Prosecutors

When Caddo voters booted their infamous district attorney, some of his toughest prosecutors found a home in Calcasieu.

In the Berkshire County DA race, the establishment is resorting to extreme measures to ensure it maintains power and avoids change.

Years after two landmark Supreme Court rulings, prosecutors in Louisiana are still overwhelmingly seeking life sentences for children.

Our debut episodes feature Josie Duffy Rice on prosecutors and Melissa Gira Grant on criminalizing sex work.

With Josie Duffy Rice, senior staff reporter at The Appeal.

In courtrooms across America, prosecutors regularly withhold evidence from the defense that could blow holes in their cases.

On April 11, President Trump signed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), legislation that would make it possible to hold the operators of websites criminally and civilly liable if third parties were found to have posted advertisements for prostitution. Days before the legislation was enacted, however, federal authorities seized Backpage.com, essentially locking sex […]

On April 30, 2015, William Aubin Jr. was at home with his wife in Livingston Parish, Louisiana when a patrol car from the sheriff’s office pulled onto his street. The deputy, William Durkin, was there to investigate a reckless driving complaint. Aubin wasn’t involved in the incident but he knew about it and went outside […]

This week, the Senate is expected to vote on a bill that could shutter websites that host sex-for-sale ads. The bill, known as SESTA — the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act — has been described by its supporters as a way to provide justice to victims of human trafficking by making it easier for them to file civil suits against the sites. However, a growing coalition of survivors of trafficking, sex workers, and women’s and LGBT rights groups oppose SESTA, saying it will endanger those it is meant to help.

It was a courtroom scene that seemed to tell an epic tale of redemption — and show the New Orleans DA’s office in a rare embrace of restorative justice. On December 1, 2017, 23-year-old Jeremy Burse stood before the New Orleans criminal court judge who, less than two years earlier, had sentenced him to life without parole […]

In Oklahoma last month, the Lincoln County District Attorney’s Office charged a 13-year-old boy with first-degree murder after an October play date ended with him hitting his two friends (ages 8 and 10) with a crossbow arrow, killing one. According to NewsOK, the arrow went through the 10-year-old, killing him, and punctured the 8-year-old in the arm. The 13-year-old boy told authorities that the incident was an accident. However, the 8-year-old who was hit told investigators that the 13-year-old was angry at his friends.

In the early spring of 2013, Yolanda and Jessie Smith, an African American couple, agreed to accept what they believed were packages of cancer medicine for a 58-year-old white man named Alvin Phillips, whom they knew from a pool hall in Waggaman, Louisiana, a tiny town comprised of about 10,000 residents near New Orleans.

On January 31, 2013, a California Highway Patrol officer pulled over Carlos David Sanchez for playing his car stereo too loud. During the stop, the officer asked Sanchez, then 19, if he was on probation or parole. He was not, Sanchez said, but he was under a gang injunction, as was his younger brother, also in […]

It didn’t take too much deliberation for the Philadelphia Inquirer to render its guilty verdict against District Attorney Larry Krasner after he took office on January 2: “the first days of Krasner’s administration,” the editorial board intoned nine days later, “seem more about imprudence than jurisprudence” Zing. A rhyme. But what does it all mean? Well, Krasner swiftly ousted […]

George Gascon Shawn Calhoun [CC BY-SA 3.0] San Quentin State Prison is not the first place you’d expect to see San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon or any of the prosecutors who work in his office. But this is where they have quietly spent time over the last several years. In an effort to change […]

For criminal justice reformers, a surprisingly positive year was stained by the loss of a legend. Early in October, John Thompson, a prominent advocate for holding prosecutors accountable for misconduct, passed away at the age of 55. Mr. Thompson spent 14 years on Louisiana’s death row for a murder he did not commit. Prosecutors had intentionally hid blood evidence that would […]

In our Explainer series, Justice Collaborative lawyers and other legal experts help unpack some of the most complicated issues in the criminal justice system. We break down the problems behind the headlines—like bail, civil asset forfeiture, or the Brady doctrine—so that everyone can understand them. Wherever possible, we try to utilize the stories of those affected […]

Faith Johnson’s recent indictment of a Mesquite police officer for shooting an innocent man follows years of work by community activists.

A lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that one of the borough’s top judges only symbolically stepped aside from criminal cases when her husband, Michael McMahon, was elected the borough’s District Attorney in 2015. The plaintiff, a former chief clerk for Staten Island Supreme Court, claims that the judge worked behind the scenes […]

The evidence connecting Wilbert Jones to the 1974 rape for which he spent 46 years in prison was always weak. He was freed shortly before Thanksgiving due to the revelation that East Baton Rouge prosecutors hid evidence pointing to a different suspect entirely. But thanks to the efforts of East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore III, […]

Fifteen men had their tainted convictions vacated by State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office, but this isn’t the norm when it comes to prosecutors.

The pardon vote removes any “residual stain” on his record.

The five states that have done away with commercial bond outlets still struggle with inequity when it comes to cash bail.

So far, the report card on the “Mexican Biker” prosecutor is mixed.

Retired Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his wife, Katherine, a deputy prosecutor, have been arrested on multiple federal charges, including conspiracy, making false statements to federal officers, obstruction and bank fraud.

Her case says a lot about prosecutorial discretion.

John Valerio shows that violent offenders can change.

When we talk about the United States being the “incarceration nation,” the facts back it up. A higher percentage of our citizens are in jail or prison than any other nation in the world. How we got there is complicated, but at the root of it all is the over-criminalization of people for things that shouldn’t be criminal.

Kelly Davis remembers it clearly. It was early May 2015, and she was standing in the waiting room of her doctors’ office. On the radio, the voice of Baltimore’s new State’s Attorney, Marilyn Mosby, rung out. Mosby announced that Freddie Gray’s death had been ruled a homicide, and her office would bring criminal charges against the […]

Anthony Huff tragically died in the Garfield County Jail in Oklahoma last year, after staff restrained him in a chair and failed to hydrate and feed him for two days, according to court documents unsealed and released to the public on July 25. But in a rare move, prosecutors in the state decided to hold the […]

Viewers know that Olivia Benson is the leather jacket-wearing detective on Law and Order SVU, an icon to law-abiding women everywhere. In a recent Women of the World biography, the newly-anointed district attorney for San Diego Summer Stephan received comparisons to Olivia Benson for her tough-as-nails approach to offenders. Stephan has taken over the top prosecutor job, handpicked by her […]

Throughout his life, Nick has battled mental illness and an addiction to crack cocaine. He was convicted three times in the 1990’s for offenses that are characteristic of someone struggling with addiction, and served more than four years in a Washington State prison. But despite his fierce desire to remain sober and gainfully employed since […]

Since becoming attorney general, Jeff Sessions has announced plans to ramp up civil forfeiture laws, revive prosecutions for crimes involving small amounts of marijuana, and charge defendants with crimes that carry more severe penalties. He has also come out with outlandish policies on immigration-related crimes and consent decrees with local police departments, and reversed the Department of Justice’s position in the ongoing Texas voter-discrimination […]

District attorneys in Oregon have a new tactic to deal with judges that hand down rulings against their offices: they’re effectively getting rid of them. County circuit judges in both Lane and Multnomah counties have been disqualified from hearing criminal cases this year following accusations from district attorneys that the judges failed to be “fair […]

Protesters railing against extreme heat in one of St. Louis’ abuse-plagued jails were pepper-sprayed by police clad in riot gear last Friday and Saturday, as they called on city officials to shut down the dangerous facility. They say inmates at the Medium Security Institution, nicknamed the “Workhouse,” are living in cells with no air conditioning despite […]

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 […]

The Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee ruled recently that District Attorney General Robert Carter’s office improperly use a peremptory challenge during jury selection to prevent a black woman from serving on a jury. As a result, the court threw out Collins’ conviction and sentence.

Recently, a Massachusetts judge took two former prosecutors to task for attempting to cover-up the extent of a massive lab scandal that called into question thousands of drug convictions in the state. Today, a lawyer from the Innocence Project and a Northeastern Law Professor took the rare step of filing bar complaints against those lawyers — Kris Foster and Anne Kaczmarek — previously […]

Pam Bondi spent four years pursuing racketeering charges against the former president of the Jacksonville Bar Association.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle had “no basis in the law” when she threatened to prosecute a man for recording a conversation he had with the Chief of the Homestead Police Department. As a result, James Eric McDonough’s federal lawsuit against Fernandez-Rundle can proceed. According to […]