Crime & Law Enforcement

Attorney Bryan Stevenson is the Executive Director of the fledgling Alabama Capital Representation Resource Center. He represents prisoners on Alabama's death row, and tries to persuade other lawyers to do the same on a pro bono basis. He's a graduate of Harvard Law School, and he earns $25,000 a year in his job. He was raised in rural southern Delaware, and says the people he defends are much like people he grew up with, but who didn't get the breaks he did.

James McCloskey, founder of Centurion Ministries, Inc., which was organized to free innocent men and women from prison. Terry last talked to him in March after he helped free two prisoners from a California prison who were both serving life sentences. But yesterday, McCloskey lost a battle with the execution of Roger Keith Coleman. Coleman was convicted of raping and killing his sister-in-law in 1981, but always maintained his innocence. He was put to death in a Virginia prison. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Performance artist Rhodessa Jones. She wrote and performs "Big Butt Girls, Hard Headed Women," a theatre piece that grew out of her work as an aerobic instructor in the San Francisco City Jail. Her work has been seen in international festivals in Amsterdam, Munich, and Boston. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

John Lee is a first-generation Korean reporter whose beat at the Los Angeles Times has been Koreatown during and since the riots. Many Korean merchants were targeted, and many wielded guns to defend themselves. He feels that the Korean side of the conflict hasn't been accurately portrayed by the media.

Sweet Alice Harris lives in Watts, in South Central Los Angeles. She started and runs Parents of Watts Working With Youth and Adults after the Watts riots of 1965. She says she knew last week's riots would be bigger than Watts. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

William Julius Wilson, professor of sociology at the university of Chicago. He's written several books on urban poverty and the underclass.

Janet Clayton, assistant editor of the editorial page of the Los Angeles Times. We spoke with her yesterday; we check in again with her today.

Tony Massengale, who works with gangs in Los Angeles.

From the Los Angeles Times, Assistant Editor of the editorial page Janet Clayton. In addition to functioning in her official media capacity, she'll be leaving work early to visit her mother, who lives in the curfew zone.

From the AME church in south L.A., where a rally was held after the announcement of the verdict, Mark Whitlock. He headed a security force organized by the church to stand between the police and protesters in order to head off violence.