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Police with face shields in street

Why Aren’t Cops Held to Account?

Decades of Supreme Court decisions have converted qualified immunity from a commonsense rule into a powerful doctrine that deprives people injured by police misconduct of recourse.
by Linda Greenhouse via New York Review of Books on August 30, 2023
Angela Davis attending her first news conference after being released on bail, February 24, 1972.

Angela Davis Exposed the Injustice at the Heart of the Criminal Justice System

In 1970, Angela Davis was arrested on suspicion of murder. The trial — and her eventual victory — proved to everyone that the justice system was corrupt.
by Joel Whitney via Jacobin on April 1, 2023
Juvenile in handcuffs
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Combating the Myth of the Superpredator

In the 1990s, a handful of researchers inspired panic with a dire but flawed prediction: the imminent arrival of a new breed of “superpredators.”
via Retro Report on October 30, 2019
Two men doing a "perp walk"
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Perp Walks: When Police Roll Out the Blue Carpet

Unfair maneuver or a strong warning to would-be criminals?
by Bonnie Bertram, Sandra McDaniel via Retro Report on December 2, 2018

The Birth of the Brady Rule: How a Botched Robbery Led to a Legal Landmark

Every law student knows John Brady’s name. But few know the story of the bumbling murder that ended in a landmark legal ruling.
by Thomas L. Dybdahl via The Marshall Project on June 24, 2018

The Caging of America

Why do we lock up so many people?
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on January 30, 2012

Objection

Clarence Darrow’s unfinished work.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on May 23, 2011
President Nixon signs an executive order.

Nixon Now Looks Restrained

The former President once made an offhand remark about Charles Manson’s guilt. The reaction shows how aberrant Donald Trump’s rhetoric is.
by Ruth Marcus via The New Yorker on October 9, 2025
Rudy Giuliani prepares for a press conference surrounded by confiscated guns.

A New York Miracle

A street-level view of Rudy Giuliani’s transformation of the Big Apple.
by Scott McConnell via The American Conservative on August 17, 2025
Black man's face, and maps of Chicago, in an outline of a detective.

The Talented Mr. Bruseaux

He made his name in Chicago investigating race riots, solving crimes, and exposing corruption. But America’s first Black private eye was hiding his own secrets.
by Matthew Wolfe via The Atavist on July 23, 2025
Donald Trump and Kristi Noem visiting Alligator Alcatraz.
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The Dark History That Predates Trump's 'Alligator Alcatraz'

The location of Trump's immigrant detention center has a painful history of incarceration, abuse, and private interests.
by Antonio Ramirez via Made By History on July 17, 2025
Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson: A Vote for Cutting Off Your Nose

To reduce Virginia’s use of the death penalty, Thomas Jefferson proposed using permanent disfigurement as a punishment for rape, polygamy, and sodomy.
by Matthew Wills, Emily Cock via JSTOR Daily on June 4, 2025
A cartoon depicts two bandaged men suspended on the scales of justice raising their fists at each other.

Jack London’s Fantastic Revenge

In his short story “The Benefit of the Doubt,” Jack London turned truth into fiction, and then some.
by Andrew Rihn via The Saturday Evening Post on May 19, 2025
Supreme court passing from the robing room to the court chambers, 1881.
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Lacking a Demonstrable Source of Authority

On the case that provoked the courts to decide if the federal government had jurisdiction to exercise American criminal law over Native peoples on Native lands.
by Keith Richotte Jr. via HNN on February 19, 2025
A collage of a gavel, a comb, and a gloved hand in front of a sexual assault examination form.

The Frustrated Promise of the Rape Kit

Standardized forensic exams are a useful tool for sexual-violence investigations—or they would be if police departments consistently tested their findings.
by Jessica Winter via The New Yorker on February 3, 2025
Strom Thurmond speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of Ed Carnes' confirmation to the bench.

The Fight for Justice Starts with Blocking Judges Who Are “Tough on Crime”

The story of how Ed Carnes became a judge offers crucial lessons for those who hope to unwind the policies of mass incarceration.
by Robert L. Tsai via Public Books on November 13, 2024
Protestors standing against the death penalty.

An Exercise in Political Imagination: Debating William F. Buckley

Stephen Bright and Bryan Stevenson defended the abolition of capital punishment at a moment when political support for that movement reached its nadir.
by Robert L. Tsai via Liberal Currents on October 31, 2024
A drawing of Kamala Harris in a police uniform.

Lipstick on the Pigs

Kamala Harris and the lineage of the female cop.
by Sophie Lewis via The Drift on October 28, 2024
State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill Administration Building, with a restricted entrance sign in front of its doors.

The Porous Prison

How incarcerated people have become separated from American society.
by Charlotte E. Rosen, Reiko Hillyer via Public Books on October 3, 2024
Painting of enslaved people waiting to be sold.

Enslaved Women’s Resistance to Slavery and Gendered Violence

A new book offers a fresh perspective on the resistance of enslaved women and their interactions with the law.
by Sean Gallagher via Black Perspectives on September 5, 2024
A judge's gavel and the Capitol building, edited to look like the top of the Capitol is the other side of the gavel.

America Has Too Many Laws

An excess of restrictions has taken a very real toll on the lives of everyday Americans. Their stories must be told.
by Neil Gorsuch, Janie Nitze via The Atlantic on August 5, 2024

What It Means to ‘Willie Horton’ a Political Candidate

Donald Trump supporters run their version of the original dog-whistle attack ad against Kamala Harris. Here’s the history.
by Beth Schwartzapfel via The Marshall Project on July 31, 2024
White men strapping a Black man into an electric chair.
original

Matters of Life and Death

Systemic racism and capital punishment have long been intertwined in Virginia, the South, and the nation.
by Janis Parker on July 10, 2024
"Just Say No" memorabilia at the Reagan Presidential Library.

White Suburbs and Drug Wars

To understand the racism of the drug war, we must look to the ways policymakers sought to protect white suburban youth.
by Max Felker-Kantor via Public Books on July 3, 2024
Anti-death penalty protesters standing outside the Supreme Court.

The Hollowing of the Eighth Amendment

The Supreme Court’s Republican majority has been quietly rolling back a longstanding consensus over cruel and unusual punishment.
by Duncan Hosie via New York Review of Books on June 18, 2024
Historical illustration of the arraignment of Boss Tweed in courtroom (1872).
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A 19th Century Case That Holds a Lesson for the Trump Trials

Fairly applying the rule of law to powerful politicians provides the stability that enables the U.S. to thrive politically and economically.
by Ray Brescia via Made By History on May 20, 2024
1957 U.S. Supreme Court Justices
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Super Chief

Reconsidering Earl Warren's place in U.S. history.
by Michael Bobelian via HNN on May 14, 2024
Old gas chamber, with two chairs

Execution By Gas has a Brutal 100-Year History. Now it’s Back.

An Alabama man faces execution by nitrogen gas—the first U.S. execution by gas in a quarter-century, 100 years after the practice began.
by Randy Dotinga via Retropolis on January 24, 2024
Hands placing silhouettes of witnesses onto a chart using tweezers.

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

How a mob statute metastasized.
by Piper French via The Drift on July 12, 2023
Historic marker for the 1892 lynching of Robert Lewis at Port Jervis.

Death by Northern White Hands

On Philip Dray’s “A Lynching at Port Jervis.”
by Adolf Alzuphar via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 26, 2023
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