Currently, prosecutors in both the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems have too much discretion in pressing charges, determining what sentences are sought, and negotiating plea deals. Trial by jury is a key tenant of the American criminal justice system, but heightened prosecutorial power significantly reduces the power and frequency of a trial by peers. Attempts at sentencing reform must address largely unchecked prosecutorial discretion.
“The victories chalked up by Creuzot and Thompson underlined a fact that has largely been overlooked in postmortems of this month’s midterms: the growing support of voters for genuine change in the criminal justice system regardless of their party affiliations—-and there is perhaps no clearer bellwether for how far voters think the needle should move on criminal justice reform than how they vote for local prosecutors.“
The Crime Report
November 12, 2018
Read More“Rollins has pledged to push for ending cash bail, to hire a more diverse slate of prosecutors and to collect data to find potential biases among her staff. She has said her office will generally not prosecute more than a dozen crimes, including shoplifting and drug possession, dismissing the cases or treating them like civil infractions that require offenders to pay restitution or complete programs.“
US News & World Report
November 7, 2018
Read More“And so, over the past 50 years, coincident with the erosion of public welfare services, Americans have increasingly relied on the criminal justice system to solve problems that are not, at their heart, criminal. Problems like mental health, substance use, and poverty sometimes lead to criminal conduct.“
The Crime Report
November 6, 2018
Read More“Johnson sought for the teenagers to be tried as adults, and the public hasn’t really heard much about it from her since. Organizers and nonprofits focused on issues of mass incarceration and criminal justice got to work on strategies of their own. Brianna Brown from Texas Organizing Project said ending mass incarceration cannot come to fruition without making sure kids are tried as kids.“
Dallas Observer
November 1, 2018
Read More“Those are just a couple examples of the long-lasting collateral damage caused by incarceration, and things could have gone differently. The prosecutor in charge of my case could have used a diversion option, like treatment court, or a different form of supervision that would have allowed me to address my addiction, options which would have minimized the impacts I still feel on my life today. I have since been told my sentence was extreme and that the prosecutor could have easily diverted me to a treatment court program or community supervision to address the underlying reasons for my addiction and subsequent crimes.“
Prison Legal News
October 31, 2018
Read More“This trend, the report concludes, has bolstered the hands of prosecutors and disempowered both criminal defense attorneys and democracy itself. The report says democracy at large is at stake because citizens, as a result of pretrial plea bargains, have become less involved in the criminal justice system with the accompanying inability to serve on juries.“
Prison Legal News
October 31, 2018
Read More“In the past, candidates running to be district attorney — if they were challenged at all — touted their toughness on crime. But now district attorneys’ races have become more competitive, attracting large donations and challengers running on pledges to transform the criminal justice system.“
New York Times
October 25, 2018
Read More“The deference shown to prosecutors reaches every aspect of the criminal justice system. Even the reformers who recommend consulting prosecutors on parole decisions and second-look sentencing, however, fail to explain why their involvement is needed in these post-sentencing processes. It strikes me as counterintiuitive that the official responsible for seeking someone’s lengthy sentence should be consulted about that person’s release, yet those recommendations continue.“
Prison Policy Initiative
October 25, 2018
Read More“Wouldn’t the criminal-justice system be more just, he asked, if the people who traditionally had become public defenders decided to become prosecutors instead? If the students wanted to go into criminal law, they could be prosecutors or public defenders—or, he said, they could be progressive prosecutors.“
The New Yorker
October 23, 2018
Read More“Frosh says Wolf’s focus on criminal prosecutions misunderstands the role of the attorney general — which has to ask permission from local prosecutors before using a grand jury to investigate or file charges — and overlooks Frosh’s efforts to do more to help tackle violent crime. Frosh hired senior prosecutors from the Baltimore state’s attorney’s office as leaders on his team and started a violent crime unit, which he says has brought charges against more than 100 people. He says all this ‘by large measures, exceeded what most of my predecessors did’.“
Baltimore Sun
October 17, 2018
Read More“But Freeman’s critics say he hasn’t done enough to reduce overall incarceration levels. At a time when most states were reducing prison populations, the number of people that Hennepin County sent to prison was going up, from 1,509 prison admissions in 2012 to 1,664 in 2017. Nearly 70 percent of the people that Hennepin County prosecutors and judges sent to Minnesota prisons in 2017 were black.“
Twin Cities Daily Planet
October 16, 2018
Read More“A judge’s decision could end the practice of jailing people for soliciting money along streets and highways, but DA Spencer Merriweather has been slow to embrace the change.“
The Appeal
October 16, 2018
Read More“Last week, the Washington Supreme Court, in a fairly pointed opinion, declared that, at least in its jurisdiction, numbers have real meaning. And to those who have eyes to see, numbers make clear the truth about death-sentencing: It is arbitrary and racist in its application.“
The Atlantic
October 14, 2018
Read More“‘The extensive federalization of criminal law has rendered ineffective the federalist underpinnings of the dual-sovereignty doctrine,’ Hatch’s brief, filed last month, says. ‘And its persistence impairs full realization of the Double Jeopardy Clause’s liberty protections’.“
Salt Lake Tribune
October 12, 2018
Read More“In launching a new Conviction Integrity Unit in his office, Gill has assembled an advisory team that is a veritable hall-of-fame lineup of distinguished attorneys, among them, the former Chief Justice of the Utah Supreme Court, Christine Durham, and none of whom are employed in his office. With such a sterling group of legal eagles in place, the board has the potential to delve deeply into potential innocence cases, look at the facts objectively, and make recommendations unencumbered by office politics or formal ties to staff attorneys.“
Salt Lake Tribune
October 10, 2018
Read More“Although law enforcement officials have traditionally opposed such measures for an array of reasons — including accountability, a belief that records are vital to public safety, and unstinting support for crime victims — a growing number of them have begun to recognize that criminal records can be enduring obstacles to self-sufficiency and even help trap people in cycles of crime. Increasingly, they are overtly endorsing mercy through record suppression.“
New York Times
October 7, 2018
Read More“As a rising Cardinals analyst, Chris Correa didn’t believe he was committing a crime when he hacked into the Astros’ internal database. Then he went to prison, where he changed his views on his actions and the criminal justice system.“
Sports Illustrated
October 4, 2018
Read More“Robinson said his office does take ‘all factors into consideration’ including youth brain development, when making charging decisions. He added that he has no problem seeking life without parole for juveniles who were accomplices in a felony that resulted in a murder, depending on the facts of the case.“
The Appeal
October 4, 2018
Read More“Instead, New York's district attorneys have chosen to remain affiliated with a lobbying organization that will do everything in its power to prevent the progress that the public demands. To be taken seriously as ‘progressive prosecutors,’ individual district attorneys must disavow their associations with DAASNY; if they want to, they can create their own organization to support criminal justice reform, rather than continuing to support efforts to stymie it.“
Albany Times Union
October 2, 2018
Read More“Even if New York’s prosecutors ultimately do not impede the foundation’s efforts, their rhetoric is disappointing. Much of criminal justice reform is about making the general public think more carefully about the needless, preventable, and often counterproductive harms that the system creates, and the prosecutors’ reactive ‘what about public safety?!’ proclamations directly undermine such efforts, and only serve to strengthen the public’s willingness to continue to cage women and teens.“
The Appeal
October 2, 2018
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