Less than a month after addressing the Republican National Convention, the man who calls himself America's toughest sheriff -- Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona -- could be facing criminal contempt charges in federal court.
David spoke with reporter Jude Joffe-Block of Phoenix public radio station KJZZ, who covered the story for NPR this week. On this bonus episode, we follow up that report with further analysis of an extraordinarily unusual situation.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
To get released before trial, most American courts require defendants to post bail money. If you can't pay, even if you're innocent, you'll have to wait for trial while still behind bars. Staying in jail awaiting trial damages lives and legal cases: people in custody lose jobs, housing, and property, and statistics show that they end up with longer sentences if they’re found guilty. And all of this costs taxpayers billions. But there's a better way.
Judge Truman Morrison of the District of Columbia Superior Court shows how courts can follow D.C.'s example and use a combination of non-financial conditions to make sure defendants show up for court and don’t get re-arrested while awaiting trial.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
A cautionary tale from our home state of Pennsylvania, where this week Attorney General Kathleen Kane was convicted of felony perjury for leaking secret grand jury documents to a newspaper and then trying to cover it up.
In this special #longread edition of Lawyers Behaving Badly, David explains how Pennsylvania's top prosecutor, once considered a rising star in state politics, came to face possible prison time herself. It's a long and complicated story with a pointed lesson: Don't, don't, DON'T leak grand jury material. (And if you do, definitely don't text about it.)
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
Pimps and sex traffickers have long been part of the dark side of the economy, but they now use the internet for their ugly business. And some of this involves trafficking underage girls for sex.
Our guest has pioneered an approach to meeting this challenge with a distinctively 21st-century solution: using algorithmic analysis on big data to identify and catch sex traffickers who operate online. Cara Jones is the chief operating officer of Marinus Analytics. At Marinus, she and co-founder Emily Kennedy have brought Traffic Jam, their analytic software, to law enforcement agencies, resulting in the arrests of internet pimps and traffickers, and the rescue of many young women.
Hear more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
The tattered system for supplying criminal defense services to the poor is a shambles. More than 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared that persons charged with crimes must be provided with a defense lawyer if they are too poor to afford one, that promise has been broken. In countless places around the U.S., governments simply do not provide the resources for poor people charged with crimes to have a real defense. The result: defense lawyers with impossible caseloads struggling to meet the constitutional minimum standards for defense. It’s a national scandal, and yet year after year, state and local governments do too little – or nothing – to fix it.
Jonathan Rapping has an answer.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
Portugal decriminalized the possession of ALL drugs in amounts sufficient for personal use – and gave the drug trade a completely public health perspective.
How does the system work? Has it reduced the toll of drug use and the criminal justice costs associated with it? We talk with Kellen Russoniello, Staff Attorney for Health and Drug Policy at the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
More than four decades after President Richard Nixon first declared the War on Drugs, the U.S. is at a crossroads. We can’t arrest and jail our way out of the problem, and a small but growing number of jurisdictions are decriminalizing cannabis. So what is the next step?
In the first of a two-part series, we visit Colorado two years after the decriminalization of the sale, possession and use of cannabis-based drugs with Professor Sam Kamin of the University of Denver, Vicente Sederberg Professor of Marijuana Law and Policy. Have the predictions come true, and what can other states glean from the canary in the coal mine?
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
With every shooting incident, study, and official statement, one demand always appears: better training for police. It’s easy to say and a no-brainer to support, but what does that actually mean?
In this episode, we hear from Deputy Commissioner Tracie Keesee, the person in charge of making these changes in the New York Police Department – the big dog of American law enforcement. She tells us what she has in mind, and what it’s been like to be a woman of color going from a rookie in the Denver Police Department to the top of the NYPD.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
One week after the killings of Philando Castile in Minnesota, Alton Sterling in Louisiana, and five police officers in Texas, David Harris reflects on the deepening crisis in U.S. law enforcement.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
The era of Big Data has come to policing. Departments with lots of data and robust analysis capability say they can predict where crime may occur, and maybe even who will be involved as perpetrator or victim. Does this help police fight crime? And if it does, what are the downsides for citizens and civil liberties? Law professor and Fourth Amendment scholar Andrew Guthrie Ferguson weighs in.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
Walt Pavlo had a good job, a family, a nice home. He never planned on going to prison. Now that he's out, he has a new job: counseling others who are about to enter the system.
The founder of Prisonology.com shares a white collar criminal's view from inside federal prison.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
David breaks down this week's news from the U.S. Supreme Court on 90.5 WESA's Essential Pittsburgh.
The high court ended its 2015-2016 term Tuesday with major rulings on abortion, affirmative action, government corruption, and more.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
In each of 93 federal districts in America, the United States Attorney is the chief federal prosecutor and law enforcement officer. The U.S. Attorney has immense responsibilities and great power, deciding what cases to pursue, who to charge, and what priorities to set. At least as important, the U.S. Attorney decides who not to charge, and when to drop cases for lack of evidence. The job isn’t just to get convictions; it’s to do justice.
David J. Hickton is the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
With hundreds of exonerations of the wrongfully convicted, it’s easy to think that the law and lawyers making use of DNA have made all the difference. But investigative journalists have made huge contributions: exposing shoddy forensics, showing the public how eyewitness testimony goes wrong and how false confessions get made, and confronting police wrongdoing and lack of accountability. Without the untiring efforts of reporters, much of the injustice in the criminal system would stay hidden.
Maurice Possley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and four-time Pulitzer finalist who spent 25 years at the Chicago Tribune. He is currently writer/researcher for the National Registry of Exonerations.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
With the public discussion of police misconduct and public trust at a fever pitch, the loudest voices dominate. We need the insight of a person with the experience of a police officer, with deep knowledge of the law and social science, and with the oral and verbal skills of a great public communicator. Enter Seth Stoughton.
As a former law enforcement officer and current assistant law professor, Stoughton knows what works, how to track it, and when (and how) to talk about it.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
As a federal judge, Robert Cindrich was at the pinnacle of his career. Then he did something almost unheard-of in the legal profession: he quit.
What could compel a respected jurist to walk away from one of the most prestigious and powerful positions in his field? Former U.S. District Judge Robert Cindrich explains on this week's episode.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
On May 23, a judge found the second officer tried in the death of Freddie Gray not guilty. In this bonus episode, Criminal Injustice host David Harris discusses the verdict on 90.5 WESA's Essential Pittsburgh with host Paul Guggenheimer.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
For decades, police in the U.S. have used force under the Supreme Court’s rule that they can do as much as appears “reasonably necessary” to accomplish their lawful goals. But after almost two years of national attention on police shootings of blacks, a major police professional organization has proposed, for the first time, that police use force less often and with more restraint. Is this a turning point?
Chuck Wexler is Executive Director of the Police Executives Research Forum, based in Washington, D.C.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
America is No. 1 in the world when it comes to incarcerating its own citizens. With one-in-three black men in the U.S. likely to go to prison during his lifetime, the system begs for reform, burdens taxpayers, and weakens our country - particularly our communities of color. After decades of resistance, the system may see changes and shrinking prison populations because of bipartisan support for improvement.
Marc Mauer is Executive Director of the Washington D.C.-based Sentencing Project.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
When someone dies or has their constitutional rights violated in an encounter with the police, police can be sued. But why are these suits so tough to win, even in the worst cases of police misconduct? And what does the multiple millions of dollars in damages every year say about the state of police abuse in the U.S.?
David Rudovsky is a national leader in civil rights and civil liberties litigation. He is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and a founding partner in Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
When there’s a bad shooting by police, local prosecutors seldom take action. Federal prosecutors can step in, but they rarely do. Why? And even when they do, why do they lose these cases so often?
Mark Kappelhoff is clinical professor of law at the University of Minnesota, and served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
For too long, the police "warrior" culture has relied on the use of force as its ultimate tool. But one high-ranking veteran officer and his colleagues have re-imagined police work: they give everyone unconditional respect. And it works.
Capt. Charles "Chip" Huth is a commander in the Central Patrol Division of the Kansas City (MO) Police Department, and the co-author of Unleashing the Power of Unconditional Respect: Transforming Law Enforcement and Police Training (2010).
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
Racial bias in the criminal justice system isn't just about old-school bigots. The real problem is unconscious bias in the minds of most of us, including police. How does this impact life-and-death police work?
Melba Pearson is Assistant District Attorney in Miami-Dade, Florida, and President of the National Black Prosecutors Association.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
Sometimes a local law enforcement agency is so dysfunctional that the federal government has to get involved. What does a top-to-bottom overhaul of an entire police department look like?
Sam Walker is Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska, and a leading expert on police accountability.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.
Civil liberties and surveillance technology don't often go together. But when it comes to preventing and punishing police misconduct, many civil libertarians think equipping officers with body-worn video cameras could make a difference.
We look at the promise and perils of police body cameras in conversation with Vic Walczak, Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.
Find more at criminalinjusticepodcast.com.