Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and is the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School. She recently published an exhaustive article about prosecutorial misconduct in the Times Magazine.…
Category: Criminal Justice Reform
2017
Category: Corruption | Criminal Justice Reform | Drug Trafficking
Last year the federal government seized through its asset forfeiture laws $1,921,273,552.00 from both convicted and suspected criminal wrongdoers–$97,831.788.00 of which came from Texas.
DOJ to Expand Prosecutions, Asset Forfeiture
In a July 17, 2017 speech before the…
2017
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Sexual Assault
Two Mississippi men, Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, were wrongfully convicted of murdering two three-year-old girls in separate crimes in the 1990s.
Levon Brooks Convicted of Murder, Life in Prison
Brooks’ ordeal began in September 1990 when three-year-old…
2017
Category: Appeals | Criminal Justice Reform
Police Force: When Does Reasonable Become Unreasonable
Nearly three decades ago the U.S. Supreme Court, in Graham v. Conner, held that the police may use reasonable force when making an arrest. The Court said, “The ‘reasonableness’ of a particular…
2017
Category: Constitutional Law | Criminal Justice Reform | Criminal Law
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than half of the jail population in the U.S. has never been convicted of a crime. That’s some 420,000 people, give or take a few thousand. They are in jail because they…
2017
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Prosecutorial Misconduct
A Portrait of Race Based Police Brutality
There are cops – some good, some bad. Then there are some cops who are so roguish, so bad that they should not be allowed to touch a law enforcement badge.
Florida’s…
2017
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Drug Crime
“Guilty” does not always mean actual guilt, especially in drug cases involving African-American defendants who elect to plead guilty in the Harris County Criminal Justice Center.
African Americans 5 Times as Likely to be Wrongfully Convicted
A March…
2017
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Prosecutorial Misconduct
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court in Giglio v. United States informed prosecutors that they had a constitutional duty to disclose to criminal defendants any information that would impeach the credibility of government witnesses, including any financial benefits provided, promised…
2017
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Criminal Law
We understand that 2016 was a horrific year for police fatalities—139, of which 64 were shot and killed in the line of duty.
Police across the country feel besieged, some to the point that they elected to “stand down”…
2016
Category: Criminal Justice Reform | Criminal Law
Newly-elected Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg was elected as a “reformer” with plans to clean up the local criminal justice system. Some of her stated goals are lofty indeed:
Concentrate on the prosecution of violent offenders while diverting…