Tina Rodriguez was sent to prison in Texas for allegedly starving her son to death. But recent discoveries about the medical examiner who conducted the baby’s autopsy raise questions about her case.
In recent years, the number of people federally charged with smuggling and harboring has jumped nearly a third.
A new documentary explores the ‘Bronx 120’ raid, and what it says about the evolution of policing in New York City.
Advocates say laws that land people with HIV on the sex offender registry are outdated and dangerous.
Former prosecutor and Fox News host Jeanine Pirro inspires Trump’s rhetoric of dehumanization and incarceration.
In 2018, Brittany Smith killed a man who she said brutally raped her. Smith was charged with murder and she now faces life in prison as well as challenges getting adequate treatment at a state psychiatric hospital.
As the borough’s district attorney race takes shape, advocates press for changes to the office’s approach to people who reoffend.
In 2000, Lamar Burks was convicted of murder and given a 70-year sentence. But the federal indictment of a DEA agent and witnesses who say Burks is innocent have raised new questions about his case.
Vindication and compensation remain elusive for Tennessee’s wrongly convicted, in part because of the state’s parole board.
Senate Bill 1437 virtually eliminated the ‘felony-murder rule,’ but district attorneys aren’t ready to let it go.
Activists suspect the investigation was tainted by the close relationship between the police and prosecutors.
State bar organizations have the power to discipline prosecutors, but they studiously ignore bad behavior.
Washington detains more children for status offenses such as truancy and running away than any other state in the country. State lawmakers want to change that.
Darcel Clark’s approach to overdose deaths continue the criminalization of drug users and put her on the wrong side of history, advocates say.
A 22-year-old woman overdosed and died in jail. A 24-year-old faces first-degree murder charges. Did the system fail them both?
Audia Jones pledges to tackle ‘brokenness in the system’ by unseating Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.
Opponents of the law say it unfairly targets people who need knives for work, and are battling it on multiple fronts.
Critics say the state’s policy of keeping non-residents registered bloats the list—and harms public safety.
Tammy Scheurich, who lost three biological children in the Hart family crash last year, tells her story for the first time.
In 1996, Michele Benjamin was sentenced to life without parole for killing a man who she said solicited her for sex and menaced her with a weapon in New Orleans. A Supreme Court decision led her to be re-sentenced to life with a chance at parole in 2016. Today, a parole hearing brings the possibility of freedom.
‘How are we making sure that we’re not just building and building a system that we know is not necessarily effective?’
Boston’s top prosecutor says big changes are in the works; advocates plan to keep pushing.
A Florida woman with substance use disorder allegedly brokered a drug sale that ended in a fatal overdose; she faces 15 years in prison.
California amended its felony murder law, which holds accomplices responsible for murder. But reform won’t reach a man sentenced to death in a deadly robbery—even though he was never accused of firing a shot.
The Department of Justice is leaving Shelby County, but discrimination against Black children in court continues, a federal monitor says.
In a wide-ranging interview, Boudin, a progressive reform candidate, told The Appeal he wants to redefine ‘public safety’ to encompass the rights of both victims and defendants.
Under Pennsylvania’s drug delivery resulting in death statute, a man faces up to 40 years in prison for sharing heroin with a woman who overdosed.
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam just granted clemency to Brown, who was forced to trade sex for money, but Ohio’s governor declined this week to do the same for Martin.
Our staff picks 12 stories worth reading (or rereading) before the new year.
A series of electoral victories signals a nationwide shift.
But more than 1,100 others are still serving sentences that voters decided were too harsh.
An Oklahoma woman is serving 18 months in prison after being accused of failing to protect her daughter from the girl’s dad.
Darius Jacob Taylor wasn’t in the state when a robbery he was allegedly involved with ended in murder. But because of the felony murder rule, he’s charged with criminal homicide and faces life imprisonment.
Under Raise the Age, ‘there are kids similarly situated who are being treated totally differently.’
The departing governor has chosen to pardon immigrants whose past criminal offenses put them in danger of deportation.
Advocates noted that bail gives prosecutors leverage to get guilty pleas from people who can’t afford to buy their way out of jail.
In 2016 and 2017, more than 80 percent of children charged as adults by the Allegheny County district attorney were Black.
In 2016, the office said it dismissed such cases, but Legal Aid says that’s not what’s happening.
The program was supposed to target ‘leading’ violent offenders. Today it’s sweeping up low-level, and disproportionately Black, defendants.
A petition argues that people seeking to escape the sex offender registry, including those put on it as children, deserve more than a single shot.