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23 Dec, 8 tweets, 4 min read
Local judges are key punitive cogs in mass incarceration. But in 2020 they were rumblings of change: activism, reform candidates, & then—big results!

But this remains neglected. We at @TheAppeal were intent on chronicling more of this "flip the bench" movement. A thread on 2020:
1️⃣ There was 🔥 in New Orleans: A group of 7 current & former public defenders ran for judge, with the stated goal of using the vast discretion of judicial offices to fight mass incarceration.

Two won (theappeal.org/politicalrepor…).

Full context: theappeal.org/politicalrepor….
2️⃣ New Orleans's Nov. elections came a few months after something of a "dress rehearsal": New Orleans husing activists used a summer judicial election to put heat on power of local judges to do something about the eviction crisis, & their powers.

theappeal.org/politicalrepor….
3️⃣ Chicago Activists mobilized to oust the head judge of the juvenile justice division, who's fought for judges to be able to jail children under 13. Toomin did survive, barely. Chicago judges almost never lose retention, so uphill battle, but came close.
theappeal.org/judge-michael-…
4️⃣ In Cincinnati, years of grassroots organizing & a summer of protests contributed to upending the carceral status quo in some key local elections — some of which were judicial races won by candidates with public defender & civil rights backgrounds. theappeal.org/politicalrepor…
5️⃣ Las Vegas, finally: Public defenders (all women) soared in Clark County's judges. 7 won — a big deal that again comes after lot of work by activists & could change NV on issues like cash bail.

(And it's already making the local DA very worried.) theappeal.org/politicalrepor…
Finally: I really like this anecdote about what went down in Las Vegas. Because it really captures something about the past few years, & how they've totally upended conventional expectations about who runs for DA/sheriff/judges, and what it takes to win.

I'll end with: It's not easy to cover local politics (esp judges) in a way that brings out their substantive stakes, & authors of articles in this thread (@kjfernelius, @TheWayWithAnoa, @kira_lerner, @SamMellins) did so beautifully. Excited for their pieces to have come together!

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More from @Taniel

Taniel Profile picture
13 Dec
A staff prosecutor in Los Angeles says prosecutors have come together to reject implementation of policies that the newly-elected DA ran on for a year, and then reiterated on his first day in office.

Much like DAs used to resist & sue reform iniatives & laws.
Eye-opening to what makes it toweringly difficult task to fight mass incarceration: many elections show voters reject tough-on-crime politics, over and over — but staff prosecutors (& police unions) retain a lot of power to stymie efforts, ignore results, threaten over new laws.
See also: how badly prosecutors & police unions misfired in NY this year; results of many DA & sheriff races in recent years; and the results of CA’s Prop 20, a rollback of sentencing reforms CA voters roundly rejected even as it had fearmongering support from many prosecutors.
Read 4 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
10 Dec
A party has chosen as one of its baseline membership belief — the sort of belief that makes it cohere it as party — the idea that it should never be allowed to lose an election.

It'd be death-knell for democracy if sustained, but institutional biases means there's no reckoning.
This is also a party that's now been going to bat for poll closures, sinking the VRA, ruining the census, prison gerrymandering, expanding large-scale felony disenfranchisement & poll tax, restricting mail-in voting & voter registration, new rules against initiatives.
This is a party that's repeatedly been using *the bare fact that black people have voted* as evidence something is amiss.

This is party that's using *bare fact that its officials say there's fraud* as the only needed evidence there's a trust issue to remedy via restrictions.
Read 4 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
8 Dec
here are just some things announced today in Los Angeles because of one DA race, one local race I harped on all year!

1) no more death penalty
2) prosecutors won't seek cash bail
3) & won't seek any sentencing enhancements
4) thousands of cases reviewed for excessive sentencing
This is a county of 10 million residents, where prosecutors have aggressively thrown ppl into terrible jails & prisons with long sentences (incl. death penalty).

Big stuff -- that'll be important to keep an eye on to see how the county's huge legal machinery implements them.
And while LA is nation's biggest county, it's also just the tip of the iceberg.

Ann Arbor's new DA also said he won't seek cash bail.

Austin's new DA said he won't criminally charge drug cases.

New Orleans's new DA opposes charging kids as adults.

(All newly elected.)
Read 4 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
6 Dec
JUST IN: Jason Williams wins the DA race in New Orleans.

Activists mobilized to upend NoLa's mass incarceration practices, & Williams embraced & ran on a lot of their demands: no death penalty, no prosecuting pot, no 'habitual offender' sentences, no prosecuting kids as adults.
Williams will replace longtime DA Cannizzaro (who didn't run), who was very comfortable championing punitive policies (eg. arguing more kids should be jailed) even by US standards.

Read @kjfernelius's preview & what race could mean for mass incarceration: theappeal.org/politicalrepor…
But Williams is under federal indictment for tax fraud. This hang over 1st round, where some advocates endorsed a candidate who came in 3rd tho he'd been more ambivalent on some reform issues.

Williams's runoff opponent leaned more directly into doubts about reform.
Read 6 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
6 Dec
It's Election Night in NoLa! In state with highest incarceration rate, city is electing its new DA after 10+ years after a very punitive DA.

big stakes: theappeal.org/politicalrepor…

So far, the more progressive candidate more aligned with reform demands (Williams) is up big, 60/40.
Huge gaps between precincts as compared to how the first round looked on Nov. 3rd. One has gone from Landrum 44/20 last month to Landrum 75/25 now; another has gone from Williams 39/29 last month to Williams 90/10 now.
Both candidates are Dems. Many of the precincts I'm seeing that Landrum won are precincts that went for Trump, or where Trump was considerably stronger than the citywide results. (That makes some sense given the rhetoric of some of the runoff.)
Read 6 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
2 Dec
It's Election Night! (In Georgia no less!)

Clarke (=Athens) & Oconee counties voted for their DA in a runoff, which pits a candidate who carried the criminal justice reform mantle (Deborah Gonzalez) & a candidate more skeptical of reforms (James Chafin).
Turnout will no doubt be far smaller than last month (twas was left for today even as other runoffs are on 1/5) making it harder to predict.

The mere fact that election is being held is a story, since Kemp's maneuvers briefly cancelled it. See my thread:
Right now there is a difference of... 66 votes between the two candidates out of roughly 20,000 counted!

But: Oconee County, where Chafin is up HUGE, is done. There's a way to go in Athens.

(One note: The very small time between Nov. 3 & Dec. 1 made mail-in voting harder.)
Read 4 tweets

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