The bureau’s image unit has linked defendants to crime photographs for decades using unproven techniques and baseless statistics. Studies have begun to raise doubts about the unit’s methods.

by Ryan Gabrielson, ProPublica

At the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, a team of about a half-dozen technicians analyzes pictures down to ...

Humiliation-based punishments are designed as deterrents, but sentences that embarrass the most vulnerable among us are cruel, and represent the worst of American policies.

by Kathi Valeii, DAME Magazine

In November, several Bangladeshi immigrants who’d been convicted of food-stamp fraud were given a rare kind of shame-based sentence by a ...

by Rick Anderson

It’s the ultimate crime-solving tool, enabling prosecutors to bring seemingly rock-solid charges against accused murderers and rapists while also using it to re-open and solve dust-collecting cold cases. Victims and their families consider it a godsend and television watchers marvel at its consistency in bringing happy endings ...

by Christopher Zoukis

“Our procedure has always been haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted.”

—Judge Learned Hand (1923)

“Truth isn’t truth.”

—Rudy Giuliani (2018) 

In 1984, Ronald Cotton was arrested and charged with the knifepoint rape of Burlington, North Carolina, college student Jennifer Thompson ...

Of the 34 supervisors in the Elkhart, Indiana, Police Department, 28 have been disciplined. Fifteen have been suspended. Seven have been involved in fatal shootings. Three have been convicted of criminal charges.

by Ken Armstrong, ProPublica, and Christian Sheckler, South Bend Tribune

  This article was produced in partnership with ...

by Dale Chappell

The Supreme Court of New Jersey held that a 2014 amendment to the Violent Predator Incapacitation Act (“VPIA”), part of Megan’s Law, which applied to defendants who had violated their community supervision for life (“CSL”), violated the Ex Post Facto Clauses of the U.S. and New ...

by Sandy Rozek, NARSOL

Testimony from individuals at a sentencing hearing has one primary purpose: to give the court additional information on which to base a sentencing decision.

Victim impact statements focus on the harm done, while statements on behalf of the convicted are intended to paint as thorough a ...