Everyday Injustice

This week on Everyday Injustice we talk with Kanya Bennett of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. The Vision for Justice 2020 focused on core principles of decarceration, police reform and reinvesting in the communities. Kanya Bennett discussed among other things her work with the bail project, the current policing bill and the president’s executive order, as well as concerns for...

In 2019, George Gascón resigned from his position as San Francisco DA, moved to Los Angeles and ran against incumbent Jackie Lacey for DA as a reformer. Gascón had gone from a traditional “tough on crime” beat officer to Police Chief to reform DA. He had seen first hand how the traditional approach did not work. That mass incarceration was not only expensive, but it failed to protect the community...

California Attorneys for Criminal Justice (CACJ) is a statewide association of criminal defense attorneys, who help advocate for justice in the legislature, the courts and the media. This week on Everyday Injustice, we talk with Stephen Munkelt, the current Executive Director of CACJ. Munkelt discusses the critical work of CACJ, some of the critical issues faced right now, mass incarceration, the...

This week on Everyday Injustice we visit with Akhi Johnson, Director of the Vera Institute of Justice’s Reshaping Prosecution project. Vera just issued a new RFP to elected prosecutors interested in making reforms. Johnson discussed the RFP and also the new policy direction of thinking about public safety as community health. We discussed the future of reform-minded DA’s in wake of the Chesa Boudi...

One of the bigger issues these days is homelessness. Ron Hochbaum joined McGeorge School of Law in 2021 and directs the Homeless Advocacy Clinic, teaching poverty law. Prior to arriving at McGeorge, Hochbaum directed the UDC Housing and Consumer Law Clinic in which students represented housed and unhoused District residents in efforts to access and maintain healthy, safe, and affordable housing. H...

Tamisha Walker is a founding member and Executive Director of Safe Return Project, a campaign to secure the freedom and liberation of formerly incarcerated individuals. Walker discussed issues of mass incarceration and racial disparity in the criminal legal system, as well as her own situation where she was incarcerated and released in 2009. As a formerly incarcerated woman, “she shares a powerful...

This week on Everyday Injustice we talk with Bree and Malissa Hurry about the case of Michael Gaines, who has been incarcerated since 2003 for a crime, they believe, he did not commit. According to them, Gaines was 18 years old at the time he was sentenced and charged with murder during the commission of a robbery -- there was no DNA evidence or fingerprints on the murder weapon that links Michael...

This week on Everyday Injustice, we have Kristina Kersey who last year joined the Gault Center (formerly NJDC) as a Senior Youth Defense Counsel in 2021. Prior to joining TGC, she specialized in youth defense for over 18 years with the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender. Kersey was the trial attorney in State in the Interest of N.H., in which the Supreme Court held that youth are entitled to...

This week on Everyday Injustice we talk with Emily Galvin Almanza – she’s a former public defender, clerked for Judge Thelton Henderson, worked for the Stanford Three Strikes Project, wrote for the Appeal and currently heads up Partners For Justice. Among the topics covered were her past and current work, the state of criminal justice reform, alternatives to incarceration and how to reduce recidiv...

With just four weeks to go until the election for District Attorney in many areas in California, Everyday Injustice checked in with Lara Gressley, who is running for a second time against Michael Hestrin for Riverside DA. Hestrin, seeking his third term has held office since 2015. Hestrin, the incumbent is a heavy favorite and has outraised his two challengers both by more than a three to one marg...

This week on Everyday Injustice we have Howard University Law Professor Olinda Moyd discussing an under-acknowledged problem of the criminal legal system – the problems of parole and the racial disparities that occur on the backend of incarceration. Nonpartisan groups like the Council for Court Excellence and the Justice Policy Institute “have studied the Parole Commission, concluding that it does...

On June 7, San Francisco voters will decide whether to remove DA Chesa Boudin. This week on Everyday Injustice we are joined by Tinisch Hollins, Executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice. She’s been an opponent of the San Francisco recall. Tinich Hollins said previously, “My position today against the recall is rooted in the belief that the failures of the criminal justice system,...

Dan Canon is a civil rights attorney and a Professor at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. He has already played a huge role in history as one of those arguing the Obergefell decision before the Supreme Court – a landmark decision that legalized same sex marriage. Last October he warned in a Tweet, “I was one of the lawyers who won Obergefell at SCOTUS and litigated the Kim Davis case in Kentuck...

A month ago, in an event sponsored by the California Donor Table, Justice Reform groups came together to discuss DA races across the state. The webinar was hosted by the California Donor Table, which invests in communities of color to help elect people who represent their values and needs, and they have identified six district attorney races with the greatest potential to reduce mass incarceration...

This week on Everyday Injustice we talk with Santa Clara Law Professor David Ball. Among the topics we discuss are his work on the Corrections Committee of the ABA’s Criminal Justice Section where he has been co-chair. We talk about mass incarcerations and alternatives to traditional incarceration. We talk about the new jail in Santa Clara County and about the need for bail reform. We also talked...

Jarrett Adams was a high school student and made one mistake - he went to a college party, ending up wrongly convicted for the rape of a white college woman having been convicted by an all-white jury - and facing nearly 30 years in prison. It took him nearly ten years to get exonerated with the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project. Amazingly, he took the lessons he learned as a jailhouse attorn...

Jeffrey Baker grew up in the deep south and moved to teaching law school at Pepperdine’s Caruso School of law where he heads up the Community Justice Clinic. Professor Baker discussed the differences but also the similarities between Alabama and Southern California. Listen as Professor Bakers talks about his work on domestic violence, social justice as well as research on the Trump administration’...

Everyday Injustice this week talks with the Los Angeles Stonewall Democratcs – Alex Mohajer the President and Jasmyne Cannick a Steering Member At-Large. The Stonewall Democrats, named after the protests represent the LGBTQ community. The discussion focused on two critical races in LA – the Sheriff’s race where they talked about the problematic administration of current sheriff Alex Villanueva and...

UC Davis Law Professor Irene Joe has had an interesting experience - born in Nigeria, grew up in Texas, and came to California for law school. After law school she worked doing death penalty work with the Equal Justice Initiative and Bryan Stevenson. From there, she ended up working as a public defender in New Orleans and experiencing the post-Katrina world there and then back to California to bec...

In 2020, Eli Savit rode a wave of progressive prosecutorial successes to victory in Washtenaw County Michigan, the home of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. For the most part, Savit has avoided a lot of the extreme pushback that some of his progressive prosecutor colleagues have suffered. In part that is because he knew he would win the race well before he took office and was able to bring...

Anne Irwin and Natasha Minsker of Smart Justice California join Everyday Injustice this week to talk about criminal justice reform efforts. Smart Justice California works to educate and embolden policymakers who support meaningful criminal justice reforms that promote safety, fairness and healthy communities. Among the legislation they are supporting this year includes, the follow up to the Racial...

The right to a trial by jury is enshrined into the constitution, yet increasingly over the last few decades, trials have become a vanishing feature of the criminal justice system. University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Hessick recently wrote the book, Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining Is a Bad Deal. While there are positive aspects of the plea bargain – efficiency in the sy...

Duke Law Professor Brandon Garrett wrote one of the seminal books of the Innocence Movement, Convicting the Innocent – a must-read classic that highlights the problem of wrongful convictions and its causes. We have been taught to believe that fingerprint analysis is an ironclad science. But we learned in the case of Brandon Mayfield, who was wrongly identified as the Madrid Subway bomber, even tho...

Tony Messenger, a reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch talks about the issue of fines and fees and is the author of the recent book, Profit and Punishment How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice. In his book, he goes into rural Missouri to follow the lives of poor white people who are victimized by a system of fines and fees that ends up entrapping them into a cycle of poverty...

Kristin Henning is a Georgetown Law Professor and a former public defender in DC. In her book, Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth she discusses how what is ordinary adolescent behavior gets criminalized the criminal justice system and ends up locking Black youth into cycles of incarceration. She brings vivid case studies and data to bear on her analysis and critique of the sys...