In February, Senator Scott Wiener introduced new criminal justice reform legislation, Senate Bill 938. This bill would amend the standards used for evaluating expert testimony and forensics in court pre- and post-conviction. Faulty forensic and scientific evidence, provided by expert witnesses, are the second most common reason that individuals are wrongfully convicted for crimes they did not commit. Today, courts have discretion over which expert testimonies are admissible. Studies show that co...
Apr 09, 2020•24 min
Eric Gonzalez was appointed the DA of Kings County (Brooklyn), New York in 2016 after Ken Thompson, his predecessor died. In 2017, he won his own term. We talked extensively about the COVID-19 threat to Brooklyn and also the conditions at Rikers Island, the notorious jail he referred to in the interview as a "hell hole." He was very critical of the failure to get people who did not need to be incarcerated and high risk individuals off the island. In addition, we talked about more traditional ref...
Apr 06, 2020•40 min
Ronnie Long has served nearly 44 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was arrested in 1976 on trespass charges, charged and later convicted of rape, sentenced to 80 years and has been in prison for more than 40 years despite evidence of an unfair trial and that he was wrongly convicted. We talk with Jamie Lau with the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic. Ronnie Long had his case reviewed this year by a panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, who rejected his request for a new tri...
Apr 03, 2020•40 min
In 1989 she was a young mother who lost her kids in a tragic fire. Except the investigators at the time, using archaic methods, determined that it wasn't a tragic fire, it was arson and therefore murder and on the basis of this evidence, Ms. Parks was sentenced to life in prison. But we have learned a lot about arson since then - and we now know that things that used to be taken as telltale signs of arson are now flawed science and were likely if not certainly accidental. However, the system is ...
Apr 01, 2020•38 min
Sim Gill - born in India, is the first Indian-American prosecutor in the US and one of only two elected Democrats in the entire state of Utah. He first was elected in November 2010. He has enacted a series of reforms - and has battled the Utah Attorney General in trying to get conviction integrity statewide in Utah. He has also pushed through a Criminal Justice Reform effort, the first in the nation, which would allow for the reduction of convictions for more than 12,000 people. He has been a st...
Mar 30, 2020•35 min
Michael Dougherty came to Boulder from Manhattan and worked as a deputy in the DA's for nearly twenty years before being appointed in 2018 to replace the long time prosecutor. He then won on his own. He now is running to be elected to his first four term. He was a strong supporter of the effort recently completed with the governor's signing to end the death penalty. “I’m strongly opposed to the death penalty, and it should be abolished in Colorado,” he told legislators. “I don’t believe any stat...
Mar 27, 2020•33 min
Buta Biberai was elected last year as Commonwealth Attorney in Loudon County Virginia. She ran as the progressive reformer and became the first new top prosecutor in 16 years. Criminal justice reform looks a bit different in suburban Virginia, what has traditionally been more red but has over time shifted. We talk about the issues and challenges of reform in Virginia and it how it differs from other places that we have spoken about.
Mar 23, 2020•40 min
Maurice Caldwell was convicted in 1991 in San Francisco Superior Court in the June 1990 death of Judy Acosta, who was shot dead during an apparent drug deal that went sour in the Alemany public housing project in San Francisco. A woman would identify Mr. Caldwell as one of the gunmen and based solely on her testimony that she saw him standing under a light pole, Mr. Caldwell was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Years later, Caldwell wrote to the Northern California Innoc...
Mar 19, 2020•41 min
In November of 2019, the 4th District Court of Appeal in the cases of Lamaroux and Gooden, ruled that SB 1437, Felony Murder Reform was constitutional. SB 1437 redefines that law for felony-murder liability by excluding “a person who is not the actual killer, did not act with the intent to kill, or was not a major participant in the underlying felony who acted with reckless indifference to human life.” SB 1437 also permits individuals convicted of felony-murder or murder to petition for resenten...
Mar 16, 2020•40 min
In 2019, Tiffany Caban, a career public defender ran for DA in QUeens, NY and came within an eyelash of beating the establishment backed candidate. Ms. Caban talks about what she is doing today and the ramifications of her race as well as the future of the progressive prosecution movement.
Mar 13, 2020•33 min
UDi Ofer is the ACLU Director of the Justice Division and Deputy National Political Director. We talk with him about recent elections and their implications for criminal justice reform as well as the goal of reducing incarceration by 50 percent and the how to reach that number. “The next president must tackle the country’s mass incarceration crisis in a way that restores fundamental civil liberties, upholds human dignity, combats racial injustice, prioritizes rehabilitation, and leads to safer a...
Mar 11, 2020•42 min
Diana Becton took an unusual route to become prosecutor. She had served 22 years as a judge in Contra Costa County before the Board of Supervisors in 2017 appointed her interim DA, then she was elected DA in 2018. She became the first African American woman to serve as DA in the county. The previous DA in Contra Costa County was charged with felonies and was forced to resign. “The reasons people thought that I would be good for that position had to do not only with my administrative experience, ...
Mar 09, 2020•35 min
Jonathan Rapping is a nationally renowned criminal justice innovator who is the founder and president of Gideon’s Promise, a 501(c)(3) non-profit public defender advocacy organization that provides training, leadership development and mentorship to improve the quality of legal representation for the clients and communities they serve. His book by the name of Gideon’s Promise will be out May 5. We talk about the need to engage public defenders in criminal justice reform and how to overcome obstac...
Mar 05, 2020•41 min
John Pfaff is a law professor at Fordham University. He is the author of a groundbreaking work which looks at a series of data to analyze mass incarceration and the true causes of it and presents a path to achieve real reform. He argues that the "standard story" about mass incarceration is largely wrong. Mass incarceration is not drive by the war on drugs as some have argued and instead in order to get to the heart of the problem we have to address how we incarcerate the most serious offenders. ...
Mar 02, 2020•33 min
ASUCD President Justin Hurst along with External Affairs Vice President Adam Hatefi and Francois Kaeppelin talk about the successful fee referendum and what that means, as well as the strike over the UC Santa Cruz COLA demands and how that impacts UC Davis and student housing issues on campus.
Feb 28, 2020•26 min
Laura Conover who is running for County Attorney in Pima County Arizona, home of Tuscon. According to her bio, she “dedicated her career to helping the Southern Arizona community by defending the poor, advocating for victims, and fighting for justice in local and federal courts. She decided to run for the position of Pima County Attorney to bring much-needed reform to Southern Arizona’s criminal justice system.” She is facing two candidates from the County Attorney's Office.
Feb 26, 2020•39 min
Senator Nancy Skinner has authored some of the most important criminal justice legislation in the state. Senator Skinner represents among other places, Berkeley in the State Senate. Prior to her election to the State Senate in 2016, Skinner was a member of the California State Assembly representing California's 15th State Assembly district from 2008 to 2014. On the Podcast, the Senator talks about the importance of SB 1437 - felony murder reform. We also talk about SB 1421, police transparency l...
Feb 24, 2020•24 min
In 2019, Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala announced she would not seek re-election for the position she held since 2016 serving as prosecutor in Orange and Osceola Counties in Florida. She told Everyday Injustice the sole reason for that decision was her opposition to the death penalty, and a Florida Supreme Court decision that upheld the reassignment of dozens of cases to another state attorney as a result of that. Despite this clear setback, she believes that the progressive prosecution mov...
Feb 18, 2020•38 min
Recidivism is one of the greatest flaws of our criminal justice system - we punish people to the hilt and they get released without the tools to survive outside of our prison system and end up re-offending. The heart of criminal justice reform is to end these never ending cycles prison and poverty. And the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) is fighting that frontline battle " to change lives and create safe, healthy communities by providing a support and advocacy network for and by formerly incarce...
Feb 17, 2020•35 min
In the latest in our series on progressive candidates for District Attorney, we have Jason Williams, who will take on DA Leon Cannizzaro, one of the more notoriously aggressive prosecutors in the country. Jason Williams is a councilmember at large in New Orleans, but eschewed a run at Mayor to run for DA against Mr. Cannizaro who has held the job since 2008. Mr. Williams, a defense attorney, is running as a reformer against an incumbent who once ran as “America’s Toughest Judge” in pursuit of a ...
Feb 13, 2020•40 min
US Attorney from the Eastern District of California McGregor Scott claimed homicide rates and violent crimes were affected by the policies of the progressive prosecutor movement. While he stated at the outset he was here to play the contrarian on the panel that included DA Chesa Boudin, State’s Attorney for Baltimore City Marilyn Mosby, Suffolk County DA Rachel Rollins (which includes Boston) - he probably did not expect expect the full pushback that he received. Listen here to the full exchange...
Feb 12, 2020•25 min
Julie Gunnigle is the latest in our progressive prosecutor series on Everyday Injustice. She is running as a reformer in a district long held by Bill Montgomery. In addition, Maricopa County is well known as the home of notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Among the issues Ms. Gunnigle spoke to on Everyday Injustice, liberalization of marijuana policies. Arizona is the only state for whom even a trace amount of marijuana possession is charged as a misdemeanor and Bill Montgomery was notorious for filin...
Feb 10, 2020•35 min
In 2017, Larry Krasner, a lifelong defense and civil rights attorney stunned the world by winning election to DA of Philadelphia and in so doing transformed the criminal justice system not only in his own city, but launched a movement across the country for progressive reform. He has seen tremendous progress but also seen the system attempt to push back against these changes. Listen as he talks about his two years in Philadelphia. He told Everyday Injustice that one of the biggest problems in th...
Feb 07, 2020•33 min
Early in 2019, Michael Tirpak became the third person released from prison under SB 1437. He had served time in prison since 1996 following his conviction on first-degree murder. Prosecutors said he was driving the getaway driver, but attorneys from the Loyola Project for the Innocent said evidence presented at his trial showed that Tirpak, then 18, was using a pay phone down the street at the time of the crime committed by two younger teens. He was convicted under felony murder rule but that co...
Feb 05, 2020•36 min
Jose Garza is another former public defender and federal public defender, currently the co-executive director of the Austin-based nonprofit Workers Defense Project, and running for prosecutor in Travis County, Texas home of Austin. Right before we recorded the podcast, he got a big endorsement from Elizabeth Warren. “With José as district attorney, Travis County will gain another champion in the fight to transform our criminal justice system,” Warren said in a statement. “As an experienced publi...
Feb 03, 2020•41 min
MIriam Krinsky is Executive Director of the group Fair and Just Prosecution, which is helping transform the criminal justice system by highlighting the roles and responsibilities of prosecutors. A former prosecutor, we talk about how things have changed over the course of her career, the current progressive prosecution movement and what that means for this country.
Jan 30, 2020•37 min
Decarcerate Sacramento is a grassroots organization that formed over the summer to oppose Sacramento County's proposed $89 million jail expansion plan and instead get the board to invest in vital social services. They came together last year and were able to get the board of Supervisors to cancel a planned $89 million jail expansion. Overall their focus is on jail condition and mass organizing to to reduce the jail population.
Jan 28, 2020•38 min
Michelle Tong is a San Francisco Public Defender who is running for judge in an open San Francisco Seat. She said on her campaign page: "I have dedicated my life’s work to advocating in the underserved communities of this city to better the lives of others. Judges have the unique power to make decisions that affect us day to day. From child custody decisions, to neighbor disputes, to critical criminal justice determinations, San Francisco Superior Court Judges hold the power to make life alterin...
Jan 26, 2020•39 min
Janos Marton is taking on longtime Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance who has served as DA for over a decade. He has led the effort to close the infamous Rikers Island jails and referring to his opponent as ‘the city’s leading jailer.’ Marton is a leading organizer in the New York City decarceration movement. This week he has joined the call for Mr. Vance to resign in light of criticism for decisions by his office that seemed to favor powerful defendants such as Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein. Mr. M...
Jan 23, 2020•41 min
San Francisco Public Defender Maria Evangelista is running for an open judge position in San Francisco, she is attempting to become the firstLatina judge elected in San Francisco history. “I’m running for judge to ensure that our courts are in touch with the communities they serve and provide equal treatment for all people that come before the courts,” Ms. Evangelista told a media publication. “That really goes back to who I am and how I’ve spent my whole life serving the public.” Listen as Ever...
Jan 20, 2020•39 min
