The War on Drugs was initiated in June 17, 1971, by President Richard Nixon. Any way you look at it, this effort to reduce drug use and the consequences of addiction has failed. Meanwhile, it has arguably been responsible for many of the most destructive criminal...
It has been just over a year since the May 24, 2020 death of 46-year-old Black man George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. The event spurred nationwide – and worldwide – protests and a movement to change policing, especially as applied to Black people and...
It’s a relatively common requirement. If you are a registered sex offender in one state and you move to another, the new state will often require you to comply with its registry. However, the state of Indiana went a step further. It required new residents to register...
Ledell Lee always insisted on his innocence. He was convicted of a shocking murder – the 1993 strangulation and bludgeoning of a 26-year-old woman, but he always denied that he had been the perpetrator. His sister has been fighting for years to prove his innocence, as...
You might not think six eyewitnesses could all be wrong, but they were. The case was a 2010 murder. A man named Aaron Scheerhoorn was stabbed to death outside a nightclub in Houston. A crowd gathered, and six people told detectives that Lydell Grant was the murderer....
Study after study has shown that people who find employment after being released from prison are much less likely to reoffend. Unfortunately, former prisoners are often released with limited resources, little to no job training or education, and few opportunities for...
In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Miller v. Alabama that seemed to hold life sentences without parole for juveniles unconstitutional. The court found that locking a juvenile away for life without the possibility of parole was cruel and unusual...
As a society, we must trust state forensic labs to accurately test evidence. They are supposed to be neutral, not agents for the prosecution or police. They have ethical standards. Too often, forensic labs have failed us. When they do, it can result in wrongful...
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents such as police. It is among our primary sources of constitutional protection against government overreach and surveillance. This is because, in criminal...
District attorneys around the U.S. are reviewing past convictions for evidence that they were wrongful. Unfortunately, there are many situations that can lead to wrongful convictions. Recently, the DA for Jefferson County, Alabama, reviewed Toforest Johnson’s...
