdom's crackdowns on dissent. Rajab faces charges of using social media to insult Bahraini authorities and encouraging protests. Bahrain's majority Shiites began an uprising in February 2011 seeking to end the political controls of the ruling Sunni monarchy.

A prison spokeswoman says Israel's jailed former president has been freed for a few hours to attend his son's wedding. Spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said Moshe Katsav was granted a seven-hour furlough on Sunday. She said he was let out unattended and needs to be back at prison by midnight. "A psychiatric evaluation determined that he is not dangerous," she said. Katsav, 66, was jailed in December after being convicted of raping a former female employee when he was a minister and of sexually harassing two other women when he was president from 2000 to 2007.