by Elizabeth Simpson | Oct 27, 2021 | Criminal Justice Reform, Emancipate NC News, Ending the Death Penalty
Photo depicts Lester Kearney’s family, along with Advocate Cierra Cobb, outside of the Warren County Courthouse in October 2021. Lester Kearney is an innocent Black man facing the death penalty in Warren County, North Carolina for the 2018 murder of an elderly...
by Elizabeth Simpson | Oct 13, 2021 | Criminal Justice Reform, Emancipate NC News, Mass Incarceration
Personal commentary by Elizabeth Simpson If it wasn’t heartbreaking, it would be funny. Two weeks ago, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, through its unironically named research unit, the “Innovation Institute,” concluded: there is a body of...
by Elizabeth Simpson | Oct 13, 2021 | Criminal Justice Reform, Emancipate NC News
Artwork by Dawn Blagrove Last week, we reported that Dawn Blagrove appeared in court in Alamance County to represent two witnesses who had been threatened with subpoenas and motions to compel after they offered truthful testimony regarding the racist statements of a...
by Elizabeth Simpson | Oct 13, 2021 | Criminal Justice Reform, Emancipate NC News
Earlier this year, Emancipate NC published an Open Letter to Josh Stein, North Carolina’s Attorney General, challenging his first-term record on criminal appeals. Our letter observed that in too many criminal cases, “Stein’s positions and arguments have been...
by Elizabeth Simpson | Oct 13, 2021 | Confederate monuments, Criminal Justice Reform, Emancipate NC News
Last week, Kerwin Pittman joined the ACLU of North Carolina and Durham Community Bail Fund on a tour of Confederate monuments in front of North Carolina’s county courthouses. The tour criss-crossed the State of North Carolina to see so many of these reminders of the...
by Elizabeth Simpson | Oct 5, 2021 | Criminal Justice Reform, Emancipate NC News, Policing
Photo was taken by Associate Director Elizabeth Simpson while legal observing in Raleigh, North Carolina on May 30, 2020. It has been more than a year since the summer of BLM protests that rocked North Carolina, demanding righteous and transformative change to the...
