On Tuesday, Daquan woke up at 8 a.m. to beat the heat and play basketball with his friend at a park in Milwaukee’s King Park neighborhood, the heart of Black life in the city for nearly a century. But now the 17-year-old doesn’t know if he’ll ever step on that court again. There at the […]
Criminal Justice
Posted inIncarceration
Alabama Outlawed Slavery in Prisons. Is It Still Happening?
The day after Trayveka Stanley’s mother died, she was devastated. She was having trouble coping with her loss and needed time to grieve, but her plea for a day off from her prison job at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama, didn’t persuade its officials. The 32-year-old was still required to show up […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Incarceration
Will Another’s Written Confession Be Enough to Set This Man Free?
This fall will mark 18 years since a New York judge sat at her bench with a clear view of two Black families whose lives had been ravaged by gun violence. On her right of the full courtroom sat supporters of Ronnie Wright, who faced being separated from his young daughter for the rest of […]
Posted inClimate Change, Criminal Justice, Environmental Justice, Incarceration
The Growing Crisis of Heatwave Deaths in America’s Prisons
Last September, at his graduation from Northwestern University, Michael Broadway reconnected with his mother, Elizabeth, for the first time in two decades. Due to her ailing health, she couldn’t visit him. As an incarcerated man, he didn’t have the option to travel to her, either. For those two decades, Broadway was held inside Stateville Correctional […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Maryland Governor’s Marijuana Pardons a Win for Justice, But Is It Enough?
Stephanie Shepard has had unsettling feelings in the pit of her stomach ever since she was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute marijuana. She couldn’t believe that a drug sentence’s mandatory minimum carried more weight than a homicide-related offense. Before Shepard was transferred from New York to a […]
Posted inCourts
Your Guide to This Year’s Major Supreme Court Cases
Her words sounded ominous, like a warning. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the bench’s most senior liberal member, recently recalled that, on some days, she returns to her office after the announcement of a gut-wrenching decision, closes her door — and cries: “There have been those days,” she lamented. “And there are likely to […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice
Acquitted of Murder Decades Ago, Virginia Man Serving Life Fights for His Freedom
This story originally published in 2024, but has been updated to reflect former President Joe Biden’s final clemency action in the days before he left the White House. The “Waverly Two” are among those set to be released this week. Terence Jerome Richardson and Ferrone Claibone were in the midst of an evidentiary hearing to […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics & Policy
The Racial Inequality of Felony Convictions
Depending on one’s politics, you could describe former President Donald Trump in many ways, but now he has a new descriptor: felon. On Thursday, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a hush-money scheme involving the adult film star Stormy Daniels. He’s the first former president […]
Posted inCourts
As Marilyn Mosby Faced Crucial Day In Court, Her Family and Faith Were Front and Center
It’s been a long time since Marilyn Mosby has fully relaxed and spent enough quality time with her beloved grandmother and two daughters. Having a federal conviction has forced the former Baltimore City state’s attorney to reflect on a lot lately. Mosby was convicted after two separate federal trials on two counts of perjury in […]
Posted inCourts
Former Prosecutor Avoids Prison, But How Did She Get Here?
A federal court judge spared Marilyn Mosby from spending a minute behind bars for mortgage fraud and perjury. Throughout the nearly six-hour hearing inside a Greenbelt, Maryland, courthouse were three rooms reserved for the former Baltimore City state’s attorney’s supporters who traveled from across the country. Statements were read by nearly a dozen people, including […]
