Discrimination in criminal justice administration
One Lawyer's Fight For Young Blacks And 'Just Mercy.'
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.
Legal Scholar: Jim Crow Still Exists In America
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.
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and His Biographer James Hirsch.
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. In the early 60s, Carter was a top contender for the middleweight boxing crown. Then in 1967, he was convicted of three murders he did not commit. He was in prison for nearly 20 years, but continued to fight for his freedom in state and federal courts. Finally in 1985, he was found innocent and set free. We talk with Carter, and his biographer, James Hirsch, author of "Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter" (Houghton Mifflin Company). A new movie about Carter, called Hurricane, just opened.
Randall Kennedy on Racial Discrimination Against Blacks in Law Enforcement
The Harvard Law School professor's new book examines race and the criminal justice system, "Race, Crime, and the Law." In his research, Kennedy, finds that African-Americans have suffered more from being "left unprotected by law enforcement authorities than from being mistreated as suspects or defendants."
Robert Shapiro Discusses His Role in the O. J. Trial.
Defense attorney Robert L. Shapiro. He put together the defense strategy and the team of high-profile attorneys who successfully defended O.J. Simpson. Eventually Shapiro was replaced by Johnny Cochran as lead attorney. And by the trial's end the team members were denouncing each other. Shapiro has written his memoir, "The Search for Justice: A Defense Attorney's Brief on the O.J. Simpson Case," (Time Warner, written with Larkin Warren).
Race and Criminal Justice.
Marc Mauer is a co-author for a new study that says there has been a sharp increase over the past five years in the number of African-American males age 20-29 in jail, on probation or on parole. The study finds, on any given day, one in three black men in their 20s is under some form of court supervision. Five years ago, a similar study found that the percentage at one in four blacks. The study is titled Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later. it's two authors are Marc Mauer and Tracy Huling.
O. J. Analysis: How the L. A. P. D. Bungled the Case.
Editorial writer for the New York Times Brent Staples. He wrote a memoir last year: Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black & White (Pantheon). In 1984, Staples' younger brother, a cocaine dealer, was murdered. Staples began a process of reconsideration of the major questions in his life: his distance from his family by graduate study at the University of Chicago; the demise and racial divisions of his industrial hometown in Pennsylvania.
O. J. Analysis: Questionable Evidence.
Journalist Jim Crogan is a freelance writer with the L.A. Weekly and Newsweek. He covered the O.J. Simpson trial for the past 15 months, and the Los Angeles Police Department for several years.
O. J. Analysis: Stephen Adler Discusses Jurors and Race.
Journalist Stephen Adler. He is former legal affairs editor of The Wall Street Journal and is now the paper's investigative editor. Terry will discuss with him the O.J. Simpson trial and the jury process. Last year Adler's book about what's wrong with the jury system and how it can be fixed, was published: The Jury: Trial and Error in the American Courtroom, (Times Books/Random House). Adler looked at the history of the jury system and how our attitudes about juries changed over the years.
How Crime Policy Has Increased the Black Prison Population
Michael Tonry is a professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota. His new book, Malign Neglect: Race Crime, and Punishment in America, discusses how our current approach to fighting crime victimizes disadvantaged black Americans. He calls for a reform of sentencing and parole policies.