Author Archives: William Newmiller

The words mouthed by famed British philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1927 echo in my mind today: “Fear is the parent of cruelty.” How fearful must the Mississippi criminal justice establishment be to heap upon Jaimie Scott and her family the cruelty she suffers. … Continue reading →

Last week, the Army Times ran an editorial calling for treatment–not incarceration–for veterans suffering from substance abuse and caught up in the crossfire of the “war on drugs.” Often lost in the sad statistics about incarceration under current drug laws is … Continue reading →

Monday’s Washington Post reported that “Iowa prosecutors hoping to persuade the Supreme Court to dismiss a lawsuit against them for allegedly fabricating evidence that led to the 25-year incarceration of two innocent men,” opened their brief with this astonishing claim: “There … Continue reading →

As I drove home from work on Thursday, I listened to a story reported by the BBC’s The World about tourist extortion by police in Cancun, Mexico. Scott and Michelle Fischbach form Minnesota were concluding their holiday on the Yucatan, when … Continue reading →

Tomorrow, October 27, 2009, Reginald Blanton is scheduled to be executed. He was convicted based upon coerced statements subsequently recanted at trial, a trial where the prosecution struck all African-Americans from the jury. No physical evidence connected Blanton to the … Continue reading →

Texas Governor Rick Perry (motto: “never saw a death sentence I didn’t like”) seems to be pulling out all the stops in his campaign to limit the political damage wrought by revelations that he’s personally culpable in the execution of … Continue reading →

Scott Henson at the blog Grits for Breakfast bemoans that the debate over the Willingham case (see the New Yorker article on how Texas executed an innocent man) has not focused on arson science. He makes an important point. It’s … Continue reading →

The mission of the National Coalition for Criminal Justice is broad, and we need people who are willing to work to bring enlightened reform to our deeply flawed criminal justice system. Fundamental to advancing the many needed changes is the … Continue reading →