The Evidence-Based Case for Ending Sex-Offender Registries

From Bill Dobbs of the Dobbs Wire

The Dobbs Wire:  A rare event about the sex offense registry – it’s purpose and effectiveness, whether there’s a need, and if it should it dismantled!  Presenters:  Miriam Aukerman is one of the …

Pushed Out and Locked in

“I sat in the prison medical unit across from Richard,* bound to his wheelchair, supplemental oxygen supply at the ready, almost three years to the day after he was granted compassionate release. We went over the list again. Relatives: public …

A life of Shame

[Angela Piazza/for Statesman]

“What do you do when you are 25 years old and a county like Williamson County comes after you and you don’t have any money?”

–Troy Mansfield

A chilling case of cruel and unusual prosecutorial misconduct. Read …

Should Galen Baughman Spend his Life in Prison?

(bigstock)

On August 24, we posted the following article from the Washington Post. The authors have requested that we repost the article with the following preface:

On October 17, 2019, after a two-week civil trial in Arlington County, Virginia, …

Elsie Oscarson Update

[Great news from Mark Pendergrast]

Elsie Oscarson is free!

After 21 years in prison, Elsie Oscarson was finally released on September 2, 2019. She was granted a new trial, but because it would be rolling the dice one more time, …

Burned by ‘bad science’

Houston Chronicle

In the Texas courthouse 100 miles east of Dallas that day in September 2012, the prosecutor turned to his expert witness and asked whether he believed the child’s injuries could have been the result of an accident.

“The …

Hundreds of police officers have been labeled liars. Some still help send people to prison.

Scott Dalton for USA TODAY

“In a case that came down to one man’s word against another’s, jurors believed the police officer. Because of his prior offenses, Vara was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

“What happened to Vara has …

Repressed Memories are Back!

“In 1973, the idea of repressed memories became popularized with the publication of Sybil, a “nonfiction” book by journalist Flora Rheta Schreiber. Schreiber claimed that under psychiatric treatment, a patient whom she called Sybil recalled severe abuse by her …

The Wrongful Conviction of Bruce Perkins

Houston Chronicle

“Swept up in a wave of extraordinary child sex abuse claims in the 1980s and early 1990s, prosecutors across the country charged dozens of parents and caregivers with appalling-sounding acts despite scant physical evidence. Suggestive, leading questioning by …

Editorial: Firing the judge in Brock Turner sex assault case was a step toward mob rule

(Anda Chu / TNS)

“That’s a chilling sort of mentality. It’s the kind of thinking that led the good people of California to create a criminal justice system that made eternal pariahs of former offenders and made irredeemable ‘predators’ of …