Author: Matt Kelley

In less than three weeks, Hank Skinner is scheduled to be executed in Texas for three murders he says he didn’t commit. Despite the existence of untested DNA evidence that could prove him innocent or confirm his guilt, the state is seeking to go forward with his lethal injection on Feb. 24.

Even by the standards of our most execution-happy state, it’s unacceptable that officials would put a prisoner to death while ignoring scientific evidence that could prove him innocent.

The case for Skinner’s innocence is by no means certain. On the other hand, the case for DNA testing is clear.

Skinner admits he was in his house when his girlfriend and her two sons were killed, and he was found hours later by police at an ex-girlfriend’s house with the victims’ blood on his clothes and a gash in his hand. But there’s an alternate suspect that exists, as well as evidence that hasn’t yet been tested. A reasonable observer could raise doubt over his case, and scientific evidence can offer finality. Texas should conduct these tests before it carries out a punishment it can’t reverse.

Send a letter right now to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles supporting Skinner’s clemency petition so he can continue to seek DNA testing in the case.

Send a letter right now to Gov. Rick Perry, urging him to stay Skinner’s execution so DNA testing can be conducted.

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Today in Rochester, New York, a man named Freddie Peacock became the 250th prisoner exonerated through DNA testing in U.S. history. He served five years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit before he was released on parole in 1982. Remarkably, he continued as a free man for 28 years to fight for his own exoneration — finally winning it today when a New York judge tossed out his conviction.

This is a happy day for Peacock, and onewhich we should celebrate. But it also marks a somber fact. Collectively, the 250th people that have been freed through DNA testing have served more than 3,000 combined years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit — and what’s more, they represent just the tip of the iceberg. Today, thousands of innocent people remain behind bars, many with little hope of proving the truth.

It will take concerted action from a mobilized public to ensure that we don’t allow these injustices to continue. That Freddie Peacock was convicted based on a misidentification and a false confession in 1976 is a travesty, but the fact that convictions like his continue to happen in 2010 is even worse.

The Innocence Project, which represents Peacock (and where I work when I’m not blogging here) launched a tool today to send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper calling for reforms to prevent wrongful convictions. Please take a moment to share your thoughts here — you can help amplify the call for criminal justice reform to prevent wrongful convictions.

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Jimmy McNulty, meet Facebook.

For decades, police have relied on informants, investigation and intuition to dismantle criminal networks. We have pictures in our heads of detectives like the Wire’s Detective McNulty tackling particularly complicated family crime empires with photos tacked to bulletin boards. Now, they have social networks to build these webs for them, too.

An Associated Press story this week does a good job examining the impact of social media on crime and policing. Cops and prosecutors are increasingly using Facebook wall posts, MySpace pages and YouTube videos to trace criminal connections and gang membership. Meanwhile, statements made on social websites are increasingly being used as evidence in court.

“You find out about people you never would have known about before,” says Dean Johnston with the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which helps police investigate gangs. “You build this little tree of people.”

Of course, social networks won’t replace investigations, but police are smart to use them as a tool. If a thief is stupid enough to log into Facebook from the house he’s burglarizing, he deserves to get caught. When a gang member brags about committing a violent crime, it should spark an investigation.

Two concerns spring to mind, however.

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The list of books banned by Texas prison in recent years looks like the bookshelf of a dangerous counterculture, and it’s easy to understand why Texas prison officials decided to deny access to some of these fiery tomes.

Or — wait. What are we talking about here? Books like the incendiary screeds of underground author…. John Grisham? The dangerous words of Alice Walker? John Updike?

And there are dirty pictures on the no-read list, too. Books on Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Picasso and Michelangelo aren’t allowed in Texas prisons.

What could possibly be the danger of a John Grisham book? Perhaps prisoners will be inspired to hatch a complex and diabolical scheme involving a colorful cast of characters rigging a jury or winning a civil lawsuit.

That’s probably it.

The Austin American-Statesman reported on Texas’ ridiculous and overreaching book bans on Sunday, finding through a public information request that prison officials in the state had reviewed 89,795 titles over the years and censored at least 5,000 of them. The system is fairly arbitrary — prison mailroom staff look for offensive images and make the decision on the spot. Prisoners can appeal to state officials, but it’s tough to argue on behalf of a book you can’t see.

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The U.S. Census Bureau will provide temporary employment for thousands of Americans this year, but if one Congressman gets his way, people with criminal convictions need not apply.

We’ve reported here in recent weeks about the devastating effect the census has on poor communities and inner cities — for example, by counting prisoners where they’re incarcerated rather than where they’re from. The census also misses millions of hard-to-count, usually poor individuals, which means struggling neighborhoods are denied their fair share of federal and state resources.

What’s more, the census offers thousands of good temporary jobs — but most don’t go to people with records. The Washington Post reports that thousands of former prisoners in D.C. and beyond are taking tests to be census takers or clerks. But while census rules on criminal records are vague, it’s clear that most with felony charges on their record won’t get a callback.

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More than half a million people will sleep in jails across the U.S. tonight, most of them facing charges for non-violent crimes, and most of them poor. They’re spending months behind bars because they can’t afford bail, and a powerful bail bond lobby is largely responsible for keeping them there.

A groundbreaking three-part story on NPR last week looked into our country’s uniquely backwards bail system, which — like our prison system — locks people up not only to preserve public safety, but also to maintain private profit. Counties and states will spend $9 billion on pre-trial detention this year, and countless lives will be disrupted or destroyed by long, unnecessary stays in jail.

As Megan Greenwell wrote on Change.org’s Poverty in America blog this week, the defendants caught in this trap are overwhelmingly poor. NPR, for example, leads its reporting with the story of a Texas man who spent six months in jail because he couldn’t afford bail or even the bond deposit. He was eventually forced to accept a felony conviction, which lost him a chance at a job when he got out. The cycle continues — but it doesn’t have to be this way.

The problem rests mainly with the powerful bail bond lobby — a business that earns safe profits by collecting non-refundable deposits (bond) from families and friends of poor defendants in exchange for putting up bail. When the defendant shows up for trial, the bond company recoups its money, but keeps the deposit. Even if the defendant doesn’t show up, the bond company usually comes out ahead, because the state only charges a fraction of the bail.

The better alternative to packed jails are pre-trial release programs, which allow the release and monitoring of defendants before their hearings — at a fraction of the cost of detention in jail. But bail bonds companies have successfully lobbied county officials across the country to gut pre-trial release programs in order to protect their predatory business.

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Last week, two Indiana middle school students were caught sending each other nude images of themselves via text message. In a crazy illustration of how sex offender registries can do more harm than good, the kids were actually charged with child exploitation and possession of child pornography. And if juvenile courts go forward with these felony charges, these 12- and 13-year-olds could both be registering as sex offenders for years.

This overreaction is a perfect example of how sex offender registries have grown out of control. These charges aren’t just a question of teaching the kids a lesson, but instead are also likely to destroy their opportunities for a long time.

The prosecutor in the Indiana case said he understands that this case likely sprung from a mutual youthful curiosity, but that county pressed charges because “sexting” can lead to images spreading quickly on the web.

“I think there has always been a sort of, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine, and a curiosity there,” Porter County, Ind., Prosecutor Brian Gensel said. “The problem now is the stakes are so much higher because if a juvenile sends a picture of themselves to someone else, well, that can be disseminated now to the entire world within minutes.”

He’s right that sending these images digitally is a potentially dangerous mistake and a growing problem. A recent Pew Center study found that 4% of children between ages 12 and 17 admitted to sending nude or nearly nude images, and 15% say that they’ve received them.

Prosecutors in this case made a grievous error, however, in charging the tweens with felonies. Curious kids going through puberty shouldn’t be criminalized. That line should be drawn as soon as an intent to distribute can be determined. From the basic facts we have, it doesn’t seem that this boy and girl are guilty of ‘child exploitation.’

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In a recent post, I asked whether keeping a running Twitter feed of arrests that occur was a good idea for one town’s public safety. The post sparked some lively comments, including from those concerned that publicizing arrests punishes people who should be presumed innocent — a position I certainly understand. After all, Twitter could become a nonstop new TV news, sensationalizing crime and convicting people in the court of public opinion.

But open data is critical to fighting unjust arrests and holding government accountable. And if we want transparency, we have to accept that openness cuts both ways.

Some put too much faith in the power of openness, wondering if Twitter and other social media tools might actually act as a crime deterrent. For example, Lauri Stevens wrote recently at ConnectedCOPS.net that social media “will have a direct affect on lowering crime” because criminal will realize that “the jig is up” and will “smarten up.”

But that’s a thin argument.

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January is National Stalking Awareness Month. It’s a grim way to start off the year, but stalking is an issue that’s rarely acknowledged the way it should be. 

According to the Department of Justice, one in 12 women will be stalked in their lifetime. This year alone, nearly one million women and half a million men will be stalked in the United States, and only half of cases will be reported. There are several measures needed to address the problem, but perhaps the most crucial are improvements in law enforcement practice and policy toward this serious crime.

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New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof devoted his column yesterday to an issue he called a personal “blind spot:” U.S. prisons. While the august columnist has devoted his pen to obvious human rights offenses inside of Guantánamo Bay as well as Chinese and North Korean prisons, he’s never touched the issue of prisons in the U.S. But now, reports of widespread sexual assault in juvenile facilities across the country have inspired him to take up the cause of prison reform.

It’s great to have such a prominent voice and a persistent human rights advocate on our side. One way to thank Kristof for bringing awareness to this issue — and to encourage him to stick with it — is by posting comments on his blog, which I’d urge you to do.

In his column, Kristof points to the deplorable statistics released recently the Department of Justice, which indicate that almost one in eight youths report being sexually assaulted behind bars. He echoes a sentiment I’ve heard from prisoners over the last decade: how is it possible that Guantánamo gets so much attention from pro bono firms, while garden-variety U.S. prisoners get skipped over? The answers there might be obvious — Guantánamo has a much higher international profile, et cetera. But while Guantánamo litigation is crucial, it doesn’t change the need for legal help in less marquee cases across our prison-filled nation.

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I’ve written recently about the very welcome arrival of prisoners to the blogosphere — from Change.org contributor Michael Santos to the posts of Theodore Braden at Teen in Jail, technology is giving a voice to the previously silenced millions in our jails and prisons. Now, this revolution has even reached into the deepest recesses of our prison system — solitary confinement.

Thanks to the great new blog, Solitary Watch, I came across the writings of a Nevada prisoner named Coyote Sheff, who has been in Nevada prisons for more than a decade, spending much of it in disciplinary segregation. He writes blog posts, poetry and zines from a cell he inhabits 23 hours a day, and somehow manages to keep his thoughts positive:

I deal with the struggles of being in prison and I keep moving. I deal with the despair, I deal with the agony, the suffering, the misery, and I keep living. I deal with the depression, I deal with the destruction and I deal with the hate. I keep loving life and I keep living my life. Life is beautiful, I’m thankful to be alive. I live in a graveyard, but I’m not dead, I’m alive and well.

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California is solidly within the public’s gaze this week as it embarks on a court-ordered mission to address the state’s chronic prison crowding problem. But when it comes to packed prisons, across the world, the state is far from alone.

My inbox, thanks to a google alert on “prisons and overcrowding,” is usually fairly overcrowded itself, but lately I’ve noticed a clear spike in news stories around the world on the topic. Italy is dealing with the problem, as is Australia. Prisons in 33 US states are over design capacity, and stories in the press this week looked at the problem in West Virginia and South Carolina. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer blasted a plan to privatize a local jail in southern New Jersey.  In the last two days, Te-Ping Chen has written about a proposed prison ship off the U.K.’s coastline and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s public daydream about sending undocumented prisoners to facilities in Mexico.

Prison crowding is a worldwide epidemic, and we’ve learned during this recession that building new cells won’t solve the problem (through the Corrections Corporation of America may not agree). We need to confront this problem directly — by taking steps to support alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenses, to treat drug abuse as a health problem rather than a criminal one, and to make parole, probation and post-release services more effective in order to reduce recidivism. It can be done.

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Today, the nonprofit International Bridges to Justices launches its second annual grant competition to promote innovative criminal justice reform initiatives. The group has become a leader in exploring the overlap of social enterprise, criminal justice and media, and its work has sparked inspiring developments in far-flung places from Nepal to Burundi to Cambodia.

In recent years, social enterprises and hybrid business models have led to public policy improvements around the globe, but criminal justice reforms have lagged in this space. Even as the world has reconsidered our oversized and ineffective prisons, the types of new businesses and nonprofits to address these deep issues haven’t popped up as widely as they have in other issue areas.

This year’s JusticeMakers Competition is working to change that. The competition will focus on Asia , and eight grantees chosen on the basis of innovation, efficacy and sustainability will receive training. What’s more, they’ll also receive $5,000 in funding and be paired with media projects to publicize their groundbreaking work. Applications are due by March 24 and between April and May, people can vote online to choose the winners.

Although I wonder if $5,000 is spreading the organization’s support too thinly, IBJ’s focus on innovative, sustainable criminal justice reforms is refreshing and absolutely necessary. Kudos to International Bridges to Justice for working to seed reform around the globe, and I look forward to seeing what kinds of ideas they innovate.

Photo Credit: IBJ event in Cambodia

I recently came across a captivating short film made by eight young men in an unlikely location — New York’s Westchester County jail. The film, called Judgement, was made during a 12-week class at the jail as part of an education project run by the Jacob Burns Film Center, sponsored by the Elias Foundation. I’m a fan of new media education programs inside jails and prisons even when they don’t produce work of such startling quality, but this film is something special.

The eight-minute short explores attitudes inside and outside the criminal justice system, particularly the judgments we project on each other before we’ve ever met. Without frills, it manages a stark, captivating look and feel. The prisoners who made the film sit for interviews in their orange uniforms and expound with insight on the lives — and societal forces — that led them to jail.

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The justices are serious about the confrontation clause.

It may not be the most well-known part of the Bill of Rights. But the Sixth Amemdment’s confrontation clause, which allows a defendant to confront witnesses testifying against his or her case, is a cornerstone of our justice system. And now, in an important decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has again reaffirmed that principle — finding that any forensic evidence needs to be presented in person (not just by affidavit) so it can be challenged in cross-examination.

Yesterday, the Court tossed out the conviction of Mark A. Briscoe, a Virginia man who was convicted of a drug crime without the testimony of the lab analyst who tested evidence in the case. The court’s move was a strong sign of confidence in last year’s groundbreaking Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts decision.

States and district attorneys had complained that Melendez-Diaz would bring the wheels of justice to a grinding halt, putting too much burden on prosecutors to call forensic analysts in thousands of cases. But the Sixth Amendment says a defendant has the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him” for a reason, and whatever you say about this court, it’s one that stands by the wording of the Constitution.

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The Denver Police keep arresting the wrong people.

Since 2002, at least 219 people have been arrested and jailed in Denver based on mistaken identity. Either they were unlucky enough to have a similar name to a suspect, or they were simply picked up by police mistaking them for another person.

Susan Greene and her fellow reporters at the Denver Post have covered this issue for years, and yet it won’t go away. Greene wrote about it again this weekend, pointing out how the problem seems to persist, despite police officials and politicians’ best lip service about fixing the issue.

Greene cites examples of women who’ve gotten arrested, even when the warrant specified a man, as well as a woman who is upset because “her husband keeps getting arrested for another person named Vasquez.” She points out that for every hour the wrong person spends in jail, missing work and family obligations, the injustice compounds — and taxpayers ultimately foot the bill in civil lawsuits.

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In a twist of affairs, one of the most egregious juvenile court scandals in recent memory could actually mean more future openness in Pennsylvania’s courts.

Former Luzerne County judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan, who allegedly took $2.6 million in bribes from a private prison operator in exchange for sentencing kids to company facilities, are awaiting trial on racketeering charges. In the meantime, the state has kicked off hearings on how it might prevent such a nightmare in the future.

As one witness, Robert G. Schwartz, executive director of the Juvenile Law Center, told the commission on Thursday, what happened in Luzerne County “was a toxic combination of for-profit facilities, corrupt judges, and professional indifference.” Accordingly, juvenile justice experts recommended to the commission that the state open up juvenile courts to the public, and ensure that juveniles consult with lawyers before hearings.

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Some of the greatest books ever written were penned behind bars. The Guardian has compiled a list of the 10 most important books written in prison, and Amazon user Robert Moore weighs in with an even more extensive list here. I have no doubt that more potential masterpieces are languishing in our prison cells today, and the PEN American Center, which recently announced this year’s winners for its Prison Writing Program, again reminds us of that fact.

The winning essay, Charles P. Norman’s “I Wore Chains to My Father’s Funeral,” is a moving memoir about the experience of losing a loved one in prison — an experience that’s almost universal among long-term prisoners. Dozens of winners in poetry, drama, memoir, fiction and essay categories are also represented — take a look.

I recently read “Couldn’t Keep it To Myself,” an excellent collection of personal stories written by women in a Connecticut prison and collected by Wally Lamb. The collection was heartbreaking, and a reflection of the remarkable passion that can be channeled through exposure to writing instruction. (Unfortunately, prison officials weren’t happy with the book’s success. The state sued former prisoners who had written, though they eventually settled the lawsuit and allowed the program to continue)

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A bipartisan bill that would form a commission to evaluate the U.S. criminal justice system took a step forward yesterday, passing the Senate Judiciary Committee by a voice vote. A note to newly elected Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown: please don’t kill this on top of healthcare, too.

Sponsored by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb (left), the bill raises the hope that the federal government might finally put the brakes on the tough-on-crime prison explosion that’s wasted millions of lives and billions of dollars over the past four decades. Groups from Families Against Mandatory Minimums to the Sentencing Project immediately praised the committee’s passage of the bill. Yet even among criminal justice reformers, not everybody’s on board.

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Each year, John Jay College of Criminal Justice honors great reporting on crime, courts and prisons. This year, top awards recognized reporting that cuts at the heart of two key issues: wrongful convictions and long-term solitary confinement.

In the Austin Chronicle, reporter Jordan Smith gets inside the story of a couple convicted for allegedly abusing children at a day care center. Fran and Danny Keller have spent 17 years in prison under these allegations, which they adamantly deny. In his story, Smith turns up evidence that suggests the Kellers are not guilty after all — and in fact were convicted based on allegations coerced from the children.

When it comes to wrongful convictions, hysteria in child care situations and false sex assault allegations are common. In one of the more high-profile cases of late, two Ohioans were exonerated — after 15 years in prison — from charges of molestation at a childcare center. The 2009 documentary Witch Hunt, which explores the wrongful convictions of several Californians likewise accused of sexual assault in a day care setting, and Capturing the Friedmans, are also examples of great documentary work like Smith’s on the issue.

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