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Jun 30, 2021
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A Famed Federal Judge Was Just Accused Of Sexual Misconduct. It’s An All-Too Familiar Case For Law Clerks.
Last week, a former clerk of Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt told a congressional committee that the judge sexually harassed her, a reminder of how little law schools and the federal court system do to protect law students.
Vanessa A. Bee Feb 20, 2020
What If Ordinary Juries Were More Like Impeachment Juries?
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. “Today, the sham impeachment attempt concocted by Democrats ended in the full vindication and exoneration of President Donald J. Trump,” said Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary. […]
Sarah Lustbader Feb 06, 2020
About That Trump Super Bowl Ad
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. It was no secret that President Trump was planning to run an ad during the Super Bowl this year; the question was only what the particular message […]
Sarah Lustbader Feb 04, 2020
Are Problem-Solving Courts Impeding Progress?
“When New York State created a network of 12 Human Trafficking Intervention Courts, criminal justice professionals hailed it as an innovation,” writes Christina Goldbaum for the New York Times. “The courts send people into counseling sessions to help them leave the multibillion-dollar sex trade while dismissing their charges and sealing their records.” New York’s court isn’t alone. Courts […]
Sarah Lustbader Jan 07, 2020
A Conservative Judge Changes His Mind
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. When John Roberts was nominated to the Supreme Court in 2005, he assured the nation that his decisions would be guided by something loftier than his own […]
Sarah Lustbader Dec 19, 2019
When McKinsey Aids ICE And Rikers, Is It Amoral Or Immoral?
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. McKinsey & Company is a prestigious management consulting firm known more for being excellent than for being good. Which is to say, only the most die-hard free […]
Sarah Lustbader Dec 12, 2019
What Is The Purpose of Sex Offense Registries?
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. Two days ago, the Union-Recorder in Georgia published a bizarre editorial. The editorial board noted that the state’s sex offender registry system drives people into homelessness and deprived […]
Sarah Lustbader Dec 10, 2019
Trump Makes The Most Important Anti-Hunger Program Harder To Access For People Leaving Prison
A rule restricting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits will have profound consequences for people with criminal legal system involvement.
Vaidya Gullapalli Dec 05, 2019
Chicago Teachers Fought For Support Staff And Restorative Justice In Schools
After an 11-day strike, the Chicago Teachers Union won guarantees of nurses and social workers in every school and a “path” towards hiring librarians, counselors, and restorative justice coordinators.
Vaidya Gullapalli Nov 04, 2019
Should Relapse Be Treated Like A Crime?
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. “As soon as Julie Eldred was granted probation for stealing jewelry to buy drugs, she got busy fulfilling the judge’s conditions,” Jan Hoffman reported for the New York Times […]
Sarah Lustbader Oct 25, 2019
New To The School-To-Prison Pipeline: Armed Teachers, Facial Recognition, And First-Graders Labeled ‘High-Level’ Threats
School districts are responding to fears around school shootings with policies that risk targeting Black and Latinx, and disabled, students, who are already disproportionately targeted by school discipline measures
Vaidya Gullapalli Oct 21, 2019
Court-Packing Is The Tip Of The Iceberg
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 last night’s debate, the most sustained conversation about the courts was about the possibility of court-packing. Which is a fine thing to discuss, considering how effectively […]
Sarah Lustbader Oct 16, 2019
Republicans Suddenly Care About Hearsay And Procedural Justice
Republicans seem to discover the urgent need for due process and procedural safeguards each time an ally of theirs becomes vulnerable. This time, it’s about hearsay. I am confident that I am not the only attorney fielding questions about whether the whistleblower complaint—which began an impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s dealings with the Ukranian president—is hearsay. This is because after the complaint was released, Trump allies such […]
Sarah Lustbader Oct 04, 2019
To End the School-to-Prison Pipeline, Invest in Resources for Students
Harsh disciplinary measures and school-based arrests continue to disproportationately affect students of color, including preschoolers in Texas.
Vaidya Gullapalli Sep 09, 2019
Why The Digital Privacy Of Young People On Probation Matters
California Supreme Court rules that the government cannot subject a young person on probation, as a condition of release, to random searches of his electronic devices and social media accounts.
Vaidya Gullapalli Aug 21, 2019
Spotlight: Scalia Called Stevens’s Evolution ‘Arrogance.’ It was the Opposite.
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 […]
Sarah Lustbader Jul 18, 2019
In Justice Today: Justice system predictions for 2018
In Justice Today invited leading thinkers in criminal justice reform to answer the question, “2018 is the year….” This is what they said.
In Justice Today Jan 02, 2018
Mississippi Woman Jailed 96 Days Without Attorney Has Fifth Circuit On Her Side
“The district court found this constitutionally permissible. It is not.”
Carimah Townes Nov 02, 2017
Feel-Good Victims Rights Legislation Doesn’t Help Victims
This November, Ohio voters will consider a ballot measure that, if approved, will add new crime victim protections to the state constitution. The proposed constitutional amendment is called the Ohio Crime Victims Bill of Rights or Marsy’s Law. It is based on a similar victims rights bill enacted in California in 2008, named for Marsalee “Marsy” Nicholas, a University […]
Meaghan Ybos Oct 23, 2017
This $2.75 gateway to jail targets New York’s poorest black neighborhoods
In New York City, many demographics are eligible for subsidized MetroCards, which allow them to access the increasingly expensive and dysfunctionalsubway system at a lower cost. Transit benefits are available to the elderly, disabled, and schoolchildren, and many companies offer their employees pre-tax MetroCards as part of their benefits package. But one group of New Yorkers is conspicuously left out […]
Rebecca McCray Oct 17, 2017
ICYMI: Yesterday’s can’t-miss justice system news
Note: This first appeared in our daily In Justice Today newsletter. To get stories like these in your inbox every day, you can sign up here. In today’s news roundup, we bring you stories about questions surrounding the use of DNA evidence, misuse of labor by ICE detainees, the lawsuit challenging drivers license suspensions for failure to pay […]
Matt Henry Oct 13, 2017
This week’s top justice system stories in New York
Each week, the Fair Punishment Project monitors the news in New York, talks to local journalists and advocates, and share the most important stories with you through our weekly New York newsletter. In this week’s New York newsletter, we brought you stories about ICE raids, the future of Rikers Island, a program that is cutting […]
Max Rivlin-Nadler Oct 13, 2017
Changing the Politics of Mass Incarceration
It’s been almost 50 years since President Richard Nixon played the law-and-order card to help him win the presidency. Decades later Donald Trump has adopted the same playbook, telling his own version of the forgotten American who is at the mercy of a crime wave. It didn’t matter that facts didn’t support candidate Trump’s arguments. […]
Udi Ofer Oct 10, 2017
Municipal courts in Colorado are a mess, and they’re not alone
North of the New Mexico border sits Alamosa Municipal Court. An unassuming brick building with a terra cotta roof, the local court looks like a sleepy place you might duck into to pay a traffic ticket. Yet the mostly poor Alamosa residents who appear before Judge Daniel Powell are routinely denied counsel, face jail because […]
Rebecca McCray Oct 06, 2017
Former Contra Costa district attorney faces disbarment
The California Bar doesn’t want disgraced Contra Costa District Attorney Mark Peterson to ever practice law again. The Bar has recommended Peterson be disbarred for his behavior while he was district attorney. The final decision on what happens will be made by the California Supreme Court. As In Justice Today previously reported, Peterson resigned and pleaded no […]
Larry Hannan Oct 05, 2017
Oakland District Attorney candidate calls for change, accountability
At a town hall in Oakland, California, organized by the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the two candidates for Alameda County District Attorney challenged each other on their progressive approaches to criminal justice. Civil rights attorney Pamela Price took incumbent Nancy O’Malley to task for what she said were racial disparities in the […]
Rebecca McCray Oct 05, 2017