The U.S. Supreme Court’s 8-1 mid-January decision in Hurst v. Florida overturned the way Florida decides on imposing the death penalty, saying it was unconstitutional because juries weren’t allowed to make the ultimate decision. Now, the high court has recently told Alabama’s Court of Criminal Appeals to review whether that Florida case means Alabama must
In a landmark 7-1 decision earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court voided a nearly 30-year-old murder conviction of a black inmate in Georgia due to prosecutors’ efforts to keep black jurors from hearing the case. Timothy Tyrone Foster, an 18-year-old youth with mental disabilities (which would eventually lead a state court to find his
Indiana Women’s Reformatory as seen in 1873. Photo courtesy of the Indiana State Library. Prisoners at the maximum-security Indiana Women’s Prison have undertaken a remarkable feat – conducting and presenting their own original research on the history of the 143-year-old prison. While funding was cut for non-vocational education programs in Indiana in 2011, volunteer instructors
Concluding a case started over 20 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court early this month refused to accept an appeal in a lawsuit filed by Native American prisoners in Alabama, who argued hair length rules set by the state’s Department of Corrections infringed their religious beliefs and practices. In declining to hear arguments on Knight
Maximum-security inmates at a New Jersey prison have been learning about the literary world with Rutgers University associate professor Emily Allen-Hornblower. But the novelty isn’t that they are studying literature or even that they are doing it behind bars. It’s what they are learning about that’s so impressive. At East Jersey State, formerly Rahway State
Connecticut is moving to implement a series of juvenile justice and education reforms aimed at cutting the school-to-prison pipeline after a series of complaints were lodged about problems plaguing the state’s system. Governor Dannel Malloy has already moved to close the Connecticut Juvenile Training Program by 2018 after multiple reports of violence, unlawful restraint, extended
Anthony Mann has not been an ideal inmate at the Special Management Unit in the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina. Convicted of a pair of execution-style killings, since 2002, he’s been serving a life sentence without a chance of parole. He’s also tried to escape several times, been charged with frequent violations
It took him a decade, but former inmate Colin Bramlett Sr. has returned to Brown Creek Correctional Facility. But this time, he’s not there as a resident. Bramlett regularly returns to the correctional center in Polkton, North Carolina, to teach the culinary skills he learned behind bars – skills that helped him leave prison with
Last year, Brooklyn-based federal district court judge John Gleeson wanted to help a woman; he had sentenced her 14 years earlier on a federal criminal fraud charge (she had posed as an auto crash victim for an insurance fraud ring that faked accidents). The woman (in her mid-50s, a naturalized Haitian immigrant referred to only
Inmates at an Alabama correctional center are developing, crowdfunding, and taking other necessary steps to launch their own radio about health issues in the prison system. The program at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in Jefferson County is facilitated by Connie Kohler, professor emeritus at the University of Alabama (UAB) at Birmingham. She was approached