Ethan Brown

Enterprise Editor

Ethan previously worked as a contributing editor at New York Magazine. He is the author of four investigative reporting-driven books about crime and criminal justice policy: “Murder in the Bayou” (Scribner/Simon and Schuster 2016), “Queens Reigns Supreme” (Random House 2005), “Snitch” (Public Affairs 2007), and “Shake the Devil Off” (Henry Holt). “Murder in the Bayou” is a New York Times best-seller; a five-part documentary series based on “Murder in the Bayou” premiered on Showtime in September 2019. Ethan also worked for nearly a decade as a mitigation specialist for attorneys representing indigent defendants facing the death penalty in the Deep South and elsewhere.

@ethanbrown72

Jacklean Davis Was The First Black Woman To Serve As a Homicide Detective in New Orleans. Did A Now Disbarred Prosecutor Bring About Her Fall?

In the 1990s, Davis was a policing superstar, hailed as the best crime solver the Crescent City had ever seen. But a dispute over a paid detail at a festival turned into a major federal case against her, brought by a prosecutor involved whose conduct in other cases was called ‘grotesque.’

Ethan Brown

Jul 01, 2020

Caging Kids Is An American Tradition

Trump didn’t start it, but we can end it.

Ethan Brown

Jan 03, 2019

US Attorney’s Office That Prosecuted Inauguration Day Protesters Has History of Misconduct Findings

Prosecutors on the “J20” case faced grave allegations of misconduct after withholding exculpatory evidence contained in videos from defense attorneys. But this is far from the first time that this office has found itself in hot water.

Ethan Brown, Jessica Brand

Jul 30, 2018

How Naming a Drug Operation for a Fallen Trooper Endangers His Alleged Killer’s Fair Trial

When Kevin Daigle was set to be tried in late April on first-degree murder charges for allegedly killing a Louisiana state trooper in August 2015, he faced the steepest of odds: Prosecutors in the case decided to seek the death penalty, and juries are prone to deliver death verdicts when the life of a law enforcement officer is taken. But […]

Ethan Brown, Jessica Brand

May 01, 2018

The Secret Story of Corruption Behind Meek Mill’s Incarceration

On Jan. 23, 2007, a pair of officers from the Philadelphia Police Department’s Narcotics Field Unit (NFU) received information from a “reliable source” that drug sales were being conducted in the vicinity of 22nd and Jackson Streets, on the city’s south side. “Numerous B/Ms” — NFU officers Reginald Graham and Sylvia Jones would later write in a […]

Ethan Brown, Jessica Brand

Apr 16, 2018