Karen Hucks Investigations

05/17/2023

Diversion programs reduce racial and ethnic disparities and improve outcomes in U.S. juvenile justice systems

12/25/2022

From deeply moving personal storytelling to thought-provoking research, these new books are our must-reads of 2022 for those looking to deepen their understanding of wrongful conviction, its causes, and how to advance justice.

04/22/2021

Sign the petition urging President Biden to honor the sanctity of life by prioritizing the abolition of the federal death penalty.

07/04/2020

All prisons should follow this.

A panel will be put together to come up with a longer term plan by the fall to end the use of solitary altogether.

10/11/2018

Finally.

The Washington Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty violates the state's Constitution.

04/22/2017

This is just one of the many things wrong about the death penalty. A state, rushing to use up a lethal drug before it expires, can't stop to make sure a man isn't innocent. You can agree or disagree about whether we should kill anyone but surely we can wait to make sure we're not killing the wrong person, right?

We are devastated for the loss of Mr. Lee. We ask that you join us in sending his family condolence messages via the form below.

04/19/2017

A judge in Portland, Maine, ordered an inmate released on bail last week after a woman whose testimony helped send him to jail for murder 25 years ago said police

02/25/2016

Interesting.

There are a few fascinating theories for why judges act in this racially biased way

02/12/2016

People change.

“I’m sixty-two now. I have three more years. I sold he**in. A lot of it. I had forty people working for me. If you were to ask me thirty-four years ago what it was going to be like in prison, I couldn’t have imagined. It’s been the same thing every day. Everyone I care about is gone. My mother passed. My father passed. My brother and sister. If I look backwards, I’ll lose my mind. I just try to keep busy and take it one day at a time. I’ve done every self-help program in the system. I’m the lead facilitator for the Men of Influence program. We teach behavioral skills, financial management, and entrepreneurship. In the five years that I’ve been in charge, we’ve graduated 250 people, and only one has come back to prison. I tell them: ‘Don’t let me be your future.’ And if I could say one thing to everyone who reads this interview. I want to apologize for the harm that I caused. If I could go back in time and correct it, I would. But that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the past 34 years. I grew up in the Baltimore projects. Everyone that I knew had nothing. I was trying to improve my life with the information that I had at the time. I grabbed the wrong rope. I’m sorry if I caused generations behind me to go astray. It wasn’t my intention to bring pain to the community. And I really think that when I’m released, I can be an asset to society.”

(Federal Correctional Institution: Cumberland, Maryland)

02/12/2016

https://www.facebook.com/SisterHelenPrejean/posts/10153441517216794

The 149 people freed last year had, on average, spent 14½ years in prison, a new report says.

02/10/2016

Hopefully this is becoming a trend. Prosecutors are supposed to be getting to the truth. When they stop caring about that, they need to stop being prosecutors. And when their lack of caring turns into willingness to break rules to get someone convicted, they need to stop being lawyers.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A former prosecutor who used false testimony and withheld evidence to send a now-exonerated man to Texas' death row has lost an appeal to overturn his disbarment. A federal appeals court reversed his conviction in 2006.

01/19/2016

Worked hard most of the day on this MLK Day to protect the rights of an innocent client.
Peace.