All month, I’ve been writing about the conditions that make women executable in America — the narratives, the stereotypes, the erasures, the silences. Today is different. Today is about the women themselves. Lisa Montgomery. Wanda Jean Allen. Kimberly McCarthy. Frances Newton. Karla Faye Tucker. Ethel Rosenberg. Six women across different eras and circumstances, pulled into… Continue reading Six Women the State Learned to Kill: The Standard Changed. Ask Why
Category: Systemic Spotlight
Deep dives into current issues related to criminal justice
Release to Where
Note: this post falls outside my regular rotation. May is dedicated to women and the death penalty. But some things you witness in a courtroom don't wait for the right month on the calendar. The series continues Wednesday. The problem was not whether the man could leave jail. The problem was where he would go… Continue reading Release to Where
Good Women Don’t Do This
Gender, Judgment and the Stories We Need Women to Fit There are some crimes society expects from men. Violence, brutality, rage — however uncomfortable those realities may be, people tend to view them as familiar. Disturbing, but unsurprising. The cultural script already exists. But when a woman commits a violent crime, the reaction often feels… Continue reading Good Women Don’t Do This
Condemned Twice: They Were Never Just the Crime
Opening a Month-Long Series on Women and the Death Penalty In March, I told you this post was just the door. I said we would go deep— into the history, the data, the race, the cases, the faith questions that don't have easy answers. I meant it. May is here. The door is open. There… Continue reading Condemned Twice: They Were Never Just the Crime
The Ones You Learn to Recognize
A Closing Reflection on a Month Inside Juvenile Justice I had a clean way to close this series. But after reading the notes for my first appointed client of the day, it simply didn’t feel honest anymore. My new client, seventeen. When I checked in with the court coordinator, she looked at the notes on… Continue reading The Ones You Learn to Recognize
Not One System. Both.
What It Means to Be 17 in Texas with Cases in Two Courts Two of my clients currently have open cases in the juvenile system. Because they were charged with new offenses at 17, they are also now facing charges in adult court. They are navigating both systems at the same time. This is what… Continue reading Not One System. Both.
The Case Doesn’t End in Court
What’s Really at Stake By now, it should be clear that in Texas, turning 17 changes everything. The same behavior, the same circumstances, the same child—placed in a different system, with different consequences. But for some children, the consequences don't stop at the courtroom door. I represented a 17-year-old who is not a U.S. citizen.… Continue reading The Case Doesn’t End in Court
When Childhood Stops Counting: A Shoe, a Sleepover and the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Every parent knows how quickly a simple disagreement among kids can escalate. Take, for example, a recent case involving my client, a 17-year-old girl at a sleepover. She and another girl started arguing over a boy. Tempers flared, and in a moment of frustration, my client threw a shoe. The hosts asked her to leave.… Continue reading When Childhood Stops Counting: A Shoe, a Sleepover and the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Black Resistance, Black Resilience, Black Care: The Future We’re Building Together
After three weeks of naming the harm — the design, the extraction, the quiet violence baked into the system — it would be easy to believe the story ends there. But Black history has never been only a record of what was done to us. It’s also a record of what we built anyway. What… Continue reading Black Resistance, Black Resilience, Black Care: The Future We’re Building Together
The Modern Courtroom: Chains You Don’t See
When Freedom Costs More Than a Conviction Last week, I wrote about what happens when mental illness and Blackness collide inside a jail — how crisis becomes criminalized, how symptoms become charges, how the system responds with punishment instead of care. But the exploitation doesn’t stop at the jail door. It follows people into the… Continue reading The Modern Courtroom: Chains You Don’t See
On (In)justice 