In an American courtroom, few words carry more weight than “the science shows.” Jurors may question an eyewitness or a defendant’s explanation, but forensic evidence is different. When someone dubbed “an expert” testifies about forensic evidence, such testimony carries substantial weight.

Five of the most powerful judges in New York are meeting this summer to decide who among their aging colleagues can keep their jobs past the state’s constitutionally mandated retirement age of 70.

Chicago taxpayers spent nearly $259 million in 2025 to resolve lawsuits involving alleged Chicago Police Department misconduct, according to a Department of Law analysis released on June 30, 2026. The total was more than three times the 2024 amount.

A man who pleaded guilty to assassinating a top Democratic lawmaker in the state of Minnesota has been sentenced to two life terms plus 40 years in prison, in a case that underscored growing concerns over political violence in the United States.

I have never felt racism the way I have felt it inside this camp. When I first got here the guards told me, “When you get to El Paso, Texas, there’s no going back. You’re only getting out deported or dead.” — Javier C., interviewed in Ft. Bliss, Texas, December 2025.

Putnam's top elected official spoke out against a statement made by the county's district attorney’s statement over the $12 million settlement for Anthony DiPippo, who was twice convicted of raping and murdering a 12-year-old before being acquitted at a third trial.

California officials dial back the minor reforms they've made to isolation in prison, four years after Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation to rein in solitary confinement. Those reforms, which had reduced the number of rule violations that could make someone eligible for isolation and...

More than a dozen families who've lost loved ones in Riverside County jails gathered Tuesday on the steps of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, calling for changes to the system following the release of a Grand Jury report examining a high number of deaths in county jails.

When prosecutors were found to have wrongfully excluded Black and Jewish people from juries, several men were freed from prison. Now the county faces a costly legal reckoning. In recently filed lawsuits, two men freed from state prison have accused the Alameda County District Attorney's office...

Another surprising move from Chicago's top prosecutor. U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros dropped another case based on what he called "serious irregularities" with grand jury proceedings. Boutros is now pledging to review all cases, going back decades, connected to that prosecutor.

A Yolo County District Attorney investigator is facing allegations that key evidence was destroyed after defense counsel disclosed in court that text messages between the investigator and two central witnesses appear to have been deleted, prompting a judge to...

In some recent federal cases, prosecutors have come under fire for alleged misconduct involving the grand jury. In this week’s Ask Isaacs, 6 News Anchor Lori Tucker talks with Attorney Greg Isaacs about these cases and where federal prosecutors went wrong.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Two formerly death-sentenced Californians have sued the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, alleging prosecutors systematically excluded Black and Jewish jurors from their capital trials in the 1990s, after a federal judge found a pattern of...

The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. It was engrossed on parchment and on August 2, 1776, delegates began signing it. Although the section of the Lee Resolution dealing with independence was not adopted until July 2, Congress appointed...

The Office of the State Public Defender in Mississippi filed a lawsuit Wednesday arguing that state officials are jeopardizing the rights of parents and children who find themselves in youth court. The filing came just days before a seismic change in state law is scheduled to take effect July 1.

By Ed Fiandach, Attorney and Assistant Adjunct Professor, University of Rochester Next week we celebrate the 250th Fourth of July. But before you fire up the grill, wow the awesome fireworks or cheer the marching bands, let's give some real thought to what, if anything, we should be celebrating.

For more than half a century, Gary Mohr worked inside America’s correctional system. He started as a prison literacy teacher earning $2.64 an hour in Ohio in 1974 and eventually rose to become director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction under Republican Gov. John Kasich and...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Attorneys and death penalty advocates this week called on Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to halt all executions in the state after what they described as a “botched” execution attempt that left death row prisoner Tony Carruthers physically and emotionally traumatized...

The Supreme Court on Thursday handed down a ruling on criminal plea deals that exposed a sharp divide within the court’s conservative wing, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett writing separately to push back on arguments from Justice Clarence Thomas in dissent.

By Juan Moreno Haines | June 19, 2025 After nearly 30 years in prison, 2025 brings me a different kind of Juneteenth than the average American. While San Quentin celebrates what formerly enslaved Texans learned in 1865—that they are free from slavery—last November, California voters told me that...

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s surprise announcement this week that he now believes the death penalty should be abolished drew praise from death penalty opponents across the ideological spectrum, who described the Republican governor’s reversal as a watershed moment in a state long viewed as...

California is one of just two states that provides no money for the basic defense of poor people accused of crimes. A new commission made up of legislators, public defenders, academics and advocates seeks to push California — one of just two states that don’t pay for basic public defense...

Maryland’s newly passed Fair Chance Housing Act expands access to safe, stable housing for people with conviction histories and advances public safety. The cloud lifted significantly on Tuesday, May 26, when Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed the Fair Chance Housing Act into law.

The California Supreme Court this week reversed the death sentence of a Los Angeles Bloods gang member convicted of killing a rival Crip in the early 1990s because a prosecutor compared him to a dangerous animal, the first time a death sentence has been overturned under the 2020 Racial Justice Act.

After months of organizing and applying unyielding pressure on Governor Hochul and the Senate, this afternoon the New York Senate confirmed Alexander Dockery as a part-time Commissioner to the State Commission of Correction (SCOC), New York’s jail and prison oversight agency.

PHILADELPHIA — Three men who spent nearly three decades in prison for the 1997 stabbing death of a Northwest Philadelphia woman had their murder convictions overturned Tuesday after prosecutors, defense attorneys, and a judge agreed that key evidence in the case against them was unreliable.

Experts say “investigative hypnosis” creates an unacceptably high risk of false testimony, but Texas courts have refused to hear Flores’s case. Now his life is in the Supreme Court’s hands. Psychological experts have roundly condemned hypnosis as junk science.

Pennsylvania is one of just 10 states that has no compensation program for those who are wrongfully convicted. Of those 10, it is the most populous and has the most wrongful convictions, according to data kept by the National Registry of Exonerations.

Thanks to the leadership of survivors of incarceration and those with loved ones in prison, as well as the efforts of Chair Julia Salazar, the Senate’s Committee on Crime Victims, Crime & Correction passed the Fair & Timely Parole bill.

Pennsylvania requires unanimous approval from a five-member pardon board before people incarcerated on life sentences can ask the governor for clemency. While 19 other states, including New York and California, allow the governor unilateral clemency power, Pennsylvania is among...