by Ben Finholt, Director of the Just Sentencing Project at NCPLS and an Affiliated Fellow of the CSJ After Gov. Cooper declared a state of emergency based on the global COVID-19 pandemic, advocates immediately began calling for the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (DPS) to reduce the number of people in prison. DPS responded […]
Category: Blog
Preliminary Injunction in NAACP v. Cooper
Yesterday, Judge Vinston Rozier, Jr. issued a Preliminary Injunction to the State of North Carolina, regarding COVID in prisons. Here is the Order: 20 CVS 500110 Order on PI with COS. The Judge explained: “Thousands of these individuals in Defendants’ custody are elderly, have disabilities, or have underlying health conditions, making them particularly vulnerable to […]
Mental Health Policy in the Era of COVID-19
In Mental Health Policy in the Era of COVID-19, a new piece in Psychiatric Services, Dr. Marvin Swartz and colleagues – all members of the Psychiatric Services Policy Advisory Group – describe: The response to the global COVID-19 pandemic has important ramifications for mental health systems and the patients they serve. This article describes significant changes […]
Fourth Circuit Opinion on QI
In Jones v. Martinsburg, the Fourth Circuit remanded a case that the trial court had dismissed on qualified immunity grounds, beginning with this overview: “In 2013, Wayne Jones, a black man experiencing homelessness, was stopped by law enforcement in Martinsburg, West Virginia for walking alongside, rather than on, the sidewalk. By the end of this encounter, […]
Duke U. Media Briefing on Police Reform
Here is a YouTube link to the briefing – with colleagues Darrell Miller, Professor of Law and co-Director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law, and Laura F. Edwards, Duke Professor of History.
Changing the Law to Change Policing: First Steps
Today, the Center for Science and Justice joins the Policing Project at NYU Law, the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law, the Innovative Policing Program at Georgetown Law School, the Criminal Justice Program, Vanderbilt University, and Center for Criminal Justice at the University of Virginia School of Law in a new report: Changing the Law to […]
Race, Injustice, and DNA Exonerations
Race and injustice are central to the story of innocence and DNA exonerations in the U.S. Racial disparity is glaring in these DNA exonerees’ cases. Many more DNA exonerees were minorities than is typical even among average and already racially skewed populations of rape and murder convicts. Among DNA exonerations a stunning 80 percent were […]
Weekend Reading on Police Reform
For weekend reading or re-reading: From Pew: 10 Things We Know About Race and Policing. And Seth Stoughton on 8 Things We Get Wrong About Policing. With Geoffrey Alpert and Jeffrey Nobel on How to Actually Fix America’s Police. And Sen. Cory Booker on police reform. And – Charles H. Ramsey, Ronald L. Davis, Roberto […]
Stand for Victims of Injustice
We grieve for George Floyd’s family and write to express our deep support for all who stand for justice in his case and in so many others. We have a three-part mission at the Center for Science and Justice: to do work that addresses accuracy, risk, and needs in the justice system. These heartbreaking current […]
Use of Force Policy in Minneapolis
The Minneapolis police department’s use of force policies are receiving national scrutiny after the death of George Floyd. The agency patrol guide is available online here. Their policy begins in a way that Seth Stoughton and I have criticized, by relying on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment caselaw, which uses a very broad “reasonableness” […]