By Mani Dabiri | Published December 2, 2014 | Posted in Federal and State Criminal Defense, Post-Conviction Defense and Appeals | Tagged Tags: cruelandunusual, eighthamendment, juvenilejustice, overcriminalization, punishment, sentencingalternatives, smartoncrime, solitaryconfinement, warondrugs |
Pope Francis Calls for the End of LWOP Sentences
While California still tolerates sentences of life without the possibility of parole for juveniles, and Massachusetts has ruled them out entirely, there is variation nationwide in the use of life sentences—with or without the possibility of parole—in all cases and for all people. An interesting, multi-state report by The Sentencing Project identifies a total of 160,000 people as serving life sentences as of 2012, Read More
Read More80,000 Ghosts
John McCain wrote of his time as a prisoner of war, “It’s an awful thing, solitary. It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” Tomorrow night, PBS will air a Frontline documentary that looks at solitary confinement through the lens of conditions at one state prison in Maine. You can check your local Read More
Read MoreThe Cruelest Thing One Man Can Do to Another
In 1972, Herman Wallace was an inmate in a Louisiana state prison when he and two other inmates were accused of killing a prison guard in what may have been a politically-motivated prosecution. (But that never happens, right?) By many accounts, the case against the men had problems, and last week, a federal judge reversed Wallace’s Read More
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