criminal justice

People who are accused of a serious crime often have two options: sit in jail or pay up. Advocates for criminal justice reform have been pushing to move away from that system, which they say has serious consequences for poor and working-class people. Eli Savit, who was recently elected prosecutor for Washtenaw County, is one of those people. His office is ending the practice of cash bail in the county because, he says, it creates an “inherently inequitable system.”

Today on Stateside, how the state is carrying out infrastructure projects it can't afford to maintain. Plus, an Interlochen Public Radio investigation into the Grand Traverse County Correctional Facility after multiple former female inmates claimed that some officers were ignoring their requests for basic personal hygiene products. 

Listen to the full show above or find individual segments below. 

Now that recreational marijuana is legal in Michigan, what happens to the around 50,0000 people who've previously been convicted of marijuana-related crimes? Some in Michigan say those records should be cleared — a process called expungement — to remove the barriers that come with having a criminal record.

Detroit’s 36th District Court finds itself in an unusual position: as the defendant in a new lawsuit.

The ACLU has sued the court over its cash bail practices. The federal class action lawsuit contends the court keeps too many people behind bars simply because they’re poor.

In late 2016, former Governor Rick Snyder signed the Wrongful Imprisonment Compensation Act, which went into effect the following March.

The law compensates people exonerated of wrongful convictions in Michigan with $50,000 for each year they spent behind bars.

In 2018, Richard Phillips became the longest-serving exoneree in the country after he was cleared of a 1971 homicide conviction. But Phillips has yet to receive any compensation for the 46 years he spent in prison.

Upon release from prison, ex-offenders often enter a world full of uncertainty. Where do you live? Where do you work? How do you survive? 

Mario Bueno tries to help people find these answers. He is the co-founder of Luck Inc., a non-profit headquartered in Detroit helping ex-offenders get on their feet. Bueno joined Stateside's Lester Graham to talk about how he started doing this work. 

The state budget recently signed by Governor Snyder contains an unprecedented amount of money to improve legal defense for poor defendants charged with a crime. 

Michigan has been rated among the worst in the nation in providing indigent defense.

What is the most appropriate way to pay for criminal courts in Michigan? That's the essential question before the Michigan Trial Court Funding Commission.

The commission is grappling with how much of the cost of administering justice should be paid for by the people who use the courts, i.e. those who are ticketed and/or arrested -- and how much of the financial burden should fall to citizens, regardless of whether or not they'll ever see the inside of a courtroom.

For most misdemeanor offenses in Michigan, the likely punishment is a fine, jail time, or both. But each Wednesday in Detroit’s 36th District Court, a different vision of justice plays out.

That vision is based on the principles of restorative justice, the backbone of the Southwest Detroit Community Justice Center, which operates Detroit’s only community court.  

He was born April 29th, 1976. His parents named him James Dean Fuson.

James’ mom died when he was seven, and his dad left the picture after that. His maternal grandparents, Delores and Wallace Bach, raised him alongside his aunt, Penni, in southwest Detroit.

In the beginning, he called them Granny and Pee Wee. Then teenage self-consciousness got the better of him, and he switched to Grandma and Gramps.

(Editor’s note: we recommend you listen to the story.)

In March 2001, Fred Williams left his friend Tanya Davis’ house to get groceries. He was 17 and living on the west side of Detroit. Fred says he weighed two options before he left.

“I had Hometown Groceries on Joy Road and Wyoming,” Fred recalls, “or I had Foodarama on Livernois and Julian.”

(Editor’s note: we recommend you listen to this story.) 

Jose Burgos was 16 years old when he shot and killed Omar Kaji. It happened during a bogus drug deal in 1991 in southwest Detroit. 

“The whole plan was, we’re going to make it look like – from the outside looking in – there’s 10 pounds of marijuana in this bag,” says Jose.

The Macomb County Jail has a chronic overcrowding problem. And that can make for dangerous conditions for inmates. Experts say jail overcrowding is linked to higher rates of violence, illness, and suicide.

18 people have died in the Macomb County Jail since 2012. This is one woman's story.

And perhaps the biggest factor contributing to overcrowding – which is a chronic issue for lots of jails, not just Macomb's – is the courts.

The Fair Michigan Justice Project (FMJP), a collaboration between the LGBTQ advocacy group Fair Michigan and the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, began a little over a year ago, in July 2016.

It marks an important new approach to pursuing hate crimes committed against people who are LGBTQ. And it's especially noteworthy today, as this week the Michigan Civil Rights Commission declined a request to add protections for LGBTQ people to the Elliott Larsen Civil Rights Act, a law designed to prohibit discrimination in our state.

Tomorrow morning, the Michigan Court of Claims will hear a lawsuit filed by Oakland County. The county is challenging new criminal defense standards for defendants who are too poor to afford a lawyer.

These new standards were created by a panel appointed by Governor Snyder. The idea was to set up uniform standards throughout the state. Each county is supposed to draw up a compliance plan and submit it to the state by mid-November. 

Oakland County, however, is asking the judge for a stay on the issue.

When it comes to re-sentencing inmates who were sentenced to life without parole as juveniles, Michigan is lagging behind just about every other state.

Back in December, we brought you a series of stories about the juvenile lifers in Michigan prisons.

We dug into how Michigan prosecutors have responded to a pair of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that made it very clear that mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles are unconstitutional.

A decision to join Teach for America brought then 22-year-old Michelle Kuo to the Mississippi Delta. Her hope was to teach American history through black literature. It was a very different life than the one she'd had growing up as the daughter of parents who’d emigrated from Taiwan to West Michigan. 

It's called "pay or stay:" jailing people who can't afford to pay a fine.

It's a controversial issue nationwide. Critics say pay or stay sentencing has created a 21st-century version of debtors' prisons.

In May of 2016, the Michigan Supreme Court announced rule changes designed to keep people out of jail just because they cannot pay court fines. But a Bridge Magazine investigation finds that's exactly what's happening in the weekly collections docket at the 36th District Court in Detroit.

A former federal prosecutor is calling for an independent special counsel to investigate any ties between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, now the President Trump has fired the director of the FBI.