A 38-year-old woman, Yang Song of Queens, New York, died at New York Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday, one day after falling three stories from an apartment window in nearby Flushing. Little has been reported about Song beyond the New York Police Department’s assertion that she was a sex worker, and fell while officers from the Queens […]
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.
A staggering 1,094 people have been killed by American police so far in 2017. At the current pace, this will make 2017 the second deadliest year ever measured for police violence. As I’ve said many times here, and across the country, most Americans can’t name a single victim. Trump has all but sucked the wind out of […]
“Kiss your boyfriend goodbye.”
The Memphis Police Department failed to discipline detectives who routinely left rape kits untested, former Memphis Police Lieutenant Cody Wilkerson testified on November 8. Memphis police detectives closed rape cases without testing rape kits, he said, “hundreds, hundreds of them”, and without any consequences to their careers. Detectives also closed other rape cases only after minimal […]
Dispatches is our series from organizers, attorneys, officials, and others working at the frontlines of local criminal justice reform.
Rallies & petitions grow for the rapper Meek Mill
I want to preface what I’m about to say by first making it clear that I’m not a Meek Mill fan.
The prosecutor rarely holds officers accountable.
District Attorney Jackie Lacey chose not to prosecute officer
But the police chief recommends the officers’ dismissal
Phil Murphy has promised marijuana legalization, end of cash bail and will look at ending minimum mandatory sentences
Dispatches is our series from organizers, attorneys, officials, and others working at the frontlines of local criminal justice reform.
In response to a surging overdose crisis, prosecutors are doubling down on draconian drug induced homicide statutes. On November 28, 2014, 28-year-old Edward Martin was found dead inside a Quiznos bathroom in Littleton, New Hampshire. Next to his body was a syringe and spoon with which he used to inject a potent batch of heroin […]
We live a deeply problematic era in American history. As I type this, the nation is reeling from yet another mass shooting in which 26 people were shot and killed in a rural Texas church. Federal prosecutors are currently investigating and indicting members of Donald Trump’s campaign team for various levels of corruption. And while […]
Nearly 70 victims of domestic violence and rape in Memphis are wearing GPS devices thanks to the city’s Sexual Assault Kit Taskforce, according to its monthly progress report published in October. The taskforce was created by the mayor’s office in 2014 after revelations that the Memphis Police Department had failed to test more than 12,000 rape kits. […]
A proposal to curb strip clubs on Bourbon Street was introduced last Thursday by a New Orleans city council member, “citing recent reports from NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on unfettered sex trafficking at the adult venues.” Just a few days after the paper’s first story appeared, Mayor Mitch Landrieu had already hired an attorney to investigate the clubs. It’s not surprising that a […]
Police brutality is roaring ahead I use this database to track police brutality in the United States. Many other databases exist, but this simple one is the most up to date and links to local news stories covering each case. Take those news stories with a grain of salt, though, because they tend to only cover the law […]
Criminal charges are absent from 85 percent of all forfeiture cases in the city.
Note: This first appeared in our daily In Justice Today newsletter. To get stories like these in your inbox every day, you can sign up here. In today’s news roundup, we bring you stories about Chicago activists protesting a new police training academy, the St. Petersburg Police Department trying out gun cameras, Pensacola’s State Attorney directly filing kids […]
Note: This first appeared in our daily In Justice Today newsletter. To get stories like these in your inbox every day, you can sign up here. In today’s news roundup, we bring you stories about a turn away from punitive practices in the jails formerly run by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a look at campaign contributions to Brooklyn’s next […]
Two years ago, some longtime residents of Placentia, California, were disturbed when Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas announced his plan to fight a problem they didn’t think they had: violent street gangs. “The residents in these neighborhoods that consist of families, children and the elderly have been in the crossfire of these rival gangs […]
Each week, the Fair Punishment Project monitors the news in New York, talks to local journalists and advocates, and share the most important stories with you through our weekly New York newsletter. Here’s here our big story from this week, looking at police accountability and the NYPD. Be sure to subscribe to our New York newsletter […]
In the era of Trump, it can be hard to keep up with essential stories about injustice in America. This is my weekly column where I give a rundown of important headlines that have unfolded that may have gotten past you. If you have not done so already, please subscribe to our regular newsletter here. It’s […]
Salt Lake County, Utah residents are experiencing déjà vu. Their District Attorney, Sim Gill, announced last week that he would not bring charges against the police officer who fatally shot Patrick Harmon in the back. The announcement comes just over a year after Gill declined to bring chargesagainst the officer who shot then 17-year-old Abdi Mohamed, a choice […]
A sex crimes detective with the Memphis Police Department will keep her job despite leaking confidential investigative files to the family of a rape suspect, the Commercial Appeal reported last week. Before Detective Ouita Knowlton became the subject of a criminal investigation, she was the supervisor of the DNA Unit, which was formed in 2014 to investigate long-neglected […]
In a new rule proposal, the Department of Homeland Security has moved to exempt large swaths of the Immigration and Customs Enformcement’s massive data collection system from the Privacy Act, making the type, sources, and accuracy of information ICE is collecting almost completely secret. By doing so, it would further obscure a law enforcement agency that […]
Can a prostitute be raped? As a young law student, this was an interesting question. As an experienced lawyer, this is a no brainer. The answer is: of course. The fact that someone may have engaged in illegal acts does not give other people license to commit crimes against that person. This is true because, […]
Her case says a lot about prosecutorial discretion.
On September 15th, a Missouri judge found white former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley not guilty of the 2011 slaying of black motorist Anthony Lamar Smith. The second the verdict was announced and activists poured into the streets to protest, local police and government officials with the help of local and national media began framing the […]
The fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Justine Damond, a white Australian native, by police officer Mohamed Noor in July reignited a local debate about the use of body-mounted cameras. Noor and fellow officer Matthew Harrity didn’t have their body cameras on when Damand was killed, a revelation that spurred interim Police Chief Medaria Arradondo to […]
The acquittal of Jason Stockley, a White former St. Louis police officer, for shooting and killing Anthony Smith — who was Black — served as yet another grim reminder of the elusive nature of justice in America. The facts generally fit an all-too-familiar pattern. A Black man, woman, or child’s life is interrupted by an encounter with a police officer borne […]
The decision was unanimous.
It is all too commonplace to read of police-civilian encounters ending in what is reported as “tragedy.” In May of this year, 15-year-old Jordan Edwards was shot and killed when a Balch Springs, Texas police officer fired a rifle into the window of the car in which Edwards was a passenger, as the car tried […]
Who is she accountable to?
An 85-page report filed with the Wisconsin Supreme Court by retired Circuit Judge Dennis Flynn found that former Kenosha County District Attorney Robert Zapf committed multiple instances of professional misconduct — and that Zapf deserves to be suspended from practicing law and prohibited from ever again being a prosecutor. The violations go back to to Zapf’s conduct when he […]
In what can be seen as a natural extension of Jeff Sessions’ already-evident disdain for Obama-era criminal justice policies, the Attorney General announced Friday that the Department of Justice would scale back its Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). The COPS program was known in part for investigating the work of local police departments and issuing reports on […]
In the last month, the Baltimore Police Department has been rocked by accusations that officers are staging or “reenacting” the discovery of drugs for the benefit of capturing, after the fact, the seizure of evidence on their body cameras. In response, Baltimore County State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has decided to drop the charges in those cases — and possibly hundreds of […]
Police say the tool is outdated.
There are approximately 22,000 intravenous drug users in the city.
While candidate Donald Trump promised to protect medical marijuana on the campaign trail, President Trump’s Justice Department wants to be more aggressive against state-legal marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Attorney General Jeff Sessions personally asked Congress for funds to prosecute medical marijuana cases in states where it is legal. The legal sale of recreational marijuana remains […]