News & Commentary

When prosecutors prioritize winning convictions over advancing justice and ensuring fair trials, they risk convicting the innocent. Time and time again in Louisiana, innocent lives have been destroyed by wrongful convictions, while the prosecutors responsible have evaded accountability.

By voting “yes” on Amendment 2 in November, Louisianans can finally right the wrong done more than a century ago and prevent people like Travis Hayes from being convicted without being proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

After spending years as the prison capital of the world, a new report indicates that Louisiana has finally shed this shameful title thanks to the historic package of criminal justice reforms passed last year. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, Louisiana’s incarceration rate is now the second highest in the nation, below that of Oklahoma.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen spoke to thousands of law enforcers in New Orleans this week at the National Sheriffs’ Conference, congratulating themselves on Trump’s new “zero-tolerance” policy of separating families at the border

Prosecutors are arguably the most powerful actors in local criminal justice systems, and they need to be held accountable when they cross the line into the criminal conduct they’re supposed to fight.

Last week the Webster Parish School District agreed that it would no longer subject students to school-sponsored Christian prayer, proselytizing, and other religious rituals.

Schools are not religion-free zones, and they shouldn’t be. But the best way to protect prayer and students’ religious-freedom rights is for school officials to butt out.

Earlier this week, transgender student Kami Pham and her classmates used the power of grassroots activism to prevent an egregious violation of her rights.

Communities of color continue to be brutalized and killed by police without accountability or reform.