Despite early warnings, jails and prisons have seen a rapid spread of the virus — a humanitarian disaster that puts all of our communities, and lives, at risk. The Appeal examines the scale of the crisis, numbers of infected and dead, around the nation.

Both incarcerated brothers are at an increased risk of complications from COVID-19—and one has tested positive.

During a Boston radio show where Rachael Rollins accused defenders of harming Black and Brown communities, the DA demonstrated that she misunderstands the role that prosecutors play in the criminal legal system: caging those very people.

As COVID-19 deaths mount in Michigan prisons, the review of questionable convictions has slowed, leaving prisoners vulnerable to the disease.

We did it in San Francisco. If we are smart about how we respond to COVID-19 in the criminal legal system, then we can simultaneously tackle two crises.

Several states and the District of Columbia have postponed their bar exams because of the pandemic, creating a deadly delay for poor people in need of public defenders.

Attorneys say the prosecution’s theory of the murder case was ‘concocted out of whole cloth’ and based on ‘outdated racial stereotyping.’

The state’s law enforcement agencies failed to implement a 2018 data-sharing law. Now officials are struggling to identify high-risk people to release from county jails.

The current coronavirus crisis underscores our urgent need to look hard at our pretrial justice system. Eliminating money bail is a necessary first step.

People behind bars are too often forgotten and treated as expendable. We cannot afford to forget them. Our shared survival and shared humanity demand action.

Despite distancing warnings, more than 80 state and federal agents fanned out in an anti-drug operation that, The Appeal has learned, was based on a series of retail-level drug sales.

His attorney says the Suffolk County DA’s office tried to send “an innocent man to his death.”

For many people across the U.S. who need methadone treatment, sheltering in place during the coronavirus outbreak is impossible.

Doing so will save countless lives, and in the process, they may show us by example how to begin, finally, to dismantle mass incarceration for good.

District attorneys in the state could decarcerate quickly by dropping unnecessary cases.

To leave hundreds of people in mass congregate shelters could be a death sentence for many of our vulnerable neighbors.

Incarcerated people, corrections officers, and their families and communities are bound together by the threat of a deadly and fast-moving disease. The sooner we recognize this, and take decisive action, the more lives we will save.

Inconsistent rules nationwide mean some people are still registering and reporting in person despite public health directives meant to control COVID-19.

As the novel coronavirus spread in the state, a Solano County judge denied numerous motions to continue a troubled double kidnapping and rape case marred by allegations that a Vallejo police detective withheld exculpatory evidence.

Public defenders in Fairfax County say their clients are being sent into harm’s way.

The ruling is a setback for the state’s so-called junk science statute.

Decisive action by governors and the President now can save lives — of incarcerated people, correctional and medical personnel, and nearby community members. Business as usual will not.

Jason Brown, who has worked in several parish DA’s offices, was accused of using illegal tactics to win at least one case before arriving in Calcasieu Parish, where he was terminated over alleged dishonesty in a continuance motion. Now, The Appeal has learned that he had segregation-era signs in an art studio he owned.

In a joint statement, they emphasized the need to reduce the number of people currently incarcerated in order to contain the deadly COVID-19 virus.

Activists are calling on the governor, district attorneys, sheriffs, and judges to take action to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

With one term under her belt as Chicago’s top prosecutor, Foxx says she has more work to do to right a system that has been “unfair, and totally unjust.”

With few exceptions, news outlets in Harris County, Texas, spotlight singular instances of crime to allege that legal reform policy is a threat to the public.

Public health recommendations aren’t easy to follow for the incarcerated, unhoused, or the thousands who’ve been subjected to water shutoffs in recent years.

Andrew Cuomo, who recently announced the state would employ prisoners to make hand sanitizer, must prepare for the particular vulnerabilities of the state’s prison population to COVID-19, advocates say.

The public defender and district attorney both directed their staffs to keep individuals who are more vulnerable to the virus out of jail.

In California, a Vallejo detective and a Solano County prosecutor concealed exculpatory evidence from a man facing murder charges. They went on to face accusations of misconduct in other high-profile cases.

Between solidarity actions and political efforts, Jewish communities have a wide range of options to stop antisemitic violence without relying on a criminal legal system that harms communities of color.

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. For all of the nearly 150 years that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the Constitution prohibits excluding people from juries because of race, prosecutors have […]

Dennis Sica struggled with substance use disorder and sold small amounts of heroin that prosecutors connected to overdose deaths. Because of an 1980s-era federal law, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Incumbent District Attorneys faced challenges from reform candidates in California and Texas

She withstood challenges from two of her former assistant district attorneys who wanted to reform the office and reduce prosecutions of low-level offenses.

The U.S. representative said her husband helped her realize that when one person is incarcerated, many more are affected.

The city is ramping up a cleanup program that activists fear will worsen the criminalization of homelessness.

In Travis County, thousands of people continue to be prosecuted for low-level drug possession charges that reform-minded district attorneys elsewhere have committed to dropping.

As a candidate, Chesa Boudin condemned gang enhancements as racist. Now as DA he plans to significantly limit, if not eliminate, their use.