Alecia Richards was a reporting fellow at Injustice Watch. She graduated from Northwestern University in June 2018, where she majored in both journalism and political science. She has reported on issues related to immigration, inequality, politics, wrongful convictions, and other injustices. Her work has been published in places including the Medill Justice Project, CNN International, the Miami Herald, In These Times, and South Africa's eNCA. Alecia is passionate about social justice, policy, criminal justice reform, investigative news and amplifying marginalized voices.
The Cook County Board of Commissioners passed an ordinance last September barring the detention of children under 13. But a Cook County judge ruled that ordinance improperly restricted judicial discretion. On Wednesday, an Illinois Appeals Court panel took up the issue.
Ieliot Jackson spent seven years in prison after being convicted of selling less than one gram of heroin. Armed with an affidavit of a man who says he was the one who sold the drugs to an undercover police officer in June 2009, Jackson hopes it will help him obtain a certificate of innocence.
At stake is whether the constitutional duty to turn over exculpatory evidence extends to plea bargaining. Issue arose in Texas case where prosecutors took guilty plea from defendant without disclosing video cameras in the jail captured a jailhouse scuffle on camera — contradicting the police account that the defendant initiated the scuffle.
For years Cook County police agencies have kept a “gang database,” but little has been known about who gets included and why; in several cases, residents were included without any evidence to support the label.. Community groups are now demanding that the police halt the practice and make public who and why names were included.
The Vermont Supreme Court ruling says a driver who claims racial profiling may bring suit against the officer, and casts doubt on the scent of marijuana as a valid basis for a search. Defense lawyers and civil rights groups praise the decision as a step to ending racial profiling.
An Injustice Watch investigation identified 14 cases of defendants of color convicted on gun charges based on testimony or video, though no gun was found. The convictions stand in contrast to what happened when Cook County associate Judge Joseph Claps was acquitted after dropping what deputies called a gun on the floor of the courthouse lobby.
The committee that provides funding for Cook County circuit judges’ retention campaigns is turning much of its money over to the Cook County Democratic party, even though the party is mounting a campaign to defeat one retention judge, Matthew Coghlan.