Criminal Defense Blog

Christopher Zoukis, JD | April 23, 2015 | Crime and Justice

The confessed leader of a powerful gang inside the Baltimore City Detention Center was the government’s star witness at the trial of eight remaining defendants in a widespread racketeering, drug smuggling, bribery, extortion, and money laundering operation that resulted in criminal charges against dozens of guards, prisoners, jail workers, and other defendants. Tavon “Bulldog” White, […]

Christopher Zoukis, JD | April 9, 2015 | Crime and Justice

In a rare public rebuke of a prosecutor found to have engaged in a “deliberate pattern of misconduct,” the Connecticut Appellate Court vacated a defendant’s murder conviction based on the prosecutor’s improper remarks during closing arguments. Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Terence D. Mariani, Jr. was chided in an opinion by Judge Michael R. Sheldon, writing […]

Christopher Zoukis, JD | September 2, 2014 | Educational Programs

Enrolling in college from prison is no easy task. There is bureaucratic red tape to overcome, an endemic culture of failure, and prison staff members who are more interested in punching a clock than engaging in any form of actual work. But fear not, with persistence, dedication, and a bit of planning, a college education […]

Christopher Zoukis, JD | August 26, 2014 | Prison Life

The Federal Bureau of Prisons provides inmates with a number of avenues of entertainment.  These avenues include personal FM radios, community televisions, personal MP3 players, and institutional movies.  These forms of entertainment are offered in an effort to reduce inmate idleness and the ills that come along with it. Radios Personal FM/AM radios have been […]

Christopher Zoukis, JD | July 31, 2014 | Advocacy and Reform

Over the past several years, a number of criminal justice and social commentators have discussed the idea of shaming or guilting as an alternative sanction for minor criminal wrongdoing.  They have suggested that shaming or guilting is less expensive, more effective, and allows the offender to stay in the community — thus enabling them to […]

Christopher Zoukis, JD | May 20, 2014 | Advocacy and Reform

On February 5, 2014, Prison Legal News editor Paul Wright interviewed Noam Chomsky, 85, at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts. Professor Chomsky is the foremost dissident intellectual in the United States, and for decades has been a prominent critic of U.S. foreign policy, human rights abuses, imperialism, and the media’s facilitation of the same. He […]

Christopher Zoukis, JD | April 16, 2014 | Advocacy and Reform

In a perfect world, prison generally has three purposes: prison acts as a deterrent to instant and repeat crimes, prison punishes the wrongdoer, and prison ideally treats or rehabilitates the wrongdoer so they no longer engage in crime.  This article will address these three purposes of prisons and show how the instance of recidivism can […]

Christopher Zoukis, JD | March 11, 2014 | Prison Life

Venturing far into the swamp lands of southern Florida, alligators lazily crawl through murky irrigation waterways and sugar cane lines in the marshy fields. Further down the muddy road, old plantation flats border the homestead grounds. Before the 60s, the dwellings were used to house seasonal Caribbean sugar cane workers. Eventually, modern machinery replaced human […]

Christopher Zoukis, JD | February 26, 2014 | Prison News

Book marketing in the world outside of prison is fairly straightforward. The author writes a book, ideally has the foresight to build an author platform in the process, and then uses the platform and other tools to market the book once it is published. These other tools often consist of a snazzy website, writing commitments […]

Christopher Zoukis, JD | February 10, 2014 | Educational Programs

In the criminal justice community, we often hear about recidivism. This is the relapse of former prisoners or probationers back into crime. The reason we focus so much on this topic is that it is a measure of our success. None of us teach prisoners or promote prison reform solely because we find it interesting: […]