Everyday Injustice

This week on Everyday Injustice, we are joined by Kardell Sims, formerly incarcerated who has now become an expert on prisons and helps to coach incarcerated people in hopes of helping them avoid the recidivism trap. Kardell Sims describes his journey through the criminal legal system, but also his way out and his program helping those attempting to exit prison avoid the barriers to reentry after...

This week on Everyday Injustice we are joined by Christi Smith of R Street, who argues that clean slate legislation both enhances public safety and helps to stimulate the economy. One of the problems with mass incarceration is that large numbers of people are churned in and out of the criminal legal system, incarcerated, then they are released but their criminal records prevent them from getting a...

This week on Everyday Injustice, we spoke with Emma Ruth, who recently wrote a piece with the Prison Policy Initiative on the little known and often misunderstood practice of civil commitment. The 20 states include California and Illinois. She noted that 20 states and the federal Bureau of Prisons “detain over 6,000 people, mostly men, who have been convicted of sex offenses in prison-like “civil...

This week on Everyday Injustice, we talked with Charles Bell, an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Illinois State University, whose work focuses on school discipline, suspensions and the school-to-prison pipeline. As Bell explains, his work focuses on how Black students and parents view school punishment, the disproportionate use of suspensions and criminal legal system...

This week on Everyday Injustice we talk with Sacramento area attorney Mark Reichel. He discusses the new Sacramento DA a bit about Sheriff Jim Cooper. He then discusses the Trump prosecution and the implications for the country. Listen to the full interview as Reichel lays out his concerns for the future of democracy.

This week on Everyday Injustice we feature legendary attorney Stephen Bright and James Kwak who just released a new book, “The Fear of Too Much Justice.” Bryan Stevenson writes, “An urgently needed analysis of our collective failure to confront and overcome racial bias and bigotry, the abuse of power, and the multiple ways in which the death penalty’s profound unfairness requires its abolition. Yo...

This week on Everyday Injustice, we are joined by Yusuf Dahl, formerly incarcerated for the distribution of drugs, now a successful entrepreneur. “Growing up in poverty, Yusuf fell under the wing of his brother who taught him how to survive on his own on the streets of Milwaukee. By age 14, he was in juvenile detention for a three-year sentence where he learned the best path to wealth creation in...

This week on Everyday Injustice features Jon B. Gould, the Dean of UC Irvine school of Social Ecology. Gould is a distinguished scholar in justice policy, social change and government reform, has held key positions in the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has written five books and more than 100 articles on erroneous convictions, indigent d...

In May, the US Supreme Court granted Richard Glossip a stay of execution after the Attorney General of Oklahoma has gone to believe like many others that Glossip’s conviction is fatally flaw, “unsustainable” and “a new trial imperative.” Many have argued that new evidence discovered in independent investigations along with problems with the state’s prosecution and the destruction of evidence leads...

This week on Everyday Injustice features Marvin Zalman, a retired professor from Wayne State University in Detroit. Zalman talked about his role in establishing statewide sentencing guidelines and how it inadvertently paved the way for the tough on crime era. He also discussed how the tough on crime era helped lead to high levels of wrongful convictions. Listen as Professor Zalman discusses his wo...

Eric Genuis is a Canadian composer and pianist who now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. He is noted for his Concerts for Hope. He performs his original compositions more than a hundred times a year. This week on Everyday Injustice, Eric Genuis describes how he came to perform for incarcerated people – including condemned men on death row – hundreds of times each year and the impact of his music...

David Dow went from a death penalty supporter to founding the Texas Innocence Network and running a death penalty clinic. He has since written a number of books, including “Executed on a Technicality.” This week on Everyday Injustice, David Dow explains the various injustices within the death penalty system. As he writes in his book, “I simply conclude that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments can...

The recidivism rate for those who get a masters while incarcerated is zero. For years, in an effort to become more punitive, prisons have cut back on programming including education – and they have done that to their and to society’s detriment. The pendulum has swung back in the direction of carceral education as we have learned that it is one of the most effective ways to reduce recidivism. This...

At the age of 17, Sean Wilson was incarcerated and spent 17 years in prison. Since his release six years ago, he has dedicated his life to reforming the system. Sean Wilson is the Organizing Director of Dream. Org. Wilson brings an advantage and insight into a system he believes to be broken and in need of reform. Before joining the Dream. Org JUSTICE team, Wilson was the ACLU of Wisconsin’s Smart...

In 2018, California passed a lass that mandated police departments to release body camera footage within 45 days of any incident when an officer fires a gun, or uses force that leads to great bodily injury or death. However, a CalMatters investigative report found that agencies rarely release the raw footage to the public. Instead, CalMatters reported “the public and the media must rely on edited...

This week on Everyday Injustice, we are joined by UCLA Law Professor Scott Cummings who discusses a 2020 paper published in Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, that looks into the role that lawyers and schools play in movements of social transformation. One of the key findings in the literature has been the notion of drift away from public interest work – he cited that when law students enter law...

Dave Beers, a NY state licensed PI with law enforcement experience ended up working with the Taft Defense. He tells the story of how the mother of a young child arrived to find her child dead. Veronica Taft, a single mother with four small children, all under the age of five, was convicted of Murder and Manslaughter for the brutal murder of her two-year-old son Lyric. For reasons that are unclear,...

In March, the Sentencing Project announced the creation of the Second Look Network. Across the country, we have seen the rise of resentencing and other laws designed to allow people who have served decades in prison, but who no longer represent a threat to public safety, to have their sentences reconsidered and at times, resentenced and gain release. “The Second Look Network is a coalition of atto...

In 2021, Professor Daniel Medwed published an article in the Brooklyn Law Review: “Black Deaths Matter: the Race-of-Victim Effect and Capital Punishment.” In it, he found that irrespective of the race of the perpetrator, cases with white victims were more likely to see a death penalty charge. Medwed notes, that one of the “troubling feature(s) of the death penalty landscape: Similarly situated off...

Recently a Texas Judge delayed the execution of Andre Thomas – a man who is so severely mentally ill, the crime he committed of killing his wife and mixed race children involved cutting out their hearts and carrying them in his pocket. He proceeded to separately gouge out both of his eyes, the second of which he ate. Talking with Marc Bookman, who founded the Atlantic Center for Capital Representa...

In Everyday Injustice’s second installment with Marc Bookman, we discuss the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation – a non-profit set up in 2010 that was created due to lack of state funding in Pennsylvania for indigent defense. “ACCR fills a void created by the lack of adequate funding for poor defendants and provides hope to those who have lost it,” the group’s mission explains. Pennsylvani...

In Everyday Injustice’s second installment with Marc Bookman, we discuss the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation – a non-profit set up in 2010 that was created due to lack of state funding in Pennsylvania for indigent defense. “ACCR fills a void created by the lack of adequate funding for poor defendants and provides hope to those who have lost it,” the group’s mission explains. Pennsylvani...

Andrew Krivak was acquitted last week in a second trial, after spending 24 years in prison for the rape and murder of a 12 year old girl. The jury spend just three hours deliberating following a seven week trial. In 2016, Krivak’s co-defendant, Anthony DiPippo, was acquitted at his third trial. DiPippo also spent more than two decades in prison. Everyday Injustice interviews attorney Oscar Michela...

Earlier in February, the state of Missouri executed Leonard Taylor, despite strong evidence of innocence. Discussing that and a number of other cases recently and over the years is Sean O’Brien, Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Sean O’Brien has been director of various criminal defense clinics at UMKC School of Law since 1983, including the Public Defender Appeals Clinic...

The year 2023, marks the 50th year since the US prison population began its unprecedented surge. The Sentencing Project, is marking this year with a series of reports on Mass Incarceration Trends. Joining Everyday Injustice this week, is Sentencing Project, co-director of research, Ashley Nellis. In a recently published account, Nellis noted, “In 1972, the imprisonment rate was 93 per 100,000 peop...