Crime Story Editor

On March 13, 2020, three plainclothes Louisville Metro Police Department officers entered Breonna Taylor's apartment. Minutes later, Taylor was dead, shot eight times by the police officers. For the past five months, protesters from around the world have called for justice for Breonna Taylor. Today we present a vision of what that justice might look like. Paul Butler is one of the nation’s most frequently consulted scholars on issues of race and criminal justice. He is a former prosecutor and a frequent guest on TV news programs. He is currently a professor at Georgetown Law and serves as Consulting Editor...

Unforgetting: An Interview with Roberto Lovato By Amanda Knox with Christopher Robinson Roberto Lovato is a journalist based in San Francisco, California. He reports on violence, terrorism, the drug war, and the refugee crises in Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, and the United States. He is also a longtime political strategist who has participated in the fight against California’s Proposition 187 and the Drop the I-Word Campaign. He is also co-founder of the Central American Studies Program at California State University at Northridge, Presente.org, and #DignidadLiteraria. In his most recent work, Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs and Revolution in the Americas,...

On May 7, 2002, two weeks after Keeda Haynes graduated from Tennessee State University, she was convicted of aiding and abetting a drug trafficker ― her boyfriend. He had involved Haynes by asking her to receive packages arriving by Fedex at his electronics store. Haynes says she had no idea these packages did not contain electronics, but marijuana.  She spent the next 3 years and 10 months in federal prison, and emerged with a fierce determination to defend the accused and reform the criminal justice system. She now works as a legal advisor at Free Hearts, a non-profit organization led...

Links to all of CRIME STORY'S coverage of the Robert Durst trial are here. Episode 7: The Jinx Episode Synopsis After his acquittal on charges of murdering Morris Black and after serving prison time for dismembering Black's body and jumping bail, Robert Durst decides to record a conversation with the filmmakers of a movie that suggests he committed three murders. That conversation led to the documentary series The Jinx, and - ultimately - to Durst's now-famous bathroom utterances "There it is. You're caught." and "Killed them all, of course." You can listen now by clicking on your preferred platform below. Apple PodcastsSpotify Castbox - Podcast...

Sean Smith presents Part 13 of his week by week analysis of the news stories aggregated in Crime Story Daily related to COVID-19 and our carceral system. You can find links to each of Sean’s analysis pieces here. This article covers the week beginning June 7. WEEK 13 (JUNE 7- JUNE 13)  On a June 1 conference call with governors, President Donald Trump hinted at his preference for “domination” as a legitimate official response to constitutionally protected protest. “I must say, it got so bad a few nights ago that the people wouldn’t have minded an occupying force,” Trump said of widespread protests against...

Locking Up Our Own: An Interview with Professor James Forman Jr. By Amanda Knox with Christopher Robinson In Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, Professor James Forman Jr. of Yale Law School chronicles the history of our country’s war on crime from the perspective of the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs who took office in the 1970s and ‘80s amid a surge in crime and drug addiction, and how, in response, they ended up pushing for tough-on-crime policies that would have unforeseen consequences for the impoverished and disenfranchised black communities they were...