The Pandemic Prompted Marilyn Mosby to Stop Prosecuting Low-Level Crimes. Will Other D.A.s Follow? Prosecutors across the country have begun declining low-level cases in an effort to reduce racial inequity and to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Joshua Vaughn
New Jersey Could Force Cuomo’s Hand on Pot Legalization The New York governor has released a plan to legalize marijuana, months after voters in the Garden State approved legalization in November. Advocates say the pressure could have ripple effects regionally. Joshua Vaughn
Criminal Justice Reform Should Decriminalize Addiction, Advocates Say Efforts to address the harms of police violence and incarceration must consider the drug war, activists and treatment professionals note, including the punitive models of treatment. Elizabeth Brico
Pennsylvania Inspector General Reviewing State Police Traffic Stop Tactics The review follows an investigation by The Appeal and Spotlight PA, which found that troopers were using minor traffic stops to illegally detain and search motorists along highways. Joshua Vaughn
Highway Stop-And-Frisk: How Pennsylvania State Troopers Conduct Illegal Traffic Searches A review of five years of cases that arose from traffic stops in the south-central region of the state shows that police used underhand tactics to justify holding and searching drivers illegally. Joseph Darius Jaafari, Joshua Vaughn
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
‘I Feel Trapped’: Treating Drug Use in the COVID-19 Pandemic Social distancing orders are a necessity, but they create a host of new problems for people in treatment for substance use disorders. Alice Markham-Cantor
Undercover Providence Police Faked Withdrawal Symptoms and Solicited Suboxone Rhode Island prosecutors charged nine people with felony distribution of the addiction treatment drug. Reform prosecutors in other states are declining such charges and instead encouraging access to the drug. Julia Rock, Harry August
This D.A. Election Could Bring a Big Change in How Austin, Texas Treats Drug Addiction In Travis County, thousands of people continue to be prosecuted for low-level drug possession charges that reform-minded district attorneys elsewhere have committed to dropping. Kira Lerner
Elizabeth Warren Announces Plan to Legalize Marijuana If Elected President The Democratic candidate also pledged to expunge prior criminal convictions for marijuana and invest in the communities most affected by the war on drugs. Joshua Vaughn
How to Rethink Drug Dealing and Punishment Criminalizing those who sell drugs by enacting more punitive laws may lead to more dangerous drug use and will disproportionately affect communities of color, a new report suggests. Zachary A. Siegel
A Trap Of Low-Level Drug Arrests And Court Debt In Pittsburgh In 2017, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala prosecuted more than 1,700 low-level drug possession cases. More than $2 million in court-imposed debt was levied on people who were charged in these cases. Joshua Vaughn
How Local Media Should Report on Safe Injection Sites In a rare case of local media nuance, a Boston TV news station provided a humane and health-focused segment on safe drug use. Adam H. Johnson
Media Frame: Fentanyl Panic Is Worsening the Overdose Crisis Sensational and false news reports about the drug are pushing lawmakers to enact harmful policies. Zachary A. Siegel, Maia Szalavitz
Floridians Are Suing a Cop Fired for Planting Drugs in Their Vehicles Thanks to the diligence of one assistant state attorney, 119 cases were thrown out and the officer is under state investigation. Katie Rose Quandt
Baby’s Death in Mother’s Bed Leads to 5-Year Prison Term. But Was It Her Fault? An autopsy blamed the sleeping situation, but forensic experts aren’t so sure. And the same Ohio county just charged another mom in a similar case. Cassi Feldman
New York Prisons Offer ‘Tough Love’ Boot Camp Programs. But Prisoners Say They’re ‘Torture’ And ‘Hell.’ Prisoners can shave time off their sentences by participating in shock incarceration programs. More than a dozen former shock prisoners say that comes at a steep cost. Keri Blakinger
‘They Sent Him to His Cell to Die’ Rashad McNulty entered a guilty plea in a series of federal gang indictments in New York that have been criticized as racist and overly punitive. But before McNulty was even sentenced, he died in jail. Now, his family is seeking justice. Aaron Morrison
Houston Cop Who Led Botched Drug Raid Overwhelmingly Arrested Black People After a drug bust involving Houston narcotics officer Gerald Goines turned deadly, questions are being raised about how he operated during his time on the force. Mike Hayes
Houston Homicide Under New Scrutiny After Misconduct Allegations About DEA Agent Emerge In 2000, Lamar Burks was convicted of murder and given a 70-year sentence. But the federal indictment of a DEA agent and witnesses who say Burks is innocent have raised new questions about his case. Mike Hayes
Woman Faces Life In Prison For Sharing Drugs With Another Woman In Jail A 22-year-old woman overdosed and died in jail. A 24-year-old faces first-degree murder charges. Did the system fail them both? Tana Ganeva
Boston’s New D.A. Pushes Back Against Prosecutors’ ‘Punishment-centric’ Point of View Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins’s promise to decline to prosecute several offenses is a rejection of the punitive tradition of prosecutors and perhaps signals a new kind of reform that spurns criminal justice as a solution to public health problems. John Pfaff
After Pittsburgh Decriminalizes Pot, Black People Are Still Disproportionately Charged With Possession About 51 percent of the people charged with possession of a small amount of marijuana in Allegheny County are Black. Joshua Vaughn
It Is Now Even Harder for Trafficking Survivors to Get Visas Local advocates are struggling with a new immigration memo that makes it more difficult to support these survivors. Melissa Gira Grant
Proposed Pennsylvania Bill Would Force Patients With Chronic Pain Into A Treatment Agreement A bill introduced in the state would require all chronic pain patients to enter into an agreement with their doctor before being prescribed opioid medication for the first time. Joshua Vaughn
A New Rhode Island Law Allows For Life Sentences in Drug Overdoses Public health advocates are concerned that ‘Kristen's Law,’ meant to punish drug dealers, will criminalize users and fail to stem the opioid crisis. Abdullah Shihipar, Meghan Peterson
In New York, A Harm-Reduction Organization Is Leveraging Participatory Defense To Empower Its Clients Grassroots group VOCAL-NY is teaching people with substance use disorder how to avoid getting ensnared in the criminal justice system. Christopher Moraff
Drug Testing Organizations Save Lives, So Why Haven’t Rave and Concert Organizers Embraced Them? Groups like the Loop and DanceSafe test drugs like Ecstasy and warn users of high dosages and adulterants, but federal legislation from the early 2000s has live music promoters wary of their brand of harm reduction. Zachary A. Siegel
A Pennsylvania Man Survived An Overdose Only To Be Charged With Homicide York County resident Aaron Hinds overdosed on heroin with a friend. The friend died, and Hinds now faces a 'drug delivery resulting in death' charge and a 40-year prison sentence. Joshua Vaughn
Prosecutors and Judges in Pennsylvania County Hammer Defendants in Low-Level Drug Cases In overdose-wracked Franklin County, Pennsylvania, a small-time dealer is denied bail, while the number of drug induced homicide cases has skyrocketed. Joshua Vaughn
We’ve been fighting the drug war for 50 years. So why aren’t we winning? A new paper argues that President Johnson’s 1967 Commission on Law Enforcement’s report on the subject was “decades ahead of its time.” Zachary A. Siegel
A Florida Sheriff’s Dramatic Drug Raid Went Viral, But It Wasn’t What It Seemed In the ‘fentanyl’ bust at a ‘narcotics house,’ no opioids were seized at all. George Joseph
In an Upstate New York Community Wracked by Overdoses, Prosecutor Pursues Users in Homicides Cases Zachary A. Siegel
Despite Leaders’ Progressive Promises, NYC Remains ’Marijuana Arrest Capital of the World’ Shaun King
Activists Fed Up with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Silence on Safe Injection Sites Zachary A. Siegel
Pennsylvania Man Dies In Jail After Guards Allegedly Ignored His Opioid Withdrawal Symptoms Zachary A. Siegel
Did Prosecutorial Misconduct Result in the Indictment of an African-American Louisiana Couple in a Federal Drug Case? Max Rivlin-Nadler
Death by Prosecution: Was There a Bigger Player in Drug Case Involving Man Who Killed Himself After Federal Indictment? Zachary A. Siegel
‘You Want to Get Them While the Teardrops are Warm’: Prosecutors Swap Strategies for Turning Overdose Deaths into Homicides Zachary A. Siegel
What’s Said Is Not What’s Done: How Reagan-Era Drug Warrior Politics Dominate in Progressive Massachusetts — and What We Can Do About It. Kade Crockford
New Jersey Governor-Elect Promising Bold Criminal Justice Reform Agenda Phil Murphy has promised marijuana legalization, end of cash bail and will look at ending minimum mandatory sentences Larry Hannan
New Jersey Governor-Elect Promising Bold Criminal Justice Reform Agenda Phil Murphy has promised marijuana legalization, end of cash bail and will look at ending minimum mandatory sentences Larry Hannan
Despite ‘Public Health’ Messaging, Law Enforcement Increasingly Prosecutes Overdoses as Homicides Zachary A. Siegel
Despite “Public Health” Messaging, Law Enforcement Increasingly Prosecutes Overdoses as Homicides Zachary A. Siegel
San Francisco wants safe injection sites. Law enforcement stands in its way. There are approximately 22,000 intravenous drug users in the city. Carimah Townes
California’s district attorneys at odds with voters over criminal justice reform District attorneys want to keep an outdated system alive. Carimah Townes
