Justice

July 31, 2019 - A recent study found that judges in North Carolina and two other states hand down longer sentences during their re-election campaigns. It also confirmed that judges in some states treat black defendants more harshly, with the disparity most pronounced in Alabama. 

July 19, 2019 - The Emmy-nominated docudrama "When They See Us" sparked a national conversation about wrongful convictions and how they disproportionately steal the freedom of Black and Brown people. However, most exonerations don't come about by chance meetings but by the hard work of nongovernmental innocence organizations and a growing number of conviction integrity units in prosecutors' offices.  

July 18, 2019 - A judge recently ruled that the North Carolina legislature lost its power to amend the state constitution after federal courts ruled that it was unconstitutionally gerrymandered by race. Now new evidence suggests that lawmakers misled judges to buy time to pass the amendments.

July 17, 2019 - Religious organizations posing as licensed health facilities, so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" peddle misinformation to discourage people from seeking abortion. Yet some Southern states are funding these fraudulent clinics with taxpayer money — and now the North Carolina legislature wants to give them even more. 

July 5, 2019 - Some see what's happening to migrant children at the U.S. border as a human rights catastrophe. Some see it as a chance to turn a profit.

July 3, 2019 - An unprecedented number of African-American sheriffs were elected across North Carolina last year after promising to end their county's partnership with ICE. Now the Republican-controlled legislature is challenging their authority — and similar policies have been adopted in other Southern states.

June 21, 2019 - Most of the states still refusing to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are in the South — and the advocates pressing for expansion there are not giving up.