Criminal Injustice with David A. Harris Podcast Interview
We’ve all heard about the cases of wrongfully convicted people going to prison for the crimes others committed. In some cases, DNA exonerates them and finds the person who really did it. But what about people wrongfully convicted – of crimes that never happened at all? Our guest is Jessica S. Henry, Professor at Montclair […]
The Crime Report Print Interview
Conversation with Isidoro Rodriguez of The Crime Report: Your Criminal Justice Network from the Center of Media Crime and Justice at John Jay College about my new book and criminal justice reform. Is U.S. Legal System ‘Stacked Against Poor’?, read the full transcript here.
The Death Penalty Is Racist: Now Is the Perfect Time to Abolish It Once and For All
*Originally published on Medium on 07/12/20. Julius Jones has spent the last 20 years on Oklahoma’s death row for a murder he has always said he didn’t commit. It’s stories like his that should make us put an end to the death penalty. In the fall of 1998, Jones was a freshman engineering student at […]
Two Suspicious Deaths by Hangings of Black Men in California
*Originally published on Medium on 06/16/20. Robert Fuller, a twenty-four-year old black man, was found on June 10th, hanging from a tree near City Hall in Palmdale, California. With very little investigation, the local police quickly declared his death to be an apparent suicide, a response that Fuller’s family and friends flatly disputed. There was […]
Don’t Forget the Prosecutors in Talking About Police Reform
*Originally published on Medium on 06/07/20. Millions of Americans have now watched the stomach-turning scene over and over: George Floyd handcuffed, lying prostrate on his stomach in the asphalt street, pleading for his life, calling for his mother, gasping “I can’t breathe.” All the while, Derek Chauvin, hands casually resting in his pockets, continues to […]
Another Innocent Man Executed?
*Originally published on Medium 05/19/20. Walter “Arkie” Barton is scheduled to be executed by the State of Missouri on Tuesday, May 19th. Missouri may well be executing an innocent man. Barton’s Five Trials and the Prosecution Unit that Led the Charge In 1991, 81-year-old Gladys Kuehler was stabbed to death at her home in a […]
Binge Watching? What “How to Fix a Drug Scandal” Teaches Us About Criminal Justice Reform
*Originally published in Medium Age of Awareness 04/20/20. The criminal justice system abounds with inequities. Today’s news headlines are full of stories about our nation’s jail and prisons, where poor people and people of color, who make up a far larger percentage of the incarcerated in this country than they should, face unchecked exposure to […]
Texas, the Coronavirus, Wrongful Convictions, and Prisons (Austin Statesman)
Rosa Jimenez, a mother with Stage 4 Kidney Disease, was already supposed to be released from prison after judges found compelling evidence of her innocence. But she is stuck in a cell in Texas, where her potential exposure to the coronavirus could prove fatal. She is not alone. Texas has been dragging its feet on […]
New Jersey’s Prisons and the Coronavirus
New Jersey just took a major step toward protecting the public from the coronavirus. It ordered the release of nearly 1,000 low-level offenders in county jails – which represents about one-tenth of the jail population. This makes good sense. Jails and prisons are breeding grounds for viral diseases. People in prison live on top […]
The Death Penalty Lottery
Colorado’s Governor Jared Polis has announced he will sign a state bill to abolish capital punishment. Lawmakers in Colorado decided to end the death penalty because it was expensive, arbitrary, rarely used, and risked the execution of the innocent. It is also unnecessary. Offenders who commit murder can be sentenced to other severe penalties, such […]