Alabama plans to execute Kenneth Smith next month by suffocating him with nitrogen. But the new method is untested—since I’m supposed to be in the room with Kenny when he dies, the state has warned me I might die too.
On Election Day, voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont will decide whether to close loopholes in their state constitutions allowing the forced labor of incarcerated people.
New laws imposing criminal penalties for trans healthcare follow a long legislative history of explicitly targeting queer people in the United States.
Mayor Randall Woodfin is increasing police funding and ignoring calls for non-law enforcement public safety alternatives.
Law enforcement agencies are creating online content, often at the expense of people they have arrested.
In 1998, Toforest Johnson was sentenced to die for the 1995 shooting death of an off-duty sheriff’s deputy. Now, the city’s district attorney is advocating for a new trial.
Approximately 100 men will be transported to Draper Correctional Facility, which has long been known for its nightmarish conditions.
‘It was almost like they were going to do whatever they could to demean him and take away his dignity,’ Woods’s spiritual adviser said.
‘I think everyone involved— the governor, the attorney general, the DOC commissioner—everyone knew it,’ his lawyer said.
Josie Duffy Rice and guest host Donovan X. Ramsey talk with LaTonya Tate, executive director and founder of the Alabama Justice Initiative, about probation and parole.
A survey of roughly 1,000 people found that 1 in 5 had been turned down for a diversion program because they couldn’t afford the costs of drug tests and monitoring devices.
Brittany Smith will most likely go to trial, where she faces up to a life sentence.
Brittany Smith, who has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a man she says brutally raped her, argued in court this week that she acted in self-defense and should be immune from prosecution.
With Appeal staff reporter Lauren Gill
Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Alabama have all authorized the practice in capital punishment. So what happens now?
In March, Coley McCraney was arrested and charged with capital murder in the 1999 killings of two teenage girls. But his attorneys say he’s innocent, and are now seeking information related to alleged police involvement in the homicides.
Young people convicted as adults face a ‘life sentence’ of registry restrictions, attorneys say.
The parole board failed to comply with a new law about notifying victims, the board’s director said.
In 1998, prosecutors failed to tell the defense that a key witness in Toforest Johnson’s capital murder trial would receive thousands of dollars in reward money for her testimony, Johnson’s attorneys say. Now a Birmingham judge must decide whether their argument has merit.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics relies in part on states to self-report prison capacity numbers, which can result in a misleading snapshot of overcrowding in the U.S.
Richard Kinder thought he would die in an Alabama prison until the Supreme Court ruled mandatory juvenile life without parole unconstitutional. But last year, despite a judge concluding there was “uncontradicted evidence” that Kinder had worked to rehabilitate himself, the state parole board refused him release.
Police in Ozark said they solved the 1999 murders of two teenage girls using a genealogy database. But Coley McCraney‘s attorneys say that the case against their client is far from certain.
In January, when Phil Sims became the sheriff of Marshall County, Alabama, he found a cardboard box in a storage closet containing five government-issued smartphones, each with multiple holes drilled clear through them. His predecessor had destroyed them. The hard drives had been removed from his computers. Records were missing. The jail’s refrigerators and shelves […]
Since 2017, LaToni Daniel has been incarcerated pretrial in a capital murder case. During that time, Daniel became pregnant, and she just delivered a baby boy. But as she brings in new life, she also faces the death penalty.
A wave of hunger strikes hit Alabama prisons as DOJ released a report calling the facilities “unconstitutional.”
In 2018, Brittany Smith killed a man who she said brutally raped her. Smith was charged with murder and she now faces life in prison as well as challenges getting adequate treatment at a state psychiatric hospital.
The program was supposed to target ‘leading’ violent offenders. Today it’s sweeping up low-level, and disproportionately Black, defendants.
Terrance has been jailed repeatedly over court debt for fishing to feed his family.
A new report details Alabama’s “War on Marijuana” ahead of a key DA election.
The governor is making sheriffs sign an oath promising they won’t misuse funds meant to feed jail prisoners. But some sheriffs are already pushing back.
Two teenagers are facing life without parole sentences for capital murder, though it’s not clear they pulled the trigger.
Jeffery Parker was shot to death by a police officer in his Huntsville home. A grand jury handed up an indictment for murder, but the mayor and City Council appear to be throwing their support behind the officer.
Jacqueline Dixon shot her husband to death in Alabama, “Stand Your Ground” state, after she said he charged at her. He had a history of domestic violence.
The American Civil Rights Movement had many aims, but one of the central goals of peaceful, non-violent marches and demonstrations was to expose those who opposed equality and freedom for what they truly were — hateful, mean-spirited bigots. The strategy of non-violence in the face of racist taunts, death threats, police dogs, water hoses, and even violent physical confrontations was rooted in ancient theologies and philosophies, but its practical, immediate goal was to help show the world that the fight for equality had sides — good and evil, right and wrong.