News & Commentary

Anthony Graves was convicted in 1994 for killing six people in 1992. He was exonerated in 2010 after having served 18 and a half years in prison, 16 of which were spent in solitary confinement and 12 of which were on death row. The prosecutor in Graves’ case was eventually disbarred for misconduct, and Texas had to pay Graves $1.45 million in compensation for the damage the state had done to him. Graves now works at the ACLU of Texas as the Smart Justice Initiatives Manager. Below is an excerpt from Graves’ recently published book, “Infinite Hope: How Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confinement, and 12 years on Death Row Failed to Kill My Soul” (Beacon Press, 2018). It is reprinted with permission from Beacon Press. Eary November 1994: Entering the Lion's Den

When I was in middle school, I got some very basic sex ed. For one week, a very uncomfortable health/gym teacher taught me about body parts and reproduction, that sex — always heterosexual — can lead to pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and that we should therefore abstain from sex or use condoms. I was lucky because most people I know didn’t get the condom bit. What I didn’t learn was key information and skills that would have

One weekend last August, a woman was heading home after dropping her husband off at work 90 miles away from the United States-Canada border. Then something unexpected happened. She, along with everyone else traveling south on New Hampshire’s Interstate 93 that day, was forced to stop in Woodstock, New Hampshire. U.S. Customs and Border Protection had set up a temporary immigration checkpoint as part of the Trump administration’s nationwide crackdown on undocumented individuals.  While the woman waited her turn to pass through the checkpoint, seve

It should have been an ordinary December day for Juan Moreno*. He kissed his wife and kids goodbye in Casper, Wyoming, and left for work. But as Moreno turned the corner, several unmarked cars flashed their lights and pulled him over. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents then arrested Juan, and he spent the next 22 days locked up in a private, for-profit detention center in Aurora, Colorado. He had no idea when he’d see his family again. The detention center was a nightmare of poor health care. “I got the flu at the for-profit prison,” says

If the recent wave of sexual harassment and sexual assault revelations has taught us anything, it’s that we have not done enough to end sexual harassment and gender-based violence. It has been over 30 years since a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court,

If the recent wave of sexual harassment and sexual assault revelations has taught us anything, it’s that we have not done enough to end sexual harassment and gender-based violence. It has been over 30 years since a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court,

Imagine an ordinary parking space. Now add walls and a ceiling made of thick concrete, closed off by a solid steel door. The lights are always on, so it’s never dark. You eat there, you sleep there. You are alone. Three times a day an officer slides a food tray through a slot. There is a toilet. A few times a week, if you’re lucky, you’re taken to a small cage where you can “exercise,” alone. If you are visited by family or clergy, you are not allowed to touch them. You cannot participate in any vocational, recreational, or educational programs or any form of communal religious worship or prayer. This is life for a prisoner on Pennsylvania’s death row. The policy of the Pennsylvania Department o

In New York City, bills are passed by city council members and signed by the mayor. But when the legislation is about policing, there is another, de-facto branch of government that must sign off: the New York Police Department. Though its leaders are not elected to office, the police bureaucracy acts as an unofficial gatekeeper that must be appeased before bills become law. After more than 5 years of pressure from advocates,

It’s been nearly a year since the Trump Administration issued its first Muslim ban, unleashing chaos at airports across the country. A new report provides some details about why that chaos unfolded the way it did. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general