Criminal Justice

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Linda Greenhouse says the new Court has given conservatives less than they'd hoped for, though critical cases on abortion and other issues are still pending.

Seven years into his 60-year sentence, Yutico Briley wrote a letter to Emily Bazelon, who writes about the criminal justice system. They both reflect on Briley's long path to exoneration.

In 1989, 15-year-old Yusef Salaam was one of five Black and Latino teenagers who were wrongly accused of assault and rape in the so-called Central Park jogger case. Long after he’d served a seven-year prison sentence, DNA evidence confirmed that a serial rapist and murderer had committed the crime, and acted alone. Salaam's new memoir is 'Better Not Bitter.'

New Yorker writer Jane Mayer talks about the criminal investigation into whether Donald Trump engaged in tax, banking and/or insurance fraud. If convicted, he could be sentenced to prison.

"I saw firsthand how police and prosecutors manipulate evidence, coerce witnesses into giving false testimony," says Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries. His memoir is When Truth is All You Have.

Chesa Boudin's radical leftist parents were imprisoned when he was a toddler. Now he's working to reduce the inmate population in San Francisco — and worrying about his dad, who remains in prison.

New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin & Kate Kelly covered the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. After the hearings, the two continued to investigate the allegations against him. Their new book is 'The Education of Brett Kavanaugh.'

DuVernay's Netflix series, When They See Us, tells the story of how five black and brown teenagers were manipulated into confessing to a brutal rape they did not commit.

Former federal public defender Alexandra Natapoff says 13 million misdemeanors are filed each year in the U.S., trapping the innocent, punishing the poor and making society more unequal.

Danielle Allen's memoir centers on her cousin Michael, who was sentenced to a long prison term for carjacking when he was 15. Three years after his release, he was found shot to death in a parked car.

New Yorker staff writer Jeffrey Toobin discusses Leonard Leo, the conservative lawyer who is responsible, to a considerable extent, for one third of the justices on the Supreme Court.

Legal expert Jeffrey Rosen says of the Supreme Court nominee: "If he thought that individual liberty was threatened by presidential or congressional overreaching, then he would step in."

"The '70s were a toxic, dangerous, scary time in America" says Jeffrey Toobin. His new book puts the kidnapping, crimes and trial of Patty Heart in the context of those times.

A 2015 report by the Vera Institute of Justice finds that local jails have become a warehouse for people too poor to pay even low bail and for the mentally ill, creating a downward spiral for those who are confined as well as for their families and communities. A talk with the co-author of the report Nancy Fishman.

When police pulled a gun on Bryan Stevenson as he was sitting quietly in his car in Atlanta, he knew he had to effect change. His memoir describes his attempts, including freeing men on death row.

A new six-episode drama for the Sundance Channel follows a man who, after 19 years in prison, is exonerated by DNA evidence and returns to his family. Critic David Bianculli says it's a unique show, and a memorable one.

Michelle Alexander says that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of blacks in the war on drugs.

After 35 years as a Supreme Court justice, John Paul Stevens retired last year. His newly released memoir is about his time on the bench and the five Supreme Court chief justices he personally knew. He details his views of those justices and how his viewpoints on various issues evolved over the years.

Stevens, who died Tuesday, was appointed by President Ford and served on the court for 35 years before retiring in 2010. He spoke to Fresh Air in 2011 about his memoir, Five Chiefs.

Clarence Jones helped draft Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech and was a close personal adviser and lawyer to the civil rights leader. But he almost turned down the chance to work with King. He explains what changed his mind in his memoir, Behind the Dream.