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 […]
wrongful convictions
Posted inCriminal Justice
Wrongful Convictions Reveal the Flaws of the Criminal Justice System
Derrick Hamilton turned 18 behind bars. A few months later in 1983, he was sentenced to 25 years to life for murder and robbery, and transferred to an upstate New York prison over 200 hundred miles away from his family. This sequence of events happened not once, but twice, to the young father. He was […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Chicago Man’s Long-Delayed Exoneration Reveals Cracks in a System
Six days before Christmas, Darien Harris’ family showed up to court hoping he would be granted bail. They got more than they expected. He will walk out of a Chicago courthouse as a 30-year-old exonerated man after being incarcerated for 12 years. On Tuesday, prosecutors dropped all charges against Harris in the 2011 shooting of […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Incarceration
Black Men Continue to Be Overrepresented in Annual Wrongful Conviction Report
A majority of wrongful convictions have been tied to drug possession allegations that were brought on by corrupt police officers who targeted Black people, a new report revealed. The National Registry of Exonerations tallied 233 exonerations in 2022, of which a majority stemmed from patterns of misconduct by police officers. In addition, NRE researchers found […]