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Civil Rights and the White Manel

Memo to those who organize conferences, especially conferences on civil rights: your panels should include women and people of color. Bonus tip: when an invited panelist says that she can only participate in good conscience if the demography of the panel is adjusted, don’t disinvite her. We’re ready to flip the calendar to 2018; why are we still […]

Kentucky’s Heroin Bill Was Meant to Ease the State’s Opioids Crisis; Instead It’s Increasing the State’s Prison Population

In 2013, Kentucky closed the last of its private prisons partly because of a 2011 State House Bill that moved low-level drug offenders into treatment instead of prison, through a deferred prosecution program. Fueled by the bill’s success, Kentucky’s prison population went down to 20,300 by the end of 2013, down from 21,466 in 2012. The 5.3% […]

Sex Registries as Modern-Day Witch Pyres: Why Criminal Justice Reform Advocates Need to Address the Treatment of People on the Sex Offender Registry

Perhaps the most irrefutable statement that can be made about modern day America is this: we have a penchant for putting people in cages. More than any other nation on the planet, we rely on incarceration as the fix for our social ills. America’s unprecedented prison boom spawned advocates who work tirelessly to put the police state […]

The Trials of Keith Davis, Jr: How Baltimore Prosecutors Pursued a Police Shooting Victim

“Victory,” the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office tweeted in October after Keith Davis Jr. was found guilty of second-degree murder. Keith’s wife Kelly and members of the activist group Baltimore Bloc who have been advocating for Davis for years called attention to the language: the SAO, headed by celebrated, purportedly progressive prosecutor Marilyn Mosby, best known for indicting the six […]

Not A Cardboard Cutout: Cyntoia Brown and the Framing of a Victim

The evening of August 6th, 2004, 16-year old Cyntoia Brown shot and killed Johnny Allen, a 43-year-old Nashville resident who picked her up for sex. It was an act of self defense, she explained to police later; after Allen took her to his house, he showed Cyntoia multiple guns, including shotguns and rifles. Later in bed, as she described in court, he grabbed her violently by the genitals, his demeanor became threatening and, fearing for her life, she took a gun out of her purse and shot him.

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Will the Most Controversial Rule of Evidence be Reformed?

To most, the Federal Rules of Evidence may seem esoteric. But how the rules draw evidentiary boundaries between admissible and inadmissible information matters quite a bit, both for litigants and for our justice system. Federal Rule of Evidence 609 is a case in point. Rule 609 allows attorneys to impeach criminal defendants (and other witnesses) with their […]

‘Progressive DA’ Fights to Put Innocent Man Back in Prison

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, […]

New York’s Attorney General Just Indicted a District Attorney for Covering Up a Police Shooting of an Unarmed Black Man

A New York State grand jury indicted Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel E. Abelove on charges of official misconduct and perjury on Friday afternoon. The indictment stems from Abelove’s concealment of evidence about the shooting of an unarmed black man by a Troy police officer, and allegations that Abelove lied during a subsequent investigation.

Numerous Reports Confirm Stark Racial Disparities in Portland’s Criminal Justice System

Last week the Portland Mercury published an article about attempts by Multnomah County, Oregon officials to censor data revealing stark racial disparities in Portland’s criminal justice system. Multnomah County research analyst Amanda Lamb used data from the courts, prosecutors’ offices and county jails to show that Blacks were 4.2 times more likely to be booked into jail […]

What’s Said Is Not What’s Done: How Reagan-Era Drug Warrior Politics Dominate in Progressive Massachusetts — and What We Can Do About It.

It’s de rigueur these days in progressive circles to decry attempts by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to “bring back the war on drugs.” A cursory internet search for the phrase “Sessions wants to bring back the war on drugs” returns nearly identical headlines containing a variation on the theme from the Washington Post, New York Magazine, the New Republic, Vice, […]

Despite Public Outcry Over Pay-to-Play Justice, Prosecutors Just Don’t Get it

Mecklenburg, North Carolina District Attorney R. Andrew Murray doesn’t seem to understand the problem with the county’s deferred prosecutions system, even after a group of faith leaders held a press conference Monday morning, arguing that the current system discriminates against the poor most in need of help. The protest was timed with a hearing in the case of Charlotte […]

“It Is So Loud Inside My Head”

“It is so loud inside my head. It feels like electrical impulses are going through my head all the time. If you took that pen and tapped it on the table I can feel it all the way down my spinal column. It is so loud inside my head.”