Tag: criminal justice

By bringing new dimensions to an unjust process, a well-told story has the power to impact some of our most flawed systems.

He faked an insanity defense, got out, and immediately committed another crime, and this time people are dead. He’s going to plead insanity again.

If traumatic brain injuries can impact the parts of the brain responsible for personality, judgment, and impulse control, maybe injury should be a mitigating factor in criminal trials — but one neuroscientist discovers that assigning crime a biological basis creates more issues than it solves.

Thailand’s criminal justice system is plauged by an accepted double standard, where corruption prevails.

True crime has a reputation for being trashy, but a recent renaissance has it tipping into advocacy.

In 2018, we’re inured to stories of a powerful men taking advantage of girls and getting away with it, but Jeffrey Epstein’s story still manages to horrify.

Wrongful convictions are not isolated events. They happen in every state. They happen multiple times a week. Here’s a breakdown of how and why the innocent are locked up in America.

Wendell Lindsey, convicted of murdering his 10-year-old daughter in a fake drowning, has consistently maintained his innocence — and there’s a lot to suggest he’s telling the truth.

When you donate your body to science, you don’t get a whole lot of say over what happens to your parts.

Pamela Colloff took the same 40-hour course that is the sum total of the training many blood spatter experts claim… and it did not inspire confidence in the reliability of this particular forensic “science.”

Despite what “Law & Order: CSI” tells us, blood spatter patterns don’t necessarily hold all the keys to a crime scene.

“Rebirth therapy” was meant to help a troubled girl start over, but it ended her life instead.

Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force were celebrated for getting firearms off the street, until detectives discovered they were also robbing criminals of guns, drugs and money.

May Jeong searches for answers after the death of her friend, journalist Kim Wall.

When bad forensics enter the courtroom, it can become impossible to get rid of them.

One California woman tries to understand the code of honor that young men live by in blood feuds.

She keeps watch over one of the largest databases of missing persons in the country. For Meaghan Good, the disappeared are still out here, you just have to know where to look.

We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in crime reporting.

The allure and shame of watching America’s last public hanging.

Is prosecuting crimes about justice, or conviction rates? In Shelby County, Tennessee, the answer isn’t so clear.

An “Alford plea” gets an innocent man out of jail, but keeps him on the books as a convicted felon.

Canadian vigilantes with names like Creep Hunters make popular videos busting pedophiles, and many are now refining their tactics to try and go mainstream.

The state prepares to kill seven men this month with a soon-to-expire supply of lethal injection drugs.

I grew up idolizing my brother. Then he killed a man.

A description of a horrific attack by a serial rapist — whose victim the police refused to believe — from an in-depth investigative report by T. Christian Millar and Ken Marshall on ProPublica.

Although more and more countries are abolishing capital punishment, over half the world’s population lives in four of the countries that continue to use it: India, Indonesia, China — and the United States. U.S. public opinion continues to move against the death penalty, but while some states have overturned capital punishment (or never had it), most still sentence people […]

With each passing year, the act of witnessing executions weighed on Michelle more and more heavily. Larry retired in 2003, and she felt his absence, wishing for the much-needed levity he had always brought to their work. She got married that same year and in 2005 gave birth to her daughter. “I started thinking about […]