News & Resources

December 16, 2020

On Dec. 11, 2020, the Orange County Superior Court ordered OC jails to decrease their populations by 50% to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection and additional outbreaks. The county was ordered to file a proposal on how systems will be in place to...

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May 1, 2020

Jail and prison officials in Georgia, Alabama, and California are participating in a COVID-19 phone scanning pilot program which has authorized use of Verus, a software created by LEO Technologies. The software was originally designed to prevent...

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May 6, 2020

In Florida, there is battle now underway in a trial for voting rights for people with felony records. In 2018, voters in Florida approved an amendment to their State Constitution allowing people who had completed their sentence to vote. Soon after...

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May 1, 2020

PLEASE BE ADVISED: This video is graphic. The boy arrested is age 14. "He was trying to ask why he was getting arrested... And [the deputy] slammed him down and started punching on him," said Damarkus Cummings, a witness who filmed a video....

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April, 25 2020

Jail and prison officials in Georgia, Alabama, and California are participating in a COVID-19 phone scanning pilot program which has authorized use of Verus, a software created by LEO Technologies. The software was originally designed to prevent...

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April, 21 2020

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws in Oregon and Louisiana that allowed people accused of serious crimes to be convicted by a nonunanimous jury. In Ramos v. Louisiana, the Court was split in the 6-to-3 decision. The decision...

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April, 17 2020

The Legal Aid Society @legalaidnyc petitioned and successfully advocated for the release of 51 people with parole violations detained at Rikers Island, due to their age or underlying medical conditions amid the Covid-19 pandemic. All their...

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April, 15 2020

In Kansas v Glover, the Kansas Supreme Court was to decide if an officer can stop someone based on the assumption that if the owner of the vehicle has a revoked license, an officer can pull them over based on the assumption that the registered owner...

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April, 10 2020

Patrick Jones is the first federal inmate to die due to complications from Covid-19. He was the first of five prisoners who have died at Oakdale I Federal Correctional Institution, a small federal facility in Louisiana that holds nearly 1000 men....

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April, 7 2020

On March 23 the Supreme Court heard Kahler v. Kansas. The court explored the issue of whether the Eighth and Fourteenth  Amendments require the states to recognize some form of the insanity defense in a criminal prosecution. The Supreme...

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March, 29 2020

In this current climate, amid COVID-19, the rights of inmates and clients in the criminal justice system are being violated. Only a few states are doing what is necessary to safe guard some of these rights. In Philadelphia, police are delaying...

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March, 16 2020

Our Courts and Jails Are Putting Lives at Risk: "Across the country, only a small number of courts and justice systems appear to have significantly adjusted their procedures to guard against the coronavirus pandemic. And that is putting tens of...

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