Harris County’s New Progressive Judges Are Upending the Bail System
tzahiv/Getty Images Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. In November, Democrats swept Harris County, Texas, courtrooms, replacing every Republican judge to occupy each of the 59 seats on the ballot. Many of those candidates, including the 19 black women who campaigned together, ran on reform-minded platforms focused on upending the county’s bail system.…
California Governor Announces Reprieve for the State’s 737 Death Row Inmates
Rich Pedroncelli/AP Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom will announce a moratorium Wednesday on the state’s death penalty, giving 737 death row inmates a reprieve from execution. The death sentences are still in place, but no inmates will be executed as long as the moratorium is…
On the Death Penalty, John Hickenlooper May Have Tried Too Hard to Find a Middle Ground
David Zalubowski/AP Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. In December 1993, 19-year-old Nathan Dunlap, who had recently been fired from a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora, Colorado, shot five of his former colleagues—only one survived. The public was shocked by the gruesome and senseless nature of the murders in a…
The Private Prison Industry Just Suffered A Major Blow. And It Could Just Be the Beginning.
A protester inside a Chase bank in December 2019.SOPA Images/Getty Images Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. Last month, on Valentine’s Day, dozens of protesters gathered outside the Upper East Side apartment of Jamie Dimon with a mariachi band and signs urging the JP Morgan Chase CEO to “break up with” private…
The Surprising Benefits of Serving Prisoners Better Food
Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. Melinda BeckJose Villarreal remembers going to bed hungry most nights during his 10 years in solitary confinement at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison. Dinner might consist of mashed potatoes, bread, and a slice of processed meat—never with salt, and always cold. Shouting through air vents…
30 Years Ago, a Racist Juror Sentenced This Black Man to Death
ftwitty/Getty Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. On September 25, 1990, Keith Tharpe disobeyed a judge’s orders requiring him to stay away from his estranged wife and her family after he had threatened them with violence. While his wife and her sister-in-law Jaqueline Freeman were on their way to work, Tharpe blocked their…