Everyday Injustice

A groundbreaking Oklahoma law intended to provide relief to survivors of domestic violence serving long prison sentences is revealing just how difficult it remains for the criminal legal system to grapple with trauma, accountability, and mercy. Investigative journalist Pamela Colloff, who reported on the issue for ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, said the Oklahoma Survivors Act was designed to allow courts to reconsider sentences for people whose crimes were directly connected to abuse they endured. Yet despite the promise of reform, the law’s implementation has exposed deep resistance within the system.

The law emerged from a recognition that many people—particularly women—are imprisoned for crimes committed in the context of domestic violence. Some cases involve survivors who killed their abusers, while others involve people coerced into criminal activity or charged in “failure to protect” cases where a partner harmed a child. The statute requires judges to determine whether abuse was a “substantial contributing factor” to the offense and allows courts to reconsider lengthy sentences imposed during the tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and 1990s.

Early hopes that the law might provide meaningful relief have largely gone unrealized. Lisa Moss, who served more than three decades for her role in the killing of her abusive husband, remains the only person released under the statute so far. Numerous other petitions have been filed, but many applicants—some elderly and incarcerated for decades—have been denied resentencing after contentious courtroom hearings that often scrutinize the details of their abuse.

Colloff’s reporting suggests that prosecutorial resistance has become a central barrier. Prosecutors have argued the law could invite exaggerated claims of abuse and open the door for sentence reductions in violent felony cases. Advocates, however, contend the law is intentionally narrow and requires corroborating evidence. The broader debate highlights a deeper question confronting the criminal legal system: whether courts can meaningfully recognize the role of trauma in shaping criminal behavior while still balancing accountability and justice for victims.

A new episode of the Everyday Injustice podcast examines the controversial case of Curtis Davis Jr., a Mississippi man whose conviction is raising troubling questions about prosecutorial conduct, plea bargaining and the withholding of potentially exculpatory evidence. The episode features a conversation with Maurice Clifton, a criminal justice advocate who has been investigating the case and pushing for a closer review of the circumstances that led Davis to accept a plea deal.

According to Clifton, Davis accepted the plea while under intense pressure from investigators who warned that he could face far more serious charges if he went to trial. Clifton describes a system in which prosecutors stack charges and threaten lengthy sentences in order to secure guilty pleas, even in cases where the evidence may be weak or incomplete. Once a plea is entered, Clifton explains, it becomes extremely difficult to reopen the case—even if new evidence later emerges.

The podcast discussion highlights what Clifton says are serious inconsistencies in the Davis case, including forensic evidence that reportedly fails to connect Davis to the crime scene. According to the interview, DNA and fingerprint evidence did not implicate Davis, and key physical evidence was not disclosed until months after the plea was entered. Clifton argues that these circumstances raise questions about whether Davis fully understood the evidence—or lack thereof—before agreeing to the plea.

The episode also situates the case within a broader pattern of alleged prosecutorial misconduct in parts of Mississippi. Clifton points to the record of former district attorney Doug Evans, whose prosecutions—including the widely known Curtis Flowers case—have repeatedly been overturned due to withheld evidence and other violations. Advocates say the Davis case reflects deeper systemic issues in the criminal legal system, where pressure to secure convictions and plea agreements can sometimes overshadow the pursuit of justice.

On the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sits down with historian Stuart Schrader of Johns Hopkins University to examine the political rise of police unions and their growing influence in American public life. Schrader’s forthcoming book, Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves, traces how police organizations transformed themselves from fraternal associations into formidable political actors capable of shaping legislation, contracts and public narratives about crime and public safety. The conversation situates that evolution within a broader history of the “war on crime” and the bipartisan embrace of tough-on-crime politics.

Drawing on his earlier work, Badges Without Borders, Schrader explains how federal crime legislation in 1968 and the creation of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration poured resources into local police departments. What began as a moment of federal expansion became a catalyst for police leaders and rank-and-file associations to see political advocacy as essential to protecting institutional power. The episode explores how national organizations such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police and later police unions leveraged Washington relationships while simultaneously reshaping local politics.

The discussion moves city by city—from Detroit and New York to Baltimore, Milwaukee and San Francisco—to show how police labor organizations refined tactics ranging from contract battles and strike threats to media campaigns and coordinated political pressure. In Baltimore, a failed experiment with an AFSCME-affiliated union and a subsequent strike reshaped the trajectory of police representation. In Milwaukee, a combative relationship between union leaders and a powerful chief helped export organizing strategies nationwide. Across these cases, Schrader identifies a consistent pattern: police organizations blending labor-style mobilization with a distinctive form of political leverage rooted in public fear of crime.

In the final segment, Greenwald and Schrader turn to the present moment, including the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests and the renewed politics of “law and order.” They analyze how police groups use news cycles, viral incidents and public safety narratives to assert bargaining power, even as other unions have declined. The episode offers a historically grounded framework for understanding contemporary debates about crime, reform and accountability—highlighting how decades of organized political engagement have positioned police institutions at the center of America’s justice discourse.

Meditation, Redemption and the Promise of Reentry

In the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald revisits the transformative power of meditation inside prison walls, bringing back longtime meditation teacher Doina Durbin and introducing Doug, a formerly incarcerated man whose life was reshaped by the practice. The conversation moves beyond theory, grounding itself in lived experience as Doug recounts how meditation helped him navigate years inside the Texas prison system and ultimately face the daunting realities of reentry with resilience and clarity .

Durbin, who has practiced meditation for 45 years and has taught it for four decades, launched her prison program in Texas in 2019 after decades of hoping to bring the discipline behind bars . Her work emphasizes meditation not as dogma but as a practical tool for cultivating awareness, managing anger and developing inner stability. Inside facilities often defined by noise, tension and trauma, she found surprising receptivity. According to the transcript, even correctional staff observed noticeable changes in participants who emerged from sessions calmer and more centered .

Doug’s story provides a powerful case study. In and out of prison three times for a combined eight years, he describes arriving with what he calls a “racing mind” and leaving with a sense of inner peace that he refuses to surrender, even amid the structural barriers of reentry such as housing discrimination and limited employment opportunities . Meditation, he explains, gave him tools to interrupt anger, manage stress and confront existential questions about identity and purpose. Rather than framing incarceration solely as punishment, he describes the experience—through the lens of disciplined practice—as an opportunity for profound personal recalibration.

For a podcast grounded in criminal justice reform, the episode raises a broader question: can institutions structured around control make space for transformation? Both Durbin and Doug argue that meditation programs offer practical benefits for correctional systems, from reducing conflict to fostering emotional regulation, while also addressing the deeper trauma many incarcerated people carry. As Durbin prepares to see her program continue through other teachers, and as Doug hopes his voice will reach someone currently sitting in a cell feeling isolated and hopeless, the episode underscores a central theme: even in confinement, there remains the possibility of interior freedom.

This week, Everyday Injustice brings listeners a special episode, featuring an installment of the podcast Women Beyond Walls, a series that centers the voices and lived experiences of women directly impacted by incarceration. Rather than relying on stereotypes or abstractions, the podcast foregrounds real stories of harm, survival, and resistance—while asking listeners to imagine what a more humane vision of justice could look like. This special episode fits squarely within Everyday Injustice’s mission of exposing systemic failures and elevating voices too often erased from public debate.

At the center of this episode is Pamela Winn, an Atlanta-based activist who was incarcerated while pregnant and subjected to brutal and neglectful conditions behind bars. Her story lays bare how carceral systems routinely fail pregnant people—through shackling, denial of medical care, and indifference to human dignity—often with devastating consequences. Winn’s account is not only painful, but searingly precise, offering a firsthand record of how institutional decisions translate into bodily harm and lasting trauma.

But this episode is not only about suffering. It is also about memory, survival, and the refusal to be silenced. Winn’s determination to live—to stay awake, to bear witness, and to tell her own story—becomes an act of resistance against a system that would prefer her experience remain hidden or misrepresented. Her voice challenges listeners to confront the everyday violence embedded in prisons and jails, particularly for women and pregnant people whose needs are treated as exceptions rather than obligations.

Today, Pamela Winn is working to ensure that what happened to her does not happen to others. Through advocacy and legislative reform, she has become a leading force in the movement to end the shackling of pregnant women and to demand dignity, care, and accountability in incarceration. This episode of Women Beyond Walls is both a warning and a call—to listen, to remember, and to recognize that justice begins with acknowledging harm and acting to prevent it from happening again.

If you like what you hear, check out Women Beyond Walls here: https://www.womenbeyondwalls.org/pod

Jerry “JD” Mathis on Reentry, Shame, and Finding a Voice

On this episode of the Everyday Injustice podcast, host David Greenwald speaks with Jerry “JD” Mathis, an award-winning author, PEN America Writing for Justice Fellow, and formerly incarcerated writer whose work centers on mass incarceration, reentry, and the redemptive power of storytelling. Mathis’ life arc—from decorated National Guard soldier to federal prison camp to acclaimed writer—offers a stark case study in how a single mistake can permanently alter a life, and how narrative becomes a way to survive what comes after.

Mathis recounts how, at age 20, he was convicted in federal court for his role in covering up the theft of a machine gun from his National Guard unit, a crime that resulted in a two-year prison sentence while the primary offender was never charged. Once celebrated as a top gunner and model soldier, Mathis found himself publicly branded, prosecuted as a dangerous figure, and thrust into a criminal legal system that treated him not as a young person who made a grave error, but as a permanent threat. The punishment, he explains, did not end with his release.

The conversation centers on reentry as what Mathis calls the “hidden punishment” of incarceration: the long afterlife of stigma, unemployment, restricted housing, and social exclusion that follows people long after they leave custody. Drawing on his own struggles—and comparative models like Norway’s—Mathis argues that the United States systematically undermines public safety by making successful reentry nearly impossible. Rather than addressing trauma, addiction, or the structural causes of harm, the system relies on exclusion and moral judgment, pushing people further to the margins.

Ultimately, Mathis describes how writing became a way to reclaim a stolen narrative. Through the PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship, he finally found the language to tell his story without shame—first to the public, and then to his daughters. That act of storytelling, he says, was not only personal catharsis but political intervention: a refusal to let prosecutors, headlines, or stigma define who he is. The episode is a powerful meditation on punishment, identity, and what it actually takes to rebuild a life after prison.

In this episode of the Everyday Injustice Podcast, host David Greenwald is joined by Jeffrey Deskovic, Oscar Michelen, and Andre Brown for an unvarnished conversation about a wrongful conviction case that nearly resulted in a second, devastating return to prison. Brown, who spent 23 years incarcerated for a crime he maintains he did not commit, had his conviction vacated in 2022, only to face the threat of being sent back to prison after the appellate court reversed that ruling nearly two years later .

The discussion traces the extraordinary procedural twists of the case, including last-minute surrender orders, emergency motions, a denied appeal to New York’s highest court, and a clemency petition left undecided. Ultimately, a resentencing motion based on ineffective assistance of counsel resulted in Brown being resentenced to concurrent terms that recognized the time he had already served, allowing him to remain free. The episode lays bare how appellate courts’ deference to “finality” can override compelling evidence and how narrowly justice can turn on timing, discretion, and institutional posture .

Brown speaks candidly about living in legal limbo—free but never secure—describing sleepless nights, the strain on his family, and the psychological toll of knowing he could be returned to prison at any moment. At the same time, he reflects on the community, legal advocates, and family members who sustained him, and on the work he undertook while free: mentoring youth, participating in education programs, and becoming an advocate within the wrongful conviction community .

The conversation broadens into a systemic critique, with Deskovic and Michelen examining how courts handle claims of innocence, ineffective counsel, and newly discovered evidence, particularly in non-DNA cases. The episode underscores how rare corrections remain, how much persistence they require, and how much depends on actors willing to look beyond the record toward real-world justice. It is a sobering reminder that even when freedom is regained, the fight for exoneration—and for a more accountable legal system—often continues .

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Tracy Miller, a veteran prosecutor whose career inside one of the nation’s largest district attorney’s offices ended not with honors, but with retaliation, isolation, and a landmark lawsuit. Miller spent 25 years at the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, rising to senior leadership and building one of the country’s largest gang prevention programs, before becoming one of several employees who reported sexual harassment by a politically powerful insider.

What followed, Miller explains, was not institutional self-correction but institutional protection. Despite multiple reports, a county investigation, and widespread internal knowledge of the misconduct, the alleged harasser was promoted while those who spoke out faced marginalization. Miller recounts being stripped of her office, pushed into a conference room during the final days of her career, and denied the basic dignity routinely afforded to departing senior staff. The experience, she says, revealed how easily stated commitments to justice collapse when power is threatened.

Miller ultimately filed suit against Orange County, a decision she describes as deeply painful and disorienting, akin to “suing herself” after a lifetime of public service. When the case finally went to trial in 2025, the sitting district attorney spent days on the witness stand, an extraordinary public reckoning for an office tasked with enforcing the law. For Miller, the trial was not just about damages, but about forcing the truth into the open in a system accustomed to silence and deference.

In the conversation, Miller reflects on vulnerability, courage, and the double standard prosecutors impose on victims while often failing to protect their own. She frames her case as part of a larger struggle over accountability inside the criminal legal system, where misconduct persists not only because of bad actors, but because too many others look away. Now working as an executive coach and consultant, Miller sees truth-telling as both a professional obligation and a form of resistance—and hopes her story helps others understand they are not alone.

On this episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Kate Chatfield, executive director of the California Public Defenders Association, about the mounting crisis in California’s public defense system and what it reveals about deeper structural failures in the criminal legal system. Chatfield explains that public defenders now represent roughly 90 percent of people charged with crimes, yet remain chronically underfunded and overwhelmed, a reality that directly undermines the constitutional promise of meaningful legal representation .

Chatfield describes how excessive caseloads make it nearly impossible for defenders to provide the level of advocacy required even in so-called low-level cases. She notes that misdemeanors routinely carry severe collateral consequences, including loss of employment, housing instability, and immigration harm, and that many clients are navigating homelessness, mental illness, or substance use disorders. These underlying conditions, she argues, are routinely criminalized rather than addressed through social services, placing public defenders on the front lines of systemic neglect .

The discussion also turns to SB 1437, the landmark 2018 reform that narrowed California’s felony murder rule. As the bill’s lead drafter, Chatfield recounts how survey and appellate research revealed that felony murder disproportionately impacted young people, particularly young Black and Latino men, and frequently sentenced accomplices who were not the actual killers to life terms. She emphasizes that resentencing data following SB 1437 show extremely low recidivism rates, undercutting claims that such reforms threaten public safety .

Finally, Chatfield weighs in on Proposition 36 and broader claims that increased incarceration can be justified as “treatment.” She argues that such measures are disingenuous, expanding jail populations while diverting resources away from housing, health care, and voluntary treatment—the very investments proven to prevent harm. True public safety, she concludes, will not come from deeper entanglement with the criminal legal system, but from sustained commitment to meeting human needs before people ever enter it .

Choosing Yourself Before Life Forces the Choice

On the latest episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald speaks with Hakeem McFarland, a motivational speaker, wellness coach, author, and the founder of the Choose Yourself Movement, a philosophy built around reclaiming identity, integrity, and purpose in a culture driven by external validation. McFarland’s message is direct and uncompromising: before chasing achievement, status, or approval, people must first confront who they are when no one is watching and take responsibility for the systems that shape their daily lives.

McFarland traces the origins of his work to repeated personal breaking points marked by grief, loss, addiction, and incarceration, culminating in a period of enforced solitude that forced him to confront himself without distraction or numbing. Rather than framing transformation as a sudden epiphany, he describes it as a disciplined process built through small, repeatable actions—sleep routines, mindful consumption, accountability, and habits that prioritize delayed gratification over instant relief. Choosing oneself, he argues, is not an abstract affirmation but a measurable practice rooted in what a person consistently does for their own well-being.

At the center of this philosophy is the Choose Yourself Movement, a community designed as what McFarland calls an “integrity loop,” where participants publicly commit to personal goals and support one another in following through. Through weekly meetings, challenges, retreats, and daily accountability, the movement seeks to disrupt cycles of self-neglect and avoidance by replacing them with structure, honesty, and shared responsibility. McFarland emphasizes that community is not about motivation alone, but about creating conditions where excuses become harder to sustain.

In the conversation, McFarland also reflects on authenticity as the foundation of lasting change, arguing that people often struggle because they are living versions of themselves shaped by conditioning rather than conviction. The episode explores why guilt, fear of judgment, and consumption-driven habits keep people stuck, and how confronting discomfort—rather than avoiding it—is essential to reclaiming agency. For listeners navigating burnout, identity loss, or a sense of stagnation, the discussion offers a stark but grounded challenge: no one is coming to save you, but the tools to begin are already within reach.