by Jayson Hawkins
A new policy instituted by the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), effective November 1, 2019, is the first federal rule governing the use of family-tree DNA databases by law enforcement.
Services that allow individuals to trace their ancestry through DNA technology have grown increasingly popular in recent ...
by Jayson Hawkins
"I’m sitting here a semblance, trying to get back to me,” Jimmy Dennis admitted from the relative safety of his living room, afraid to venture beyond his doorstep.
Dennis exhibited the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including menacing nightmares and acute paranoia, which are often associated with ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Little Rock, Arkansas, is a typical American city. When two police officers there pinned down a suspect while a third, David B. Green, beat his face into the ground in 2011, it was not unlike incidents in other towns across the nation. That a bodycam video showed ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Archie Williams seemed doomed to die in prison. Sentenced to life without parole for a 1982 stabbing and rape, he managed to survive in Louisiana’s Angola as months bled into years, and years pooled into decades. Where others may have lost hope, Williams clung to one forlorn ...
by Jayson Hawkins
For every step that technological advances make on the march of progress, so too are pathways opened to abuse. The current rush among law enforcement agencies to acquire “Rapid DNA” machines has thus raised red flags.
These devices enable the user to “generate an identifying DNA profile” ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Risk assessment tools have frequently been mentioned as useful aids in the push toward criminal justice reform, yet little research has been done concerning their accuracy, validity, or effectiveness in this area.
In response to legislation in several states that would make the use of such tools ...
by Jayson Hawkins
They put me and my son on our knees to watch her die. The officer squatted over her while she was dying with the search warrant, and he said, ‘You know why we’re here?’ and I said, ‘No, I don’t know,’” Angela Zorich recalled of the day ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Archie Williams seemed doomed to die in prison. Sentenced to life without parole for a 1982 stabbing and rape, he managed to survive in Louisiana’s Angola as months bled into years, and years pooled into decades. Where others may have lost hope, Williams clung to one forlorn ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Risk assessments have been championed as a tool to help remove bias from criminal justice decisions. While there have been improvements in some areas, overall performance has fallen short of many expectations. Cook County, Illinois, began using the Public Safety Assessment (“PSA”) four years ago as a ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Certain human rights are inalienable, even for incarcerated individuals. When Joshua Davis received a shot of insulin in 2018 that was tainted with other prisoners’ blood, the resulting lawsuit against the institution that risked exposing him to a host of deadly diseases should have been a slam ...
