Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters.

Expanding ballot access to all voting-age citizens, particularly the millions who are living and working in our communities with past felony convictions, has been the foundation of many advocates’ pleas to make American life equitable. Whether wrapped in an argument to fend against racism, classism, or even “overcriminalization,” felon advocates’ main issue boils down to preserving the civil rights of every citizen who participates in society, no matter their personal history.

There's more...

From the Restore Fairness blog.

It’s the first time that 1 in every 100 adult Americans is in prison, proof of an exploding prison system that states can ill afford and a movement away from rehabilitation programs. Even more disturbing are the racial disparities within the prison system. More than 60% of people in prison are racial and ethnic minorities which means 1 in every 36 Hispanic adults and 1 in every 15 black adults are in prison. How did this all happen? A change in laws and policies over the past decade have convicted more offenders, including non violent offenders, and put them away for increasingly lengthy sentences. For many, it is a system that is not providing the same returns in public safety in relation to this growth, and a rapid movement to change unfair laws has seen growing progress.

The 1980’s saw the “War on Drugs” launched in a big way. It was also the time for many federal policies that disadvantaged communities of color. One example: sentences for crack cocaine offenses (the kind found in poor Black communities) that were treated a 100 times more severely than powder cocaine offenses (the kind that dominates White communities).

Reform advocates say no other single federal policy is more responsible for gross racial disparities in the federal criminal justice system than the crack/powder sentencing disparity. Even though two-thirds of crack cocaine users are white, more than 80 percent of those convicted in federal court for crack cocaine offenses are African American.

The differences in sentencing were based on a myth that crack cocaine was more dangerous than powder cocaine and that it was instantly addictive and caused violent behavior, all of which has been disproved. What it’s actually led to is a costly system that focuses on low-level offenders and users instead of dealers and suppliers, imprisoning addicts that could benefit from rehabilitation programs. One analysis by Senator Richard Durbin, a Democrat of Illinois, estimates that an increased focus on community programs and an end to the sentencing disparity could lead to a savings of half-a-billion dollars in prison costs.

With mounting pressure on Congress to do away with legislation that has devastated communities, we are at an opportune moment to instill justice back into the system. While The House Judiciary Committee has already passed a bill that ends the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, the Senate Judiciary Committee will likely vote on a bill soon. Some Senators want to reduce the sentencing disparity instead of eliminating it but this watered-down compromise will do little to restore fairness. Let the Senators hear your voice.

Learn. Share. Act. Go to restorefairness.org

Twenty innocent men spent almost 170 years in prison in Georgia for crimes they did not commit. What does eight years mean to you? For these twenty innocent Georgians, eight years is the average length of time each spent behind bars for a crime they did not commit. Just as it is true in exonerations nationwide, mistaken eyewitness identification is the leading cause of Georgia's wrongful convictions.

Clearly, mistaken eyewitness identification is problem in Georgia. Eyewitness evidence, much like physical evidence, is highly subject to contamination and must be collected carefully according to scientific protocols. Without clear, written policies and procedures that instruct law enforcement agencies on the best practices for photo and live lineups, mistakes will continue to be made. And lives will continue to be destroyed.

There's more...

Why would anyone confess to a crime they did not commit? What would it take to get you to confess to a crime? For Christopher Ochoa, it took twenty hours of questioning and badgering and threats to get him to falsely confess to the murder of a woman in Austin, Texas. As a result, he spent twelve years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Most people find it hard to understand how anyone could ever confess to a crime they did not commit. But it happens over and over again. False confessions are a well-documented reality, especially among vulnerable populations like juveniles and the mentally-impaired. Of all the DNA exonerations nationwide, false confessions occur in over 20 percent of them.

Last week, two major newspapers highlighted two different cases where the confessions of the defendants had been called into question.

There's more...

In an ambitious investigative series last week, the Dallas Morning News chronicled the role of eyewitness errors in the alarming number of wrongful convictions exposed by DNA in Dallas County. All but one of the 19 DNA exonerations discovered so far in Dallas involved faulty eyewitness identifications according to the Morning News analysis.  The report cited a devastating lack of procedural safeguards as the main reason for the high number of false eyewitness identifications that repeatedly undermined justice.

Despite the vulnerability of eyewitness evidence, an eyewitness identification, especially an identification by the victim, is one of the most compelling types of testimony in the criminal justice system.  Even strong evidence of innocence is often ignored when a jury is presented with a victim who is confident in her identification.  As a result, prosecutors rely heavily on eyewitness evidence in securing convictions.  The Morning News investigation found that prosecutors often went forward with criminal prosecutions with only one eyewitness and weak or non-existent corroborating evidence, because even a single identification is powerful enough for a jury to convict.  

There's more...