Legal representation in criminal proceedings remains out of reach for many. Much of the rural U.S. is a legal desert. Rules are inconsistent about who qualifies for help. Half of counties do not provide counsel for bail hearings, leaving people languishing in jail for months.
Mike Crowley
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Criminal justice reform advocate. Former Senior Fellow at Brennan Center for Justice, former justice analyst at White House OMB. Views are my own.
Indigent criminal defendants must be provided with represention. It’s the law of the land. In Mississippi, the state’s supreme court issued a rule that legal help be supplied during the period after arrest and before indictment. Few of the state’s courts are complying.
If you missed this...on June 22nd, California's Supreme Court struck down police qualified immunity, making it easier to sue police as individuals for serious misconduct. This begins to chip away at a court-invented legal doctrine that incentivizes police misconduct.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/california-police-lawsuits-18166411.php
No Second Chances. Ron DeSantis vetoed a criminal justice reform bill widely supported by his GOP-dominated legislature. Next up, he says he'd revoke the federal First Step Act as president. Idiotic.
Prisons and jails shouldn't be a death sentence, yet violence and neglect too often go unchecked. And now extreme heat threatens those housed in facilities without air conditioning.
"Minneapolis Police routinely discriminate and use excessive force", DOJ finds.
"Thousands of California police officers could be stripped of their badges under new law" for serious misconduct. And we'll all be better off when the officers working our streets are honest and have integrity. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/california-cops-decertified-18151927.php
There was NO evidence linking this man to a crime, yet he was wrongly imprisoned in Florida for 34 years. The mistakes our criminal justice system makes — both intentional and not — have staggering consequences for the innocent.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/15/us/sidney-holmes-freed-wrongful-conviction/index.html
The plea deal has virtually replaced the criminal trial, but it can lead to less justice. Under the pressure of stacked but unwarranted charges, many innocents accept pleas—leading to incarceration, loss of jobs and housing, and the life changing stigma of a criminal record.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/10/government-overreliance-plea-bargaining/
Reducing police hiring standards and training leads to disasters, but we also need entirely different skills in policing. Instead of placing armed officers on the streets to detect crime and enforce compliance, we need much more of a problem-solving and helper skill set.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/11/us/tyre-nichols-memphis-police-law-enforcement