Also today: Colorado organizers prepare for the 2020 legislative session

Attorney General William Barr pushed back against reforms by progressive prosecutors—but perhaps his greatest vitriol was reserved for the Boston DA’s attempt to rein in police.

Last year, lawmakers repealed the felony murder rule, which allowed prosecutors to charge defendants with murders they didn‘t commit. Prosecutors are trying to overturn the new law, but AG Xavier Becerra believes that the reform should stand.

When it comes to criminal justice, advocates say, Attorney General Josh Shapiro seems intent on maintaining the status quo.

Establishment candidate Melinda Katz declared a narrow victory in the New York City borough’s district attorney primary, but progressive Tiffany Cabán pushed the race to the left on issues like marijuana and sex work.

Prosecutors are pushing back against First Step Act reforms.

In California, Texas and Florida, advocates sent letters to district attorneys, demanding that they refuse to work with officers with histories of misconduct.

In 2017, the Manhattan district attorney pledged not to pursue criminal charges for subway fare evasion. Now the MTA is increasing the system’s police presence.

The death penalty in the U.S. is dying, and yet Attorney General William Barr announced that the federal government would begin executing people for the first time since 2003.

Lawmakers say Republicans used deceptive tactics to pass the controversial bill. The legislative record tells a different story.

Lawyers and advocates in Miami-Dade County will roll out a new plan to counter the disenfranchisement of people with felony convictions.

Police in Ozark said they solved the 1999 murders of two teenage girls using a genealogy database. But Coley McCraney‘s attorneys say that the case against their client is far from certain.

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. Last week, court watchers from the Philadelphia Bail Fund and a journalist filed a federal lawsuit to challenge a ban on audio recording during bail hearings, arguing that […]

An organizer in the effort to close New York City’s Rikers Island jails is challenging Cyrus Vance Jr., whom he calls ‘the city’s leading jailer.’

The backlash is underway against a recent wave of prosecutors who champion criminal justice reform. Here are some methods of attack.

Just about every year while they were on the bench, the Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia would take each other on. “These contests reflect the temperaments of the two men—Stevens’s cautious balancings against Scalia’s caustic certainties,” wrote Jeffrey Toobin for the New Yorker in 2010. Two years prior, in Baze v. Rees, the justices […]

As public servants, prosecutors should be willing to put their cases before anyone in the communities they serve.

Blue Bell listeria outbreak killed three people, but only the teenage prankster accused of licking a carton will face charges.

Larry Krasner says the punishment is ‘really about poverty’ and race.

Nineteen academics published a letter to the newspaper over its coverage of the Suffolk County DA.

Republican Mike Dunleavy was elected on a platform to ‘Make Alaska Safe Again’ and has rolled back recent changes.

A new DA in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, is treating the overdose crisis as a criminal matter rather than a community health issue.

The office of Paul Howard supported early release for a woman convicted of armed robbery. But a judge and advocates questioned the move since thousands of others don’t get that consideration.

Police and prosecutors framed a father of four in a 2007 murder case with local and national political implications.

The legislation also makes it illegal for many ex-offenders to be alone with their own children.

Last week, the Supreme Court surprised many liberals when it overturned the conviction of a Black man on death row, Curtis Flowers, for racial bias in jury selection.

In rhetoric reminiscent of the ‘superpredator‘ scare of the 1990s, the New Orleans District Attorney warned of ‘a brazen population of delinquent teens.‘ But advocates and crime analysts alike say the data doesn’t support his fearmongering claims about kids and crime.

Krasner’s office acknowledges ‘there’s room to move forward and do more.’

Over a three-year period, Alachua County prosecutors closed 236 sexual battery cases: 115 were dropped, 92 were offered plea deals, and seven went to trial.

James Stewart, Caddo Parish’s DA, continues to defend controversial death sentences that originated with his predecessors.

The public defender has garnered big-name endorsements and gained momentum heading into Tuesday’s primary.

A new report charges the Los Angeles DA with seeking the death penalty in unjust and harsh ways.

A nearly 30-year-old New York Times Magazine profile of the infamous prosecutor may reveal as much about Linda Fairstein as Ava DuVernay‘s acclaimed new Netflix series.

Residents who saw their lives endangered by the reckless decisions and the duplicity of state officials and who have waited five years to see if anyone would be held accountable.

“I had stared at death before. I was way too familiar with the vagaries of murder.” So begins “Deadfall,” a novel written by celebrity prosecutor Linda Fairstein. She continues: “I had seen it flex its muscles on the cracked pavement of New York City sidewalks and behind grimy stairwells in housing projects. I knew that […]

Also today: Colorado’s Democratic governor opposed banning ICE contracts

Four women leave water and food in a place where desperately hungry and thirsty people are likely to find them. The hope is to save lives. Others come along and, sneering, pour out the water. One, laughing, calls it “trash.” Another kicks the jugs, violently. A video capturing these acts on several occasions between 2010 and […]

Records show Kim Ogg’s office appeared to misrepresent felony prosecutor caseloads in its $21 million budget request.

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

Prosecutors are supremely powerful and have played an outsize role in mass incarceration. What can be done?