The cases of Clark McMillan and Lawrence McKinney — two men who spent decades in prison for crimes they did not commit — have exposed a major blind spot in the Tennessee criminal justice system that lawmakers need to correct….
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Sex Slavery Victim Saved by Local Judge’s Interest
Sex trafficking is a terrible reality in Middle Tennessee, and one survivor is sharing her story of survival with News 2. As she clutched a teddy bear, the woman said she is afraid to be identified “because he’s still out…
Read MoreFrom Prison to Public Defender’s Office
Keeda Haynes had spent a few nights in Alderson, W. Va., when it really hit her. “I am in fucking federal prison.” Just weeks earlier, in December 2002, she had graduated from Tennessee State University, where she’d studied criminal justice…
Read MoreBeleagured Nashville DA Funk In Trouble Again
Nashville DA Glenn Funk now faces a federal civil rights lawsuit over his office’s handling of a high-profile domestic violence case. In that lawsuit made public Friday, developer David Chase accuses Funk and assistant DA Katy Miller of threatening Chase…
Read MoreThe Troubling Data About Incarceration Rates in TN
Two reports released in the past week provide a startling rationale for the use of the term “mass incarceration” and yet more data suggesting that the phenomenon is not felt equally in our society. The first, from The Sentencing Project,…
Read MoreVictims Find Peace, Healing Through Meeting Criminals Who Hurt Them
There’s new approach that has crime victims meeting with their offenders as a way to move forward. The Tennessee Department of Correction created a Victim/Offender Dialogue Program, similar to other states. It’s centered on victims overcoming by going into where…
Read MoreTDOC Commissioner Resigns Amidst Widespread Allegations of Incompetency
Last week, Gov. Bill Haslam’s office announced that the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction would leave his post at the end of June to join Florida-based private prison company GEO Group. After five years leading the state’s 14…
Read MoreIn the Land of the Free, Innocent Men Spend Decades in Prison
The State of Tennessee has denied Lawrence McKinney justice for nearly 40 years, and it is time to rectify this horrible mistake. The 60-year-old Wilson County man spent 31 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. That…
Read MoreAfter Seven Years, Obama Proposes Closing Gitmo Prison
The Obama administration on Tuesday released its long-awaited plan to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer remaining detainees to a facility in the United States. But the proposal ducks the question of where the facility would…
Read MoreNashville Police to Help, Rather Than Jail, Drug Addicts
Nashville Police don’t want to see possible charges come in the way of a person seeking help for heroin addiction. “Since November 1st of 2015, Nash County as a whole has responded to about 65 overdose calls, now it’s hard…
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