NEW YORK–Forty-five years ago today the man accused of killing President John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, was himself shot and killed on live television as an already stunned nation watched. I wasn't alive then, but that moment in time, and the one just two days before it, when President Kennedy lost his life, were formative for my generation.

Ours was a childhood marked by civil rights protest, Vietnam, and of course, political assassination. Kennedy, King, Malcolm and of course, Bobby Kennedy. But the President's death came first, and with it, parent's full of hope for their children became instead afraid for our generation.

America's sense of hope gave way to cynicism and fear. Now, nearly 50 years later, questions remain about who really killed President Kennedy and why. But a more important question was answered; could we survive it? And we did. President Johnson stepped bravely into the void of leadership. And our country came through that tumultuous time with grace to prove who we can be as Americans.

Now, nearly a half century later, my generation is on the cusp of power. Barack Obama was just a boy when John Kennedy died, at a time when no one believed a black man could ever become president. The fact that one has is not only a tribute to how far we've come. It also signals a return to the hope that was lost all those years ago.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK–As we reported earlier, a federal judge has ordered the immediate release of five Algerian prisoners from the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. The men have been held there for nearly seven years and the ruling is an indictment of Bush administration policies that led it to sweep up innocent men along with hardened terrorists in the so-called war on terror. And this judge, Judge Richard Leon, is no liberal apologist for Al Qaeda. This is a judge appointed by President Bush. And the administration fully expected him to rule otherwise.

But a judge, whatever his political stripes, is still a judge. And this one rightly found that seven years of waiting for our legal system to charge anyone, even GITMO detainees, is enough. The justice department has not said whether it will appeal. But of course, a whole lot is about to change at justice with a new attorney general coming to town, and a president-elect who has vowed to close GITMO once and for all.

When he does, the camp will go down in history as a sad reminder of what happens when mistakes are made at the highest levels of our government, and no one has the courage to acknowledge it.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK - Everyone is talking about the kid. The 8-year-old charged with murder after his father and a friend were shot and killed. Now the judge is allowing the boy to spend Thanksgiving with his mother. Not surprisingly, over the objection of prosecutors. The same prosecutors who let slip the videotape interrogation of the boy.

Prosecutors claim Vincent Romero was killed by his 8-year-old son

And here's what is surprising: There is no lawyer, or even a parent present. At first the boy is consistent in his denials. But later in the tape, the boy gives in. A young child can be persuaded to say he did something, even if he didn't. And statistics support that conclusion.

In the more than 200 cases of people exonerated by DNA, that are proven to be innocent, 25 percent of them confessed to a crime they didn't commit. And study after study shows that young people are highly suggestible. Kids are more likely than adults not only to confess, but when faced with the shock and horror of it all, and confronted repeatedly by police, kids actually start to believe they did something they, in fact, did not do.

That's why there is never an excuse for interrogating a child without a parent present. Even if you don't care about his constitutional rights, which police clearly did not, it's just bad police work. Now the account of what really happened is forever corrupted by the interrogation of a child who may just be a victim.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK–The debate over whether the eight-year-old Arizona boy should be prosecuted as an adult or as a juvenile misses the point entirely: he should not be prosecuted at all.

Most of the civilized world recognizes that children are not criminally responsible for their actions until they reach a level of maturity such that they can clearly distinguish between right and wrong. In the United States, 37 states, including Arizona, have no minimum age at which a child can be prosecuted.

We thus treat our own children more severely than does Pakistan, Myanmar, or Sudan, which fix their age of criminal responsibility at seven. The age of criminal responsibility in France is 13; China, Germany, Italy and Japan, 14; in Scandinavian countries, 15; Brazil, Colombia and Peru, 18. And in most of these countries, young offenders are tried in juvenile courts and provided with social services upon conviction, with incarceration as a last resort.

In the United States, 25,000 young offenders are now serving time for crimes committed as minors but for which they were charged and convicted as adults. These young people are eight times more likely to commit suicide behind bars and five times more likely to become victims of sexual assault than their adult counterparts.

Real questions have emerged from the videotaped interrogation as to whether this third-grader has now given a false confession. But even assuming he was the shooter, pinning any legal blame on him is absurd. Bringing police and incarceration to bear upon a young child whose feet dangle well above the floor is not only cruel to him, it distracts us from the real issues.

Arizona’s lax gun laws do not require adults to keep their guns away from children, or even to install trigger locks. As long as we allow angry or confused kids access to guns, we will have gun deaths. Are we so afraid to address the real issue that we’d prosecute a little boy?

–Lisa Bloom, In Session anchor

NEW YORK - Here in New York a surprising alibi for a murder suspect. It's a big federal drug case and the death penalty is on the table. But now it seems the defendant may have an alibi. His metro card.

New York City subway system

The man has been released on bond which is highly unusual in a federal murder case, and prosecutors have reopened their investigation because the card traces his movements on the night of the shooting. And he wasn't there, he was on the subway.

It’s a lucky break not possible before the modern era, where plastic metro cards have become ubiquitous. In fact, electronic tracing of our lives has become a part of almost every case, whether to undermine an alibi or to prove one.

Makes you wonder about all the cases that came before, about people sitting in prison for the last twenty or more years. Folks who don't have metro cards or EZ Pass or surveillance cameras to prove their innocence. Folks whose convictions are based on faulty eyewitness identification or coerced confessions or a rush to judgment on the part of police and prosecutors.

DNA is one tool that has helped to exonerate over two hundred people. If you just do the math that suggests hundreds, possibly thousands more in prison on bad convictions. That is why every state should be required to preserve DNA to allow testing in cases where it can establish innocence. Most cases don't have DNA evidence. But in those that do, this is the least that justice requires.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK–Twelve minutes of video have just been released, showing the eight-year-old Arizona boy accused of double murder doing something surprising: calmly answering police questions after the killings, denying any involvement.

An 8-year-old boy accused in the shooting deaths of his father and another man interviewed by police

I’ve watched all of the video that’s been released, and the boy certainly comes across as consistent and believable in his denials. He says he came home from school to find the bloody bodies of his father and his father’s friend. He touched his father’s body to see if he was “a little bit alive,” then cried, then ran to a neighbor’s house for help. He said a car sped away from the scene.

Authorities say that the boy confessed to the premeditated killing. If he did, it’s not on the portion of the tape I saw. Which raises more disturbing questions, namely, how reliable is the confession of an eight year old when he’s questioned at length by police without an attorney, parent or guardian present? What kind of people are we to try this boy as an adult, as Arizona authorities are considering, when he would never be treated as an adult in any other context?

At least the interrogation was videotaped, so the judge can watch it all and decide whether the boy was susceptible to suggestion. Children that young will tell adults what they want to hear, without any appreciation of the long-term consequences. Let’s not prejudge this boy until the facts are clear.

–Lisa Bloom, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – The verdict is in. Las Vegas Judge Elizabeth Halverson has been permanently removed from the bench and told by The State Commission on Judicial Conduct that she can never take the bench again.

Elizabeth Halverson has been permanently removed from the bench

The decision had been delayed when Halverson was hospitalized with severe head injuries. Her husband apparently hit her over the head with a frying pan. I kid you not. Ed Halverson copped a plea last month. He faces 3 to 10 years in prison for the attack.

Domestic violence is a serious issue. I even feel sorry for Elizabeth Halverson. She suffers from adjustment disorder, anxiety and depression. She's obese and uses bottled oxygen to help her breathe and a motorized scooter to get around. She is a cancer survivor with congestive heart failure, sleep apnea, crohn’s disease and diabetes. But she was also a judge. One who behaved less than honorably.

She slept during hearings, made improper contact with jurors, and mistreated her staff. She was unrepentant, unprofessional, and downright disrespectful of her colleagues. She even made misleading statements to reporters covering her case.

I guess Judge Halverson didn't know what most other judges do: That a judge is not a "person" when she is wearing that black robe. The rest of us can protest the law or even break it, if we want to face the consequences. But judges cant. Their job is to execute the law. Judges are the cement to our system of justice. So, a judge who cannot behave as a judge should simply stop being one. That's why Judge Halverson had to go.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK - The law of defamation protects our reputations from malicious and untrue misstatements of fact that could damage the good name so many of us work so hard to establish - as doctors, as lawyers, journalists, and teachers.

Michael Hackley filed a defamation suit

That's right, teachers. Because think about it. We trust teachers to protect and nurture our children, to keep them safe from harm. A teacher’s reputation for decency is key. An allegation of wrongdoing can be the undoing of a teacher’s professional life and livelihood. And we all know the damage false allegations can do.

The Salem Witch Trials is perhaps the original American example. Those false allegations in 1692 led to the execution of 19 men and women. And think about McMartin, with hundreds of allegations made against that family. After six years of criminal trials, no convictions were obtained, and all charges were dropped in 1990. But not before young minds were manipulated and lives were destroyed. Out of the mouths of babes.

In Florida, Michael Hackley is suing for defamation after a young girl accused him of inappropriate touching. Maybe she's telling the truth. Maybe she isn't. But when a child makes an accusation, adults should apply skepticism at the very least. The school board was unable to substantiate the allegation and local prosecutors dropped the case. But Mr. Hackley’s reputation can never be recovered. And out of the mouths of babes does not always come the truth.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK - Today a little last word on one word: Civility. Because I have noticed, over the last 8 years, an increasing lack of civility in this country.

In Session anchor Jami Floyd

Am I the only one who remembers the post 9/11 spirit? With everyone helping everyone else and the country coming together in ways large and small? I remember the compassion, the spirit of community, and just the plain everyday concern Americans demonstrated toward one another.

And then, somehow, it slipped away. It slipped away as Osama Bin Laden slipped away and our focus on finding him. It slipped away as the economy slipped away with bad economic planning and policy.

Our civil rights, they've slipped away too, with tribunals instead of trials, wiretapping without warrants, and Presidential powers without precedent. And with the loss of our civil rights and everything else, it's no wonder civility went with it.

When families are feeling economic strain, losing their jobs, their homes, and even their sons and daughters fighting two wars overseas, it becomes more difficult to "have a nice day" or say "thank you" about much of anything.

But now change is coming. And I predict, with it, a resurgence of civility. So let's start right here, right now.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK–An 11-year-old Florida boy was abandoned at a Nebraska hospital Wednesday, the 31st child abandoned since Nebraska’s “safe haven” law took effect in July. It was intended to protect unwanted newborns from being left in dumpsters, like safe haven laws in 49 other states, but unlike the others, Nebraska’s law doesn't set any age limit.

In Session anchor Lisa Bloom

Many of the dropped-off kids have been teens and nearly all are older than 10. Several parents or guardians who left children in Nebraska reported out-of-control behavior. The parent of one said she was trying to "scare" her son. Unemployed widower Gary Staton left nine of his 10 children, ranging from a year old to 17, at an Omaha hospital in September. Staton said: "I didn't think I could do it alone. I fell apart."

The Legislature opens a special session Friday to fix the law. Most legislators have already agreed to add an age limit of 3 days. I don’t know what the right age is, but I do know this: this strange legal loophole has exposed a big problem we need to address: parents who cannot care for their children.

As a former attorney for abused kids, I know that these are the children most likely to be abused or neglected. Close the loophole, sure, but let’s give parents better options when they lose a spouse, lose a job, or lose control of their kids.

Parenting is hard, and some people have nowhere to turn. I’d rather see teens dropped off in a safe place than abused.

–Lisa Bloom, In Session anchor