Prosecution

New “domestic terror” laws will do little to stop gun violence in America, but may pacify suburban white voters.

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

Nicole Poston was sentenced in July for punching a police officer after she slipped free from a handcuff. Life sentences, even for nonhomicide offenses like Poston’s, are ‘a major factor’ in mass incarceration in the U.S., a criminal justice expert said.

Federal agents have been unfairly arresting Black and brown people for decades. Now that white Portlanders are seeing it up close and personal, they are outraged. Better late than never.

Honken, convicted of the murders of five people, died by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. The federal government resumed executions this week for the first time since 2003.

A late-night Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for the execution of Daniel Lewis Lee, despite his claims of innocence and his attorneys’ belief that DNA testing could show he was wrongly convicted.

A government psychologist who used the tool to evaluate Daniel Lewis Lee—who is scheduled to die Monday in Indiana—has since disavowed it. Without it, the trial judge has written that it’s ‘very questionable’ Lee would have been sentenced to death.

Organizers have been collecting signatures as part of a ballot initiative known as State Question 805, which calls for the end of sentencing enhancements for people convicted of nonviolent crimes.

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.

With special guest host Leo Beletsky, a professor of Law and Health Sciences at Northeastern University, and criminal justice reform advocate Morgan Godvin.

A bipartisan group has recommended substantive changes to the state’s legal justice system, including cash bail reform and proposals to divert people living with mental illnesses away from incarceration.

As a society, we can’t continue to subject hundreds of thousands of people to the trauma of incarceration before they face a jury of their peers.

With Appeal staff reporter Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg.

The incumbent in the race, Jones’s former boss Kim Ogg, will not support a blanket refusal to prosecute sex workers, her office says.

With Daniel Harawa, assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. Sometimes it seems as if U.S. Senator Kamala Harris thinks we aren’t paying attention. She seems to assume that if she chooses the right words, the ones […]

Advocates and attorneys say Jackie Lacey’s rhetoric doesn’t match her actions.

With City University of New York law professor Babe Howell

A new documentary explores the notorious ‘Bronx 120’ raid—and what it says about the evolution of policing in New York City.

With Appeal contributor Jon Campbell

Our staff picks 12 stories worth reading (or rereading) before the new year.

An Oklahoma woman is serving 18 months in prison after being accused of failing to protect her daughter from the girl’s dad.

The program was supposed to target ‘leading’ violent offenders. Today it’s sweeping up low-level, and disproportionately Black, defendants.

A book excerpt from The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race, and the Future of Law Enforcement (NYU Press 2017) In downtown Manhattan, an experimental prosecution unit has begun rethinking how to reduce violent crime. Under the leadership of dis­trict attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office created the Crime Strategies Unit (CSU) to target the bad apples in […]