Everyday Injustice

Laura Conover who is running for County Attorney in Pima County Arizona, home of Tuscon.

According to her bio, she “dedicated her career to helping the Southern Arizona community by defending the poor, advocating for victims, and fighting for justice in local and federal courts. She decided to run for the position of Pima County Attorney to bring much-needed reform to Southern Arizona’s criminal justice system.”

She is facing two candidates from the County Attorney's Office.

Senator Nancy Skinner has authored some of the most important criminal justice legislation in the state.

Senator Skinner represents among other places, Berkeley in the State Senate. Prior to her election to the State Senate in 2016, Skinner was a member of the California State Assembly representing California's 15th State Assembly district from 2008 to 2014.

On the Podcast, the Senator talks about the importance of SB 1437 - felony murder reform. We also talk about SB 1421, police transparency legislation, opening up police records to the public and her most recent bill SB 889, which would raise the minimum age for being prosecuted as an adult to 20.

In 2019, Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala announced she would not seek re-election for the position she held since 2016 serving as prosecutor in Orange and Osceola Counties in Florida.

She told Everyday Injustice the sole reason for that decision was her opposition to the death penalty, and a Florida Supreme Court decision that upheld the reassignment of dozens of cases to another state attorney as a result of that.

Despite this clear setback, she believes that the progressive prosecution movement will succeed.

Ms. Ayala is also known for a 2017 traffic stop. A video of it sparked outrage as many believed she was racially profiled in the stop. In the video, officers told Ayala they pulled her over because her license plate was not registered to any vehicles when they ran her tags.

She asked why the tags were run and the officer said they run tags for a number of reasons. She said that she violated no laws and that her her license plate was properly registered.

"Although the traffic stop appears to be consistent with Florida law. My goal is to have a constructive and mutually respectful relationship between law enforcement and the community," she said in the statement.

The interview with Everyday Injustice focused mainly on the progressive prosecutor movement and her future.

Recidivism is one of the greatest flaws of our criminal justice system - we punish people to the hilt and they get released without the tools to survive outside of our prison system and end up re-offending.

The heart of criminal justice reform is to end these never ending cycles prison and poverty.

And the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) is fighting that frontline battle " to change lives and create safe, healthy communities by providing a support and advocacy network for and by formerly incarcerated men and women. To accomplish this mission, ARC advocates for fair policies in the juvenile and criminal justice systems and provides a supportive network and reentry services to formerly incarcerated individuals.

Our guest is J'Mel Carter who tells how he committed a gang murder in 1996 at the age of 20 and was sentenced to 30 years to life. He spent 20 years in prison before being released, he has now become a mentor and leader, working with incarcerated youths hoping to inspire them to leave prison and turn their lives around.

Listen to J'Mel Carter's remarkable story on Everyday Injustice.

In the latest in our series on progressive candidates for District Attorney, we have Jason Williams, who will take on DA Leon Cannizzaro, one of the more notoriously aggressive prosecutors in the country.

Jason Williams is a councilmember at large in New Orleans, but eschewed a run at Mayor to run for DA against Mr. Cannizaro who has held the job since 2008.

Mr. Williams, a defense attorney, is running as a reformer against an incumbent who once ran as “America’s Toughest Judge” in pursuit of a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal seat and on a campaign promise in 2008 to address crime “where the problem begins, in the juvenile system” when he won the DA’s post.

“Based on history, based on data, it appears (Cannizzaro) believes the city will be safer if 90 percent of arrests are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and those people are given the longest sentence using the habitual offender law,” Mr. Williams said. “We have to go after the people who are hurting people and ADAs have to have the time to do that.”

US Attorney from the Eastern District of California McGregor Scott claimed homicide rates and violent crimes were affected by the policies of the progressive prosecutor movement.

While he stated at the outset he was here to play the contrarian on the panel that included DA Chesa Boudin, State’s Attorney for Baltimore City Marilyn Mosby, Suffolk County DA Rachel Rollins (which includes Boston) - he probably did not expect expect the full pushback that he received.

Listen here to the full exchange - for the full transcript, go to davisvanguard.org

Julie Gunnigle is the latest in our progressive prosecutor series on Everyday Injustice.

She is running as a reformer in a district long held by Bill Montgomery. In addition, Maricopa County is well known as the home of notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Among the issues Ms. Gunnigle spoke to on Everyday Injustice, liberalization of marijuana policies. Arizona is the only state for whom even a trace amount of marijuana possession is charged as a misdemeanor and Bill Montgomery was notorious for filing charges in marijuana cases.

In 2017, Larry Krasner, a lifelong defense and civil rights attorney stunned the world by winning election to DA of Philadelphia and in so doing transformed the criminal justice system not only in his own city, but launched a movement across the country for progressive reform.

He has seen tremendous progress but also seen the system attempt to push back against these changes.

Listen as he talks about his two years in Philadelphia. He told Everyday Injustice that one of the biggest problems in the criminal justice system is that it doesn't account for people changing. As Bryan Stephenson has said, each of us is “more than the worst thing we’ve done” and we have a tremendous capacity for change - something that the current system doesn't take into account enough.

Early in 2019, Michael Tirpak became the third person released from prison under SB 1437. He had served time in prison since 1996 following his conviction on first-degree murder.

Prosecutors said he was driving the getaway driver, but attorneys from the Loyola Project for the Innocent said evidence presented at his trial showed that Tirpak, then 18, was using a pay phone down the street at the time of the crime committed by two younger teens.

He was convicted under felony murder rule but that conviction was vacated under SB 1437 which grants resentencing for individuals who were not the actual killers and not found to have acted with reckless indifference.

On the podcast he talks about his convictio and how he came to be freed.

Jose Garza is another former public defender and federal public defender, currently the co-executive director of the Austin-based nonprofit Workers Defense Project, and running for prosecutor in Travis County, Texas home of Austin.

Right before we recorded the podcast, he got a big endorsement from Elizabeth Warren.

“With José as district attorney, Travis County will gain another champion in the fight to transform our criminal justice system,” Warren said in a statement. “As an experienced public servant with a proven track record of standing up for working families, I know that José will be the fighter that Travis County communities deserve.”

Listen as we talk about criminal justice reform and the need for progressive prosecutors in Austin, Texas.