News

By Deniz Ariturk Six months after the first nationwide shutdown, US prisons and jails continue to be top COVID hot spots. Case numbers have continued to increase rapidly in prisons even as they plateaued nationwide in early summer, and new weekly cases peaked in August. By September 8, a total of 121,217 incarcerated people had […]

Wilson Center Director Brandon Garrett on Monday will moderate a criminal justice event hosted by the Sanford School of Public Policy, titled Stand for Justice. The panelists at the event are Kassandra Frederique of Drug Policy Alliance, Bianca Tylek of Worth Rises, and Alec Karakatsanis of Civil Rights Corps. The talk, about criminal justice reform, […]

From Duke Law News: Duke Law faculty and alumni involved in challenging the reinstatement of death sentences after the retroactive repeal of North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act hailed a state Supreme Court decision that the move was unconstitutional – a ruling that is expected to spare the lives of four inmates on death row. On […]

The Duke Center for Science and Justice is cohosting another upcoming  Duke Science & Society event as part of its Coronavirus Conversations series. The virtual event is titled “Impact of COVID on Black Americans and Other People of Color” and will start at 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 11. Online registration ahead of time is required. Find more information […]

HOUSTON, T.X. – The independent monitors overseeing Harris County’s historic bail reform agreement filed its report this morning describing their first six-months of work and findings with the federal court, noting an increase in releases and a reduced use of cash bail. The implementation of the ODonnell Consent Decree in Harris County, Texas – which encompasses Houston […]

From Duke Law news: On Wednesday, the State of North Carolina filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to initiate a process leading to Long’s freedom. The state asked the court to immediately issue a mandate in Long’s case and said it planned to move immediately in the district court […]

Ronnie Long has spent 44 years in prison for a crime he’s claimed since the beginning he didn’t commit, and he is closer now than ever to freedom after a federal court ruled this week that his constitutional rights were violated when evidence was withheld from his trial that would have helped establish his innocence. […]

Eyewitness evidence, used in tens of thousands of criminal cases each year, crucially depends on eyewitness memory, which is quite fallible. The potential inaccuracy of eyewitness memory has been long demonstrated by examples of misidentifications, including in cases of wrongful conviction. Eyewitness identification procedures, which are themselves experiments, lend themselves to scientific research as do […]