🧵Hi there, I’m @YoungRJeremy, a Senior Producer with Fault Lines at @AJEnglish. I want to share an update with you about a story we started working on in 2020 and one man's chance to walk free this week after 25 years behind bars. Thread:
In partnership with @TheLensNOLA, we spent more than nine months investigating the case of Brandon Jackson, who was convicted by a non-unanimous jury in 1997. This Friday February 11th he has a shot at parole after spending half of his life in prison.
Non-unanimous jury convictions were codified into law in 1898. The goal was to nullify the voices of Black jurors and convict Black defendants so they could take part in convict leasing programs. More on that from @64parishes: 64parishes.org/entry/convict-…
Working with @nchrastil, @Singeli, and @ndeltoro, we found the two jurors who voted against convicting Brandon, who are Black. Nearly 100 years after the law was first passed, it worked exactly as designed. The voices of Black jurors were muted and a Black man was convicted.
The prosecutor seized on three prior non-violent drug convictions in order to sentence Brandon to life in prison. It’s called the habitual offender law and is similar to a three strikes and you’re out law, @ACLUofLouisiana explains: bit.ly/34Fqe5V
Brandon has challenged his conviction based on the fact that it was non-unanimous, but judges have kicked the can down the road. This month a judge refused to rule on his challenge until the state supreme court weighs in. The latest from @shreveporttimes: bit.ly/3oyhmGy
To be clear, non-unanimous convictions are now illegal, but state legislators won't pass a bill to go back and revisit past cases. @JusticesPromise estimates more than 1,500 people are in prison today on a non-unanimous conviction. More on their work:
The only other state with the same conundrum is #Oregon. Their law has its roots in another type of racism: anti-Semitism toward Eastern European immigrants. @conradjwilson has an excellent recent story for @OPB on the challenges facing legislators there: bit.ly/3uEzkL9
Continue to follow us @AJFaultLines and @TheLensNOLA for the latest updates on Brandon’s effort to walk free and reunite with his mom Mollie Peoples, who’s trying to stay alive long enough to have a cup of coffee with her son. ☕
Belinda Morales's fiancé Marcos was serving a life sentence at a Chino, California prison when the pandemic hit.
Like so many in prison, Marcos lived with chronic illnesses, including diabetes. Belinda was worried when the prison reported its first COVID-19 cases.
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"I would tell him, are the guards wearing gloves or anything like that? And he said, mija, that’s not going to happen here. He says, they don’t care about us," Belinda told Fault Lines.
"I used to tell him: make a mask out of your socks, because it's killing people."
The Chino prison — called the California Institution for Men — was at nearly 120% capacity at the pandemic's start.
That's more than 3,500 men, many housed in tight dorms (as shown in this photo) and sharing toilets, showers, and sinks.
As more Americans grapple with fundamental questions about race and the police, Fault Lines digs into our archives to share 12 episodes on the crisis in US policing.
From violence and impunity, to militarization and surveillance, a thread of documentaries about the police ⬇️
In Ferguson, protests in 2014 and their disproportionate, heavy-handed police reaction showed that the killing of #MichaelBrown sparked something bigger—exposing tensions that had been bubbling beneath the surface for years.
Months after the Ferguson unrest, we returned to investigate why the relationship between police and local black communities is fraught with distrust.
For many, #MichaelBrown was a symbol for an entire system unfairly tilted against black communities.