criminal justice reform
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In Kenya’s overcrowded prisons, where more than 80% of inmates have never been represented by a lawyer, a British-founded organization is training incarcerated people to become paralegals and lawyers, and the results have been nothing short of transformative. Justice Defenders, founded by Alexander McLean in 2007, has worked in 55 prisons across Kenya, Uganda, and…
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In what legal scholars are calling one of the most remarkable redemption stories in modern American jurisprudence, a convicted bank robber who taught himself law while serving a 12-year federal prison sentence has become a professor at one of the nation’s premier law schools. Shon Hopwood, now a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, first…
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Georgia criminal defense attorney Alicia Luncheon is calling for nationwide reform of compensation laws for wrongfully convicted individuals, arguing that legal remedies for exonerees remain inconsistent across the United States and often depend more on geography than legal principle. In a recently posted social media video promoting a petition campaign created in partnership with Change.org,…
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Fulton County Commission Chair candidate Mo Ivory is placing constitutional rights, pretrial detention reform, and jail conditions at the center of her runoff campaign, arguing that the county’s long-running jail crisis cannot be solved without reducing unnecessary incarceration and replacing the existing detention facility. In a recent interview with Courier Georgia, Ivory, an attorney and…
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Wrongful Conviction Overturned After 19 Years as Shooter’s Letter and Confession Lead to Exoneration
A New York man who spent nearly two decades in prison for a murder he did not commit has been fully exonerated after the actual gunman confessed, capping a decades-long miscarriage of justice that began when critical evidence was ignored. Emel McDowell was 17 years old when he was arrested and charged with murder following…
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After nearly three decades behind bars, Bryan Hooper Sr. walked free from a Minnesota prison Thursday — exonerated of a murder he did not commit after the witness whose testimony secured his conviction confessed to being the real killer. Hooper’s release followed a decision by State District Court Judge Marta Chou, who vacated his 1998…
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After more than three decades behind bars, 74-year-old Mary Virginia Jones has finally walked free, her wrongful conviction overturned after a long fight for justice. Jones, often affectionately called “Mother Mary” by family and friends, was convicted in 1982 in connection with the fatal shooting of two drug dealers. The tragedy that bound her to…
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Louisiana has enacted one of the most controversial criminal justice measures in recent history, becoming the first state in the United States to authorize surgical castration as a possible punishment for convicted child sex offenders. The law, signed by Governor Jeff Landry, took effect on August 1, 2024, and has already triggered nationwide debate among…
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Donald Trump is reportedly considering reclassifying marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act, a shift that could have sweeping legal and economic consequences for the U.S. cannabis industry. According to The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal, the proposal—originally advanced but never finalized by the Biden…
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Chris Dunn, a Missouri man who spent nearly 35 years behind bars for a murder he has always maintained he did not commit, was officially declared innocent by a judge and released from prison on July 30 of last year. Dunn’s case has become emblematic of the failures within the U.S. criminal justice system and…
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