In 2017, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala prosecuted more than 1,700 low-level drug possession cases. More than $2 million in court-imposed debt was levied on people who were charged in these cases.
Court records and interviews with former prosecutors show that internal assessments of police dishonesty are rarely memorialized, potentially violating the rights of people charged in criminal cases and sometimes keeping the records of bad cops clean.
Climate activists in Houston are charged under a new law aimed at criminalizing protest
Also today: Michigan advocates push for expungement reform
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. Sometimes it seems as if U.S. Senator Kamala Harris thinks we aren’t paying attention. She seems to assume that if she chooses the right words, the ones […]
Henri Lyles is challenging his life sentence under a statute that penalizes people for prior convictions. A favorable decision by the state Supreme Court would mean that he and a dozen people sentenced to life could one day be freed.
The cost of underfunded indigent defense is borne by defendants whose lawyers may spend as little as a few minutes on a case.
Nearly 20 years ago, Biden urged prosecutors to wield the ‘crack house‘ statute against rave promoters. Now it’s being used to stamp out public health responses to the opioid crisis.
Kim Ogg ran as a reform-minded district attorney candidate, but her office has sought two death warrants for Dexter Johnson, whose lawyer says cannot name everyday objects and has an IQ of 70.
Even in states where use is decriminalized, child welfare systems continue to treat it as a sign of neglectful parenting, particularly among families 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. “Even before Boston Municipal Court Judge Richard Sinnott had defense attorney Susan Church handcuffed on Wednesday morning, proceedings in his courtroom had gotten bizarre—and worrying,” wrote Yvonne Abraham, […]
Despite supporting Oregon’s new juvenile justice law, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum is still fighting to keep people in prison who received life sentences as minors.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is partnering with a technology nonprofit to expunge tens of thousands of minor marijuana convictions. Other jurisdictions could follow.
The decline under DA Larry Krasner, who took office in 2018, marks a significant change in juvenile justice in Pennsylvania.
Our response to crime should focus on healing and accountability, not punishment and retribution.
Law enforcement’s old guard claims that policing low-level crime protects communities. That’s not just wrong; it’s dangerous.
At 16, Larry Rosser was imprisoned for killing a woman who sexually and physically abused him. He served 22 years in the California prison system before being released in 2017, after parole commissioners became convinced he was a rehabilitated victim.
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. This month, billionaire Henry T. Nicholas III, who made his fortune as a co-founder of the semiconductor firm Broadcom, was arrested in Las Vegas for narcotics trafficking […]
A statewide pattern of discrimination in jury selection has gone largely uncorrected, while lives remain in the balance, advocates say.
A 10-year-old was charged with assault for throwing a ball at a classmate. The case was dropped, but its effect is still felt.
A federal prosecutor in Pennsylvania blamed DA Larry Krasner for a bloody standoff, but the suspect has a long relationship with the government that includes a sentence reduction because of his cooperation.
Forty-three elected local prosecutors filed an amicus brief last week in support of the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office’s Conviction Integrity Unit’s work in the case of Lamar Johnson.
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. At 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, while attempting to serve a warrant, Philadelphia police found themselves under fire. Six of them were shot, and although none were seriously […]
Murder rates are at an all-time low in Brooklyn, but one would hardly know it reading the New York Times.
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 […]