Recent Blog Posts
Book Banning Behind Bars
When Lou Johnson was approached by an investigative journalist named Silja Talvi about sharing her experiences behind bars, she was happy to participate. Talvi was writing a book, and wanted women who were experiencing incarceration to tell their stories in order to shine a light on the abuse and trauma that was so common… Read More »
Criminal Justice Reforms on the Horizon
The criminal justice system in this country is fraught with problems, but things may be looking up. The United States leads the world in the number of incarcerated individuals with more than five million people behind bars or some other control, and up to 100 million living with a criminal record dinging their opportunities…. Read More »
Supreme Court Raises the Bar for Stalking Convictions
After Billy Raymond Counterman sent myriad Facebook messages over the course of years to performer Coles Whalen, Whalen finally had enough and filed stalking charges. The hundreds of thousands of FB comments left Whalen feeling untethered enough that she ultimately felt she must leave her Colorado home for her own safety. Counterman was sent… Read More »
Has Your Teen Been Accused of Dating Violence?
Whatever you think you may know about domestic violence, you may not realize that dating violence folds up into the umbrella of domestic violence, and many teens and young adults deal with it every day. Dating violence involves both victims and abusers. It may be difficult to imagine your child as a perpetrator of… Read More »
Are You Being Threatened with Double Jeopardy?
What comes to mind when you think of the 5th Amendment? Chances are your first thought is the right to remain silent, or maybe the right to have an attorney. But there is another important clause to this amendment to our constitution: protection from double jeopardy. What is Double Jeopardy? Thought to have originated… Read More »
What About That Speedy Trial?
The 6th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the accused the right to a speedy trial. Because defendants are presumed innocent, it makes sense that the Founders believed in giving the accused their day in court as quickly as possible. Otherwise, innocent people could be assumed guilty unless their names were cleared in a court… Read More »
Defending Malicious Prosecution
Let’s face it: most people charged with criminal offenses claim to be innocent. And many of them are. Sometimes prosecutors simply have their facts wrong; oftentimes they are simply unjustified in their pursuit of criminal charges altogether because someone involved in the case is engaging in malicious prosecution. In other words, either the plaintiff… Read More »
Facial Recognition Technology Gone Awry
She thought it was a joke. As Porcha Woodruff prepared her two daughters for school one morning, she was surprised to have six armed police officers at her door. They asked her to step outside, where they arrested her for carjacking. Woodruff was stunned on many levels. Are You Kidding? First of all, Woodruff… Read More »
Insights to Problems Around Incarceration
Who better than those who are or have been incarcerated to identify the human costs of confinement? That’s the premise that led to a compilation of accounts written by current and former convicts, in an attempt to inform policy decisions relating to incarceration going forward. Incarceration in the United States Why is the United… Read More »
A Vegas Murder Mystery for the Books
As the water drops lower and lower in Lake Mead, more and more discoveries are being made. Pueblo ruins have been uncovered, thrilling archaeologists. An old war plane that crashed in the lake decades ago is now visible. And some more unsettling discoveries have been unearthed, including the remains of a human body inside… Read More »
