Criminal Justice

Mayor Tishaura Jones details plans to spend $150 million in north St. Louis and addresses recent setbacks in her aim to reform the city’s criminal justice system.

Attorney Joel Schwartz’s work defending Russell Faria led to “Bone Deep,” a new book co-authored by Charles Bosworth Jr.

A St. Louis attorney told the Missouri Supreme Court that the Second Amendment Preservation Act was an "unintelligible statute" that has confused state law enforcement.

Jacob Chansley received a 41-month prison sentence for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. He’s now appealing the sentence.

St. Louis attorneys and activists say judges are often denying defendants bond entirely after the Missouri Supreme Court in 2019 made it harder for courts to detain people on cash bail pretrial. “It’s a classic case of the system recalibrating and in some ways achieving many of the same results,” said Blake Strode, executive director of civil rights law firm ArchCity Defenders.

"The Court's confidence in Strickland's conviction is so undermined that it cannot stand," the judge wrote. Strickland's wrongful imprisonment for nearly 43 years is among the country's longest.

Jail admissions in St. Louis County declined over the past decade, but the average length of stay increased by 56%.

The Bail Project's Mike Milton is starting a new diversion program that will work with the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office: The Freedom Community Center. He discussed it with John Nanney of UMSL on St. Louis on the Air.

Since late December, five protests have erupted at the Justice Center in downtown St. Louis. This latest came Sunday night, when a group of detainees broke windows on the third floor and threw objects out the windows. Inmates could be heard chanting, “We need help” and “We want court dates.”

Advocates are celebrating a new law that will end wealth-based pretrial detention in Illinois. With Gov. J.B. Pritzker's signature yesterday, the state becomes the first in the country to eliminate cash bail.