Everyday Injustice

On October 13, James King will receive a Vanguard Justice Award as a formerly incarcerated individual.

James King is the Campaign Manager for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Prior to joining the organization, James worked to build recognition of the value of people who are being held in carceral spaces. In 2016, he organized a symposium at San Quentin, where he and other incarcerated students made specific policy recommendations concerning the implementation of Prop 57. In attendance were the Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, various officials from the California Governor’s office, numerous social justice advocates, and many of his incarcerated peers.

James is also a writer and organizer, having written numerous op-eds, and a weekly blog that gave a first person perspective of the true impact of mass criminalization and living within the prison industrial complex. As an organizer, he founded a think tank of incarcerated people who were passionate about criminal justice policy and built relationships with multiple California criminal justice reform organizations.

Upon returning to society in December, 2019, James co-wrote and presented a TEDx Talk called “From Proximity to Power,” at California Polytechnic State University that advocated for recognizing the value and expertise of people who come from marginalized communities. His current policy interests include decarceration and improving the living conditions for incarcerated people, with the ultimate goal of creating alternatives to incarceration based upon investing in under-resourced communities.

Join us on October 13 at 6 pm as James King and numerous other individuals receive their Vanguard Justice Awards.

Tickets and sponsorships can be purchased online: http://tiny.cc/vanguard_2022

Max Szabo has been on the forefront of the criminal justice reform movement for years – hired as the communications director for George Gascón in San Francisco, he then left to start his own firm.

Max Szabo joins Everyday Injustice this week to discuss Gascón, the Boudin recall, the Pete Hardin race against Todd Spitzer in Orange County, his work at the Prosecutor’s Alliance and the future of criminal justice reform in light of the pushback and setbacks of the last year.

Northeastern University Professor Daniel Medwed’s book “Barred” comes out on September 20. The book focuses on the wrongly convicted people who are unable to overcome the criminal legal system and prove their innocence in the eyes of the system.

As others have noted – due to systemic problems, it is easy to wrongly convict and very difficult to correct on the back end.

Medwed discusses both ways to improve the system on the frontend and ways that the system can correct wrongful convictions on the back end.

A new report released in August by the nonpartisan California Policy Lab (CPL) found “that thousands of Californians saw their prisons sentences lengthened because of this law, and more than one-third (36%) of people currently incarcerated in California are serving a longer sentence because of Three Strikes.”

The report provides an in-depth look at the impact of California’s Three-Strikes Law, which went into effect nearly 30 years ago. The law mandates longer prison sentences for people convicted of new felonies if they had a previous conviction for a serious or violent felony. For a second felony conviction, sentences are doubled in length, while a third serious or violent conviction results in the sentence being increased to at least 25 years to life.

“California’s Three Strikes sentencing law stands apart from the sentencing practices of other states in both its punitiveness as well as its broad application,” explains co-author Steve Raphael, a public policy professor at UC Berkeley. “The law has lengthened the sentences of nearly 60,000 prison admissions since 2015 and affects the sentences of over a third of the currently incarcerated, many of whom were convicted of non-serious, non-violent offenses. Our report documents how frequently Three-Strikes sentencing is applied, how it lengthens sentences, and who is most impacted.”

Joining Everyday Injustice was Steve Raphael who co-authored the report and discussed the report's implications.

Retired Judge LaDoris Cordell joins Everyday Injustice to discuss her experience as a woman of color, appointed to the bench in Santa Clara County at a time when there were not many women of color who even went to law school.

Judge Cordell is releasing a book – Her Honor – which is in part a memoir, in part a critique of the criminal legal system.

We also discuss her experience on the San Francisco Innocence Commission and her take on what has taken place with the new DA.

Since 2019, Everyday Injustice has brought you interviews with the leaders of the criminal justice realm as well as the tragic stories of everyday injustice. In this brief compilation, among other things we talk about disturbing police incidents, the use of junk science to wrongly convict people, and police torture among other things.

Listen to some of our most compelling interviews this week.

This week on Everyday Injustice we talk with Kanya Bennett of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. The Vision for Justice 2020 focused on core principles of decarceration, police reform and reinvesting in the communities.

Kanya Bennett discussed among other things her work with the bail project, the current policing bill and the president’s executive order, as well as concerns for adding police.

In 2019, George Gascón resigned from his position as San Francisco DA, moved to Los Angeles and ran against incumbent Jackie Lacey for DA as a reformer. Gascón had gone from a traditional “tough on crime” beat officer to Police Chief to reform DA. He had seen first hand how the traditional approach did not work. That mass incarceration was not only expensive, but it failed to protect the community.

However, since winning the race in 2020, he has faced opposition from police and holdover DA’s and other conservative interests. At the time of recording this podcast, it was unclear whether the recall would qualify for the November ballot – but regardless, the expectation is that the opposition would continue.

Listen as George Gascón talks about his journey from police officer to reform DA and what he believes he has accomplished so far and what needs to happen in the system.

California Attorneys for Criminal Justice (CACJ) is a statewide association of criminal defense attorneys, who help advocate for justice in the legislature, the courts and the media.

This week on Everyday Injustice, we talk with Stephen Munkelt, the current Executive Director of CACJ. Munkelt discusses the critical work of CACJ, some of the critical issues faced right now, mass incarceration, the Racial Justice Act, jury selection and where things are headed in the criminal legal system.

This week on Everyday Injustice we visit with Akhi Johnson, Director of the Vera Institute of Justice’s Reshaping Prosecution project. Vera just issued a new RFP to elected prosecutors interested in making reforms.

Johnson discussed the RFP and also the new policy direction of thinking about public safety as community health. We discussed the future of reform-minded DA’s in wake of the Chesa Boudin recall, and the challenges faced by other prosecutors like Larry Krasner and George Gascon.