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Kentucky

When Jail Time Comes With A Bill

A case before the Kentucky Supreme Court involves a challenge to the practice of charging people for the time they are held in jail even if they are ultimately not convicted of the charges against them.

Spotlight: Fighting Against a New Prison—and Winning—in Eastern Kentucky

The region of eastern Kentucky, once reliant on mining and the coal industry, has, over the decades, become home to three federal prisons. Last year, the Daily Appeal wrote about the controversial proposal to build yet another federal prison in Letcher County, Kentucky. That project had been pushed since 2005 by local backers and a powerful U.S. representative, […]

Kentucky’s Heroin Bill Was Meant to Ease the State’s Opioids Crisis; Instead It’s Increasing the State’s Prison Population

In 2013, Kentucky closed the last of its private prisons partly because of a 2011 State House Bill that moved low-level drug offenders into treatment instead of prison, through a deferred prosecution program. Fueled by the bill’s success, Kentucky’s prison population went down to 20,300 by the end of 2013, down from 21,466 in 2012. The 5.3% […]

Romance leads to removal of Kentucky prosecutor (again)

The Christian County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office has been removed from handling a murder case after a judge found that Commonwealth’s Attorney Lynn Pryor had a conflict of interest from previously dating the lead detective. Pryor, who took over as top county prosecutor in January 2007, and her entire office are now off the murder case of Jarred Tabor Long […]

Kentucky judge rules death penalty unconstitutional for defendants under 21

A Kentucky judge has ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional for defendants who committed a murder before they turned 21 years of old. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons that the death penalty is unconstitutional for anyone who committed murder when they were under the age of 18. Fayette Circuit Court […]

Prosecutorial misconduct results in reversal of molestation conviction

The Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously threw out a child molestation conviction because the Campbell County trial prosecutor “flagrantly abused its authority in prosecuting the case” by making misleading statements to the jury during closing argument. David Albert Soloway was sentenced to 45 years in prison after the 8-year-old daughter of his live-in girlfriend accused him of molesting […]