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Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
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Jan 27 • 9 tweets • 5 min read
Big news: A federal judge has just ruled against New York officials in their effort to keep sealed from the public threats that New York City lawyers and the Queens District Attorney made against prominent law professors. The story is strange and interesting.
As I wrote about before, our organization @CivRightsCorps has been supporting a courageous group of professors who are trying, against long odds, to inform the public about rampant prosecutor misconduct in NY and about the culture of secrecy around it.
After the professors and @CivRightsCorps published complaints against prosecutors on a website, instead of launching a meaningful inquiry into potential misconduct (including felony crimes) by prosecutors, NYC lawyers and Queens DA Melinda Katz threatened the professors.
NYC lawyers argued it was illegal to put the complaints on a website. They then argued that even their threats were secret and that showing the public the threats is illegal. City's lawyers tried to get federal court to keep docs under seal so that the public couldn't see them.
The New York Times explained the situation in this great article by @Jonesieman and the NYT itself later filed a letter in federal court objecting to the unusual efforts by NY officials to keep the important documents sealed. nytimes.com/2021/11/10/nyr…
This is part of a dangerous pattern. Although they call themselves "law enforcement," punishment bureaucrats in our society only enforce some laws against some people. Powerless people get caged and separated from their families, but violations by powerful people are hidden.
You can download a copy of the lawsuit here: accountabilityny.org/wp-content/upl… and a copy of the federal judge's order here: accountabilityny.org/wp-content/upl…
To learn more about the efforts of the professors, explore examples of prosecutor misconduct, and get a sense of how New York has failed to enforce meaningfully ethics rules against prosecutors, you can visit the website here: accountabilityny.org
The amazing professors working to expose the lack of accountability for prosecutor misconduct are @nicoles_nyc, @SteveZeidman, @JustinNYLS, @cynthia_godsoe, Abbe Smith, and @danielmedwed, and big shout out to @larabazelon who is doing this invaluable, fearless work in California.

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More from @equalityAlec

Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Jan 28
This is a devastating, sober, measured criticism of New York Times's new The Morning columnist by a rigorous media watchdog. It's just brutal. Many people were alarmed when NYT hired someone with such a track record of pro-cop incompetence and dishonesty. fair.org/home/nyt-twist…
As @FAIRmediawatch shows, one side effect of hiring reporters with known bias is it cheapens the work of other rigorous NYT journalists and reduces the extent to which people trust them. A monumental failure for the NYT and for all people who care about reasoned public debate.
This is really important work by @HollarJulie that adds a great deal to the public’s understanding of what is going on here.
Read 4 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Jan 26
THREAD: Today you will hear a lot of glowing discussion about Justice Breyer. This is a different story--one about how a fraud by Breyer led to one of the greatest increases in human caging in modern world history. What he did to so many families is important to know.
In the 1980s Justice Breyer was a main architect of the federal Sentencing Guidelines, one of the great scandals of mass human caging. But even in legal circles, many people don't understand what Breyer and his co-conspirators did.
There were two main (and many more) frauds perpetrated by bureaucrats who designed the Sentencing Guidelines. Hundreds of thousands of poor people and people of color were consigned to millions of extra years in cages as a result of choices Breyer and his group made.
Read 12 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Jan 24
On Saturday, I wrote a long thread on how major news outlets all used same corporate and police sources, turns of phrase, and baseless claims to push a hysteria of out-of-control homeless railroad thieves. The response of New York Times editor to my thread is important to see:
As background, here was my thread documenting the news coverage, the hysteria that led politicians to quickly increase funding for cops/prosecutions, and how the story planted by corporate/police PR departments fell apart after they got the $$ they wanted.
Here's where it gets interesting. Look at the New York Times editor's response to my thread:
Read 15 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Jan 22
THREAD. I noticed something fascinating: around the same time in recent days, each major corporate news source began talking about a new crime hysteria: a supposed crisis of theft from the railroad industry. But if you look deeper, something very scary is happening.
For context, recall I outlined an incredible coordination between corporate/police PR departments and corporate media reporters around retail theft. Here's a thread I wrote about how the same words, sources, and phrases began appearing everywhere at once:
For the railroad story, I'll start with the New York Times story because it is in arguably the most reputable news source and because it is one of the most dangerous and irresponsible articles. Here's the story: nytimes.com/2022/01/19/us/…
Read 21 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Jan 21
For 1.5 years since I critiqued the non-rigorous "mainstream empirical evidence" that "police presence reduces crime," not one of the pro-police criminologists has responded to any of my arguments. It's stunning lack of intellectual curiosity and accountability.
Instead, this fancy group of people who missed basic features of good experimental design continue to talk about their work in irresponsible pro-police ways. Many of them are really nice people--it's just a feature of this subcorner of criminology to avoid rigorous critique.
One of the reasons for this is that many of them understand that their funding and career networks subtly depend on findings that support the massive, profitable punishment bureaucracy. It's a systemic flaw, not usually individual moral failings.
Read 4 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Jan 21
Thread: Seven years ago, Christy Dawn Varden became the first person since the rise of mass incarceration to win a federal lawsuit challenging the U.S. money bail system on equal protection and due process grounds. Her story is tragic, but important.
Like so many women separated from their children because they can't pay money bail, Christy was distraught. Like so many people in U.S. jails, when she was crying uncontrollably, Christy was strapped to a restraint chair and repeatedly Tased until she stopped screaming.
With scars all over her body from the prongs of the Taser, Christy filed a federal civil rights lawsuit from her jail cell. She knew it was wrong to be in a cage separated from her kids because she couldn't pay a few hundred dollars. She was accused of shoplifting from Walmart.
Read 10 tweets

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