Just Justice

Priscillah spent more than 14 years incarcerated in Kenya, including over nine years awaiting trial. While imprisoned, she experienced firsthand the harsh realities of horrifically overcrowded prisons, limited access to legal representation, and prolonged pretrial detention in a system that routinely disfavors the poor. Her life changed when she enrolled in a paralegal training program through Justice Defenders. She began helping other incarcerated women navigate their legal cases and ultimately earned a law degree from the University of London—all while behind bars.

Now working with Justice Defenders, Priscillah shares her remarkable journey and discusses the transformative power of legal education, the challenges of reentry after incarceration, the experiences of women in prison, and the need for criminal justice and sentencing reform.

Her inspiring story reminds us that the importance of human dignity, redemption, and second chances transcends borders.

You can learn more about Priscillah Cherono's journey at https://www.justice-defenders.org/priscilla-cherono-from-defenceless-to-defender-in-langata-womens-prison. 

You can also learn more about the Justice Defenders and support their work: https://www.justice-defenders.org.

Audio production by Kaz Araki

Why do we so often respond to violence with calls for more violence? In this short solo episode, host Jessica Henry reflects on trauma, accountability, and what it means to hold people responsible for their actions without denying their humanity.

Emily Galvin Almanza has spent her career reimagining what justice can look like. A former public defender and co-founder and executive director of Partners for Justice, she joins Just Justice to talk about her acclaimed book, The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender’s Search for Justice in America, and her new middle-grade novel, Andromeda Diaz and the Reasonable Doubt, out September 8. We talk about the failures of the criminal legal system, the power of public defense, and why she’s now bringing questions about fairness, evidence, and reasonable doubt to a younger generation.

You can learn more about Emily Galvin Almanza and find links for the Price of Mercy and Andromeda Diaz at https://www.emilygalvinalmanza.com.

To learn more about Jessica Henry, go to jessicahenryjustice.com. 

Audio mixing and editing by Kaz Araki

In this episode of Just Justice, Jessica Henry speaks with law professor, innocence attorney, and former federal prosecutor Valena Beety about her new book, Pink Crime: Fighting the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity. The conversation explores how the criminal legal system judges mothers against impossible standards of “good motherhood,” how pregnancy outcomes and substance use can lead to surveillance, criminal prosecution, and family separation, and how bias against people who are LGBTQ can influence criminal investigations and convictions. This episode is essential listening for anyone concerned about the criminalization of abortion, attacks on reproductive freedom, and the expanding use of criminal law to control women's bodies and identities.

For more about Valena Beety and to find the link to purchase Pink Crime, go to https://valenabeetyjd.com.

To learn more about Roseberline Turenne, the daycare worker discussed in this episode who was sentenced to 126 years in prison under highly questionable circumstances, read this amicus brief: https://valenabeetyjd.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2024-01-12-Proposed-Amicus-Brief-Roseberline-Turenne-v-MD.pdf or check out this news story: https://www.yahoo.com/news/day-care-worker-says-she-194018682.html.

For more about Jessica Henry, go to jessicahenryjustice.com, and check out her substack, All Things Justice. 

Audio production by Kaz Araki

In this powerful conversation, Dawn discusses the trauma that shaped her case, the legal system’s failure to understand criminalized survival, the pain of separation from her children, and the challenges of rebuilding her life after prison. She also shares her advocacy for New Jersey’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act and her work through From Darkness to Dawn, LLC, which supports survivors and justice-impacted people as they reclaim their lives.

After more than a decade as a criminal defense attorney, Courtney Teasley saw the same problem over and over again: too many people entered the criminal legal system without a practical understanding of their rights or the systems shaping their choices. In this episode, Courtney explains why she sees legal, financial, and civic literacy as essential tools for disrupting pathways into mass incarceration. She also shares the meaning of her DAMM framework (Disproportionately Affected Marginalized Minority) and her vision for bringing legal literacy into public schools and everyday community life.

For more about Courtney Teasley and her work go to: https://emeffen.com/

For more about Jessica Henry, go to https://jessicahenryjustice.com/ or join her on Substack at https://jessicahenryjustice.substack.com/. 

Production Editor: Kaz Araki

What happens when a woman’s survival is treated as a crime?

In this episode of Just Justice, Jessica Henry speaks with award-winning journalist Justine van der Leun about her new book, Unreasonable Women: Three Stories of Violence, Imprisonment, and Extraordinary Survival. Drawing on seven years of reporting and more than 1,000 accounts from incarcerated women, van der Leun examines how the criminal legal system responds when women commit acts of violence against those who harmed them in order to survive.

Together, they discuss criminalized survival, the limits of self-defense law, trauma, punishment, and the stories that are too often missing from public conversations about women convicted of homicide. This episode includes discussion of physical and sexual violence.

For more about Justine van der Leun and to purchase her new book, Unreasonable Women, go to https://www.justinevdl.com/.

For more about Jessica Henry, go to https://jessicahenryjustice.com/ or join her on Substack at https://jessicahenryjustice.substack.com/. 

Production Editor: Kaz Araki

After nearly 25 years in New York prisons, Mujahideen Muhammad, MPS came home in 2024 and went straight to work on criminal justice reform. In this episode of Just Justice, he talks with host Jessica Henry about the New York Second Look Act, how prison education transformed his life at Sing Sing, the book club he built around James Garbarino's Miller's Children, and the humanitarian crisis in New York's prisons — including the death of Robert Brooks and the correctional officers' strike.Now a research assistant at the Columbia University Center for Justice and co-founder of the nonprofit Pillars of Promise, Mujahideen makes the case for re-sentencing reform, second chances, and elevating the voices of incarcerated people.

For more about Mujahadeen and his work at Columbia: https://centerforjustice.columbia.edu/people/mujahideen-muhammad

For more about Pillars of Promise: https://www.thepillarsofpromise.com/

For more about Jessica Henry, go to https://jessicahenryjustice.com/ or join her on Substack at https://jessicahenryjustice.substack.com/. 

Production Editor: Kaz Araki