Everyday Injustice

In Episode 346 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Joe Gandy, whose son, Jason Gandy, is incarcerated in federal prison following a conviction in the Southern District of Texas involving allegations of sexual exploitation. Gandy argues that his son was wrongfully convicted and that serious constitutional violations, questionable evidence and failures by defense attorneys and th...

The Trump administration’s proposal to publicly livestream a military firing squad execution has reignited a national debate over capital punishment, government-sanctioned violence and whether the United States is moving backward toward an era when executions were public spectacles. In Episode 345 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Marc Bookman, executive director of the Atlan...

More than two decades after being wrongfully arrested as a teenager in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Raymond Strawn has graduated from law school, overcoming years of trauma, financial hardship and discrimination that continued long after his acquittal. In Episode 344 of Everyday Injustice, Strawn returns to discuss his journey from being falsely accused of making terrorist thre...

In Episode 343 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Laila Aziz of Pillars of the Community about CopStop SD, a new tool designed to document police misconduct complaints, track how authorities handle them and help San Diego residents navigate a police accountability system that Aziz argues has repeatedly failed the communities it is supposed to protect. Pillars of the Community,...

In Episode 342 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald concludes the podcast’s series on Represent Justice’s ambassador program with Cecilia Zavala, executive director of Nation Outside and creator of the short film What Grace Leaves Behind. Zavala discusses her journey from incarceration and the barriers of reentry to becoming a criminal justice reform advocate and filmmaker. Zavala describes...

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Represent Justice ambassadors Kenneth Webb and Cesar Garcia about how their experiences with incarceration, education and advocacy shaped two films examining reentry, surveillance, community and the meaning of public safety. Webb created The Weaver in a Haystack, while Garcia created Stopcopticon, using different stories and a...

Three filmmakers whose lives have been shaped by the criminal legal system join Everyday Injustice for a conversation about using storytelling to expose systemic injustice and advance meaningful change. In Episode 340, host David Greenwald speaks with Represent Justice ambassadors Marcus Kelly, Courtenie Jackson and Starling Thomas about their films, their personal experiences and the policies the...

In Episode 339 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Daniel Forkkio, director of Represent Justice, about the organization’s work empowering formerly incarcerated people to tell their own stories and use film as a vehicle for changing public perceptions of incarceration and the criminal legal system. Forkkio traces the organization’s origins to the national impact campaign surrou...

On Episode 338 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with filmmakers Julius Irving and Leigh Scott as part of the Represent Justice series “Pathways Beyond Criminalized Crises,” a collection of films created by formerly incarcerated people that examines what can happen when healing, care and restoration replace punishment. Irving directed “The Silent (R)evolution: Freedom From the Ins...

On Episode 337 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald welcomes back Marc Bookman, legal director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation and author of Descending Spiral: Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays, for a wide-ranging discussion about capital punishment at a moment when three executions were scheduled across the country on the same day. Bookman challenges the perception...

On Everyday Injustice Episode 336, host David Greenwald speaks with Valena Beety, a nationally recognized wrongful convictions litigator, former federal prosecutor and law professor, about how stereotypes surrounding gender and sexuality can contribute to innocent people being convicted and imprisoned. Beety, who has spent roughly 15 years representing people challenging wrongful convictions, expl...

In Episode 334 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Massachusetts criminal defense attorney Ernie Stone about the growing importance of trauma-informed criminal defense and why understanding clients’ life experiences is essential to effective representation. Drawing on nearly two decades of legal practice, Stone argues that what is often called “trauma-informed” lawyering should...

In Episode 333 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with journalist and author Justine van der Leun about her new book, Unreasonable Women: Three Stories of Violence, Imprisonment and Extraordinary Survival. The conversation explores a troubling reality within the criminal legal system: how survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse are often criminalized rather than protected....

On this week’s episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Dr. Elizabeth Ostler, founder of the Communal Theater Company and creator of the upcoming play “SisterPlay,” a deeply personal work inspired by the death of her sister Lisa while detained in the Salt Lake County Jail. Ostler recounts how her sister, who struggled with addiction for years, died in custody in 2016 after r...

On Episode 330 of the Everyday Injustice podcast, host David Greenwald examines one of the most overlooked yet devastating aspects of the criminal legal system: the widespread use of fines and fees as a mechanism of punishment and revenue generation. Joined by Joanna Weiss and Priya Sarthy-Jones of the Fines and Fees Justice Center along with Tiffany Shaw of JusticeLink, the discussion explores ho...

In Episode 329 of Everyday Injustice, the podcast features a wide-ranging and deeply probing conversation with UCLA professor Terrence Keel, a leading scholar examining the intersection of race, science and public institutions. The discussion centers on his new book, The Coroner’s Silence, which investigates how death investigations—particularly in cases involving police custody—can obscure rather...

On Episode 328 of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Matilde Hernandez, a wellness consultant, author and speaker whose life was transformed by incarceration and the long journey that followed. Hernandez shares how a first-time case in Georgia led to a prison sentence she says she did not fully understand, and how the experience forced her to confront trauma, shame and the challe...

In a wide-ranging conversation on Everyday Injustice, economist and policy researcher Jennifer Doleac argued that criminal justice reform should be driven less by ideology and more by evidence. Discussing her book The Science of Second Chances, Doleac said policymakers often adopt programs that sound compassionate or politically attractive without testing whether they reduce crime, improve lives o...

A newly discussed investigative report is drawing renewed attention to allegations that contaminated water and failing infrastructure at Mule Creek State Prison may be harming both incarcerated people and residents in the nearby town of Ione. Journalist Emily Nonko said the issue has received far too little public scrutiny despite what she described as a major environmental and infrastructural bre...

In the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sits down with historian Professor Josh Clark Davis of the University of Baltimore to explore a critical but often overlooked dimension of the civil rights era—organized resistance to police violence. Drawing from his new book Police Against the Movement, Davis challenges conventional narratives that frame police brutality as someth...

In Episode 324 of the Everyday Injustice podcast, host David Greenwald sits down with Kandia Milton, government affairs director at Dream.org, for a wide-ranging conversation on criminal justice reform, reentry, and the persistent structural barriers facing people returning from incarceration. Milton brings a rare dual perspective to the discussion, combining more than two decades of policy experi...

In Episode 323 of the Everyday Injustice podcast, host David Greenwald sits down with Eric Morrison-Smith, Executive Director of the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, for a wide-ranging conversation on criminal justice reform, systemic inequality, and the urgent need to rethink how society responds to harm. The discussion traces Morrison-Smith’s personal journey into advocacy, from his early exp...

A groundbreaking Oklahoma law intended to provide relief to survivors of domestic violence serving long prison sentences is revealing just how difficult it remains for the criminal legal system to grapple with trauma, accountability, and mercy. Investigative journalist Pamela Colloff, who reported on the issue for ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, said the Oklahoma Survivors Act was desi...

A new episode of the Everyday Injustice podcast examines the controversial case of Curtis Davis Jr., a Mississippi man whose conviction is raising troubling questions about prosecutorial conduct, plea bargaining and the withholding of potentially exculpatory evidence. The episode features a conversation with Maurice Clifton, a criminal justice advocate who has been investigating the case and pushi...

On the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sits down with historian Stuart Schrader of Johns Hopkins University to examine the political rise of police unions and their growing influence in American public life. Schrader’s forthcoming book, Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves, traces how police organizations transformed themselves from fraternal...