It was a shocking and terrible crime. In 2016, two gunmen acted in concert to drive partygoers to a Pittsburgh-area house’s back porch and then shoot them. Five people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were killed. A sixth person was paralyzed and died...
When deciding who needs to remain in jail as they await trial, courts in most states should consider two things. First, is the person a danger to the community? If they are, pre-trial detention may be justified. Second, is the person a flight risk? In other words, how...
In 2000, Adnan Syed was convicted of murdering his girlfriend and burying her body in a park in Baltimore. Although he was just 17 at the time of his girlfriend’s death in 1999, he was sentenced to life in prison. He has argued that he is innocent, but Maryland’s...
When the founders decided to require warrants before the government could search someone, what rights were they trying to protect? They wanted to free Americans from an intrusive government seeking to take their liberty without due process. They wanted to protect our...
If her conviction isn’t reconsidered, Melissa Lucio is expected to be executed on April 27. If that happens, she will be the first Latina to be executed by the state of Texas. She was convicted of murdering her daughter Mariah, but some experts believe no crime was...
There is good reason to believe that predictive policing software simply reinforces past, biased information to predict crime. It is certainly under heavy scrutiny, as it seeks to predict in advance exactly who will commit crimes. It’s the subject of dystopian...
A new, reformer district attorney in Manhattan has begun adopting policies aimed at reducing mass incarceration. District Attorney Alvin Bragg just issued a departmental memo directing the prosecutors in his office to ask judges for jail time in only the most serious...
Statistics have long shown that people of color are no more likely, due to their races, than White people to commit crimes. However, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, Black people, Latinos, and poor people are more likely that wealthier white...
In 2014’s Riley v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that law enforcement cannot search the contents of your phone without a warrant, even when they’re arresting you. The high court specifically found that modern cellphones are not like the contents...
A new report by The Sentencing Project places Wisconsin at the top of a grim list. It imprisons more of its African-American male adults than any other state. In fact, one in every 36 Black men in Wisconsin is incarcerated. This is a staggering fact on its own, but it...
