Meg O'Connor

A woman incarcerated in Georgia since 1992 says she has endured significant abuse, including forcefully having her head shaved, abrupt stops to her hormone therapy, and sexual assault. She has repeatedly attempted suicide and has been in solitary since 2019.

Alisa Reznick’s arrest marks the second time police within the United States have detained a reporter at a pro-Palestine protest in recent months.

Terrence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne have spent decades behind bars even after a jury acquitted them of murder. Now, the Virginia Supreme Court is set to decide their fate.

Fifteen members of the Los Angeles Police Department showed up to detain two Black men having an argument. The violent incident is the latest escalation against the community of unhoused people on Aetna Street in Van Nuys.

More than 70 million people in the U.S. have criminal convictions on their records. An expert talks with The Appeal about how they can break barriers.

Phoenix Police Department Officer Kristopher Bertz shot and killed 19-year-old Jacob Harris in 2019. Now, community members are rallying as Harris’s father Roland appeals a wrongful death lawsuit.

A judge sentenced 17-year-old Celeste Burgess to 90 days in jail after she ended her pregnancy at 29 weeks. Further criminalization of abortion and dwindling reproductive healthcare options will only make cases like these more common, experts say.

Legal experts who spoke with The Appeal warned the criminal justice system will continue to target pregnant people in the coming years.

Jacob Harris’s father is heading to appeals court on Wednesday. Federal judges will decide the fate of his wrongful death suit against the city of Phoenix.

Organizers with the movement say the charges are meant to “send the chilling message that any dissent to Cop City will be punished with the full power and violence of the government.”

Police say they need pay raises to help with hiring and retention. But crime has been falling in LA, even as the department reports having its lowest number of officers in decades.

A new lawsuit alleges that the city is discriminating against people with mental health disabilities by continuing to send armed officers to mental health calls.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has taken legal action against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to stop deputies from hitting incarcerated people in the head so often. Yesterday, LASD said it should not be forced to change.

Lawmakers in seven states proposed bills to make abortion murder punishable by death. Cops arrested three women for their pregnancy outcomes.

A leader in the LGBTQ community weighs in on the attempts by elected officials to legislate gay and trans people out of existence.

As Phoenix begins to displace around 700 people from an encampment near downtown, the ACLU of Arizona is asking a judge to find the city in contempt of a court order prohibiting it from violating the rights of the unhoused.

A preliminary injunction issued this week forbids officials from forcing people charged with low-level offenses to remain in jail because they cannot afford bail.

Uriah Courtney was sentenced to life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. His conviction was overturned due to DNA evidence.

It’s been four years since a Phoenix police officer killed Jacob Harris. Records obtained by The Appeal show officials have made inconsistent or false statements about the night police killed him. As Harris’s friends grow up behind bars, his father won’t stop until he gets justice for his son.

America’s largest county has launched numerous initiatives to shrink its jail population and divert people with mental illness from jail entirely. Here’s an explainer on what the major initiatives are and what, if any, progress has been made.

Los Angeles County is imprisoning more people with mental illness than it did a decade ago—but is failing to provide them with basic treatment. The U.S. Department of Justice says the county jail system is decrepit, dangerous, and unfit to house anyone—let alone people with mental illness.

A judge ruled the report can be used as evidence in the civil case against an ex-NOPD officer who sexually assaulted a teenage rape victim.

In 2015, Los Angeles County created a program to reduce the number of mentally ill people trapped in jail. But since then, the number of people with mental illness incarcerated in LA has instead increased significantly.

Midterm election results show the bad-faith “crime wave” narrative failed to con a critical mass of voters, who instead want a less draconian police state.

A judge allowed a Civil War-era law to go back into effect today. The law requires two to five years in prison for people who provide abortions, except to save the life of the pregnant person.

The stakes for getting reporting on abortion right are very high, but it costs nothing to call out politicians on their BS.

States will have a hard time stopping medication abortion. Abortion pills are safer than Tylenol and have been approved by the FDA since 2000.

The law granted embryos and fetuses the same rights as a person. Civil rights groups sought an injunction out of concern the law could criminalize people who provide or obtain abortions.

The probe will assess whether the SVD engages in a “pattern or practice of gender-biased policing,” according to the DOJ.

Resources from organizations that have spent decades helping people access abortions and defending people who are criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes.

Most abortion bans criminalize providers by making it a felony to perform an abortion. But experts say people who obtain abortions can and will be criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes — they already have been even while Roe was still in place.

Prosecutors across the country could soon be tasked with enforcing abortion laws that require people to reproduce against their will.

Maricopa County elects a new top prosecutor this year. In the meantime, state law could let the county’s conservative county attorney prosecute abortions if Roe falls.

Her jeans were so tight, she couldn’t have been raped, the judges said.

On the night of Jan. 6, Arizona’s former prison director, Charles Ryan, drank half a bottle of tequila and got into a three-hour armed standoff that involved about 50 police officers. After a tense confrontation in which Ryan repeatedly pointed a gun at officers, Tempe police took Ryan into custody and brought him to a hospital — but he was never booked into jail. In the end, Ryan went back home like nothing had happened.

It’s been quite a year for us, to say the least. In May, we unionized. Then our former bosses shut The Appeal down. But we, the workers, resolved to save The Appeal and continue the important work we do covering the criminal legal system.  Since then, we succeeded in becoming a worker-led nonprofit newsroom. We […]

Former top cops say a culture of neglect at the NYPD has left inexperienced and poorly trained officers in charge of some of the department’s most sensitive cases.

Last month, Glamour magazine featured “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” star Mariska Hargitay on the cover of its “Women of the Year” issue. On Nov. 8, an avalanche of A-list celebrities — including “SVU” co-stars Christopher Meloni and Ice-T, actress Melissa McCarthy, and #MeToo co-founder Tarana Burke — honored Hargitay at the Women of the Year Awards which was held at the Rainbow Room, a ballroom that serves as one of the epicenters of New York City high-society.

If Officer Matthew Drake had faced serious discipline for his misconduct, he might not have been on duty the night of Tyshon Jones’s death.

The Appeal is back and we’re worker-run. We’re excited to bring you the fifth edition of our weekly newsletter as we continue to work toward an official relaunch. Today, we also published our first story in a series of pieces we’ll be publishing in the coming weeks as we continue rebuilding and working toward an […]