The Appeal: Political Report’s March 4 newsletter

The Appeal: Political Report’s February 25 newsletter

A coalition of environmental groups urges the legislature to force the repayment and dissociate from the CDAA.

The Appeal: Political Report’s February 18 newsletter

In many of America’s major cities, the early efforts to reduce incarceration during the pandemic have been reversed.

After years of misappropriating millions of dollars, opposing criminal justice reform, and ignoring the will of voters, the CDAA must be held to account by the governor and the attorney general.

Virginia may soon become the 23rd state to abolish capital punishment.

It is impossible for the government to espouse a policy of “family unity” while immigrant detention still exists.

A look at the organization’s past actions suggests that this lawsuit is part of a longstanding pattern of ideologically motivated advocacy and commitment to tough-on-crime policies, rather than a show of blind allegiance to the law.

On Tuesday, Harris County Commissioners will decide if the D.A. and Sheriff will get more money to continue their neglect in the face of a public-health crisis.

State Attorney Melissa Nelson is pushing for a death sentence even as more prosecutors reject capital punishment.

The move is part of a broader criminal justice reform bill that also ends prison gerrymandering, and mandates body cameras for all police departments.

Police and prosecutors routinely treat white domestic terrorists with kid gloves, but use the full force of the law against protesters calling for an end to police violence against Black people.

The case illustrates the importance of keeping lists of police officers with histories of misconduct or dishonesty, the defense lawyer in the case says.

Many of the 230,000 women and girls in U.S. jails and prisons were abuse survivors before they entered the system. Research for The Appeal shows that at least 30 percent of those serving time on murder or manslaughter charges were protecting themselves or a loved one from physical or sexual violence.

More than 20 women accused Harry Morel, a longtime district attorney in Louisiana, of sexual misconduct. But Morel pleaded guilty to just a single obstruction of justice count while Mike Zummer, the FBI agent who investigated him, was fired. Now, Zummer is speaking about what he says is a grave injustice—at the hands of the Justice Department.

U.S Attorney William McSwain denies he’s targeted the social justice leader, but experts say prosecutors’ use of the man’s clothing and social media to argue that he should be detained pretrial is unusual.

Rachel Barkow, a respected legal scholar, expert on executive clemency, and former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia would be an ideal choice to start and lead a powerful new program inside the Biden White House.

In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Keva Landrum violated the Constitution when, as a judge, she permitted nearly a dozen Black people to be struck from serving on a jury in a high-profile murder case.

Voters decided to keep Adel in charge of the third-largest prosecuting agency in the country. She is recovering from emergency surgery for bleeding in her brain.

Los Angeles County, with the country’s largest jail system and largest local prosecutor office, is considered a crown jewel in a nationwide push for criminal justice reform.

The DA’s office has been home to bribery, corruption, and more since it was formed 170 years ago. What could a progressive prosecutor do to change that?

Incumbent Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel is backed by police unions and has declined to charge officers in high-profile killings. Challenger Julie Gunnigle says she wants to create an independent unit to review police use-of-force cases.

One candidate for Maricopa County attorney says she’ll make clearing past marijuana convictions ‘universal and automatic’ if elected. The other has not said she would do anything to support expunging criminal records.

The state’s pre-Roe abortion ban includes mandatory prison time for people who provide or obtain abortions. Candidates for top prosecutor in Maricopa County differ on whether they would prosecute such cases.

DA Jackie Lacey and challenger George Gascón outlined diverging visions for the top prosecutor’s office in the nation’s most populous county.

Allister Adel paints herself as a reformer, but her record shows otherwise.

While a debate over defunding the police rages in Austin, a new lawsuit reminds its residents that assault cases in the city are routinely ignored.

Late-stage donations to the Los Angeles DA race increase concerns about the influence of law enforcement money on politics.

Documents obtained by The Appeal raise questions about a Pittsburgh-area mass shooting case that fell apart due to prosecutorial misconduct.

B.S., a 61-year-old with chronic respiratory problems, has struggled with substance use for decades. Police and prosecutors sought the harshest sentence possible after he failed to return the car.

After testing positive for COVID-19, Tommy Zeigler, whose case inspired legislation and multiple investigative reports, is missing in a Florida prison; advocates for women inside Oklahoma’s Eddie Warrior Correctional Center want to hear from Gov. Kevin Stitt; and men quarantined in a previously shuttered prison say they’re being forced to pee in cups.

Its decades-long commitment to upholding convictions—even those marred by police or prosecutorial misconduct—has left Missourians languishing in prison for years.

Women at California’s Folsom prison fear that men with COVID-19 will be transferred into their building, a new report looks at the shockingly high rate of COVID-19 deaths among incarcerated people, and we update our ongoing case tracker map.

Prosecutors in states ranging from New York to Utah are using decades-old gang laws to target participants in the largest uprising against police brutality in U.S. history.

Removing police union influence from the prosecutor’s office is a critical first step towards building a system that is safe, just, and fair for all.

A state investigation found that Detroit police officers fabricated evidence that helped convict a 14-year-old boy. A judge threw out his conviction after he spent nine years in prison, but the officers are still on the job and haven’t been flagged as unreliable to testify in court.

A deadly pandemic should not be used as a bargaining chip against poor, detained people charged with crimes.

Julie Gunnigle, who is running in Maricopa County, says she supports alternatives to incarceration. But a decade ago in Illinois, she prosecuted a woman for recording phone calls and helped put her in jail for 18 months. 

Lawyers and activists are calling on prosecutor Kym Worthy to dismiss charges against those who have been arrested. As of July 29, 451 Detroiters had been arrested for violating Michigan’s concealed carry law, an increase of 190 percent compared to July 2019.