Legal-Ease Podcast Legalease Podcast

There has been a significant reckoning in the US on the issue of police use of force and police reform in the last few years. Some support solutions which would aim to reduce police use of force overall while others believe we must begin by holding those officers who use force improperly accountable for their actions. In today’s episode of Measured Justice, we speak with Jessica Katzenstein - Postdoctoral Fellow for Inequality in America Initiative at Harvard University and Postdoctoral Affiliate for Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management as well as Visiting Research Scholar for the Global Human Rights Hub at Arizona State University. Jessica brings an anthropological perspective to the Academy for Justice’s Blue Ribbon Committee for Rethinking Crime and Violence. In this episode we explore some of Jessica’s work in the areas of police militarization, decriminalization, and police training, and discuss how this all fits in with the Academy for Justice’s Rethinking Crime and Violence initiative.

In this episode of Measured Justice, we’re talking about the Academy for Justice’s newest initiative, Rethinking Crime and Violence. This initiative serves to comprehensively explore and reconcile violent crime and its role in the criminal justice system. The Academy for Justice has formed a Blue-Ribbon Committee made up of leading scholars, drawn from numerous disciplines, who will share and integrate their academic expertise, and criminal justice professionals and policy makers who will contribute their practical expertise. A4J hosted the first hybrid brainstorming session with the Blue-Ribbon Committee members in mid-April. In this episode, you will hear snippets from some of the BRC members who attended, recapping their key takeaways from the event and where they see this project moving forward.

In this episode of Measured Justice, we'll be discussing criminal justice reform at the twilight of marijuana prohibition, and, in particular, securing the release of those incarcerated for non-violent marijuana related offenses. The issue has received increased attention given the sea change in state and local marijuana law occurring across the nation, as more and more states opting for regulation and taxation over crime and punishment. We are fortunate to be joined by two individuals directly impacted by the ups and downs of marijuana reform, as well as one of their attorneys: Luke Scarmazzo co-founded one of the nation's first licensed medical cannabis dispensaries in California in 2004 which he successfully operated until 2006 when he arrested by federal authorities. Although his business was completely legal in California, he was convicted under federal law and sentenced to 22 years in prison, serving nearly 15 years before his release by a federal Judge in February 2023. We are also joined by Kerrie Dent counsel with King & Spalding in its Special Matters and Investigations practice in Washington, D.C., where she focuses primarily on white collar criminal defense, complex civil litigation and internal investigations. Ms. Dent successfully represented Mr. Scarmazzo in obtaining his recent release. Finally, we are joined by Weldon Angelos, president of the Weldon Project, co-founder of Mission [Green], as well as a music producer and leading criminal justice reform advocate. Mr. Angelos received a full presidential pardon after serving more than a decade of a 55 year mandatory federal sentence for low-level marijuana transactions. This is an eye opening episode on what happens when bad drug policy goes wrong.

This episode of Measured Justice is a bit different from the others. On Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023, The Academy for Justice, in partnership with the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) and the Tempe Police Department, hosted an event for local high school students titled, The TALK! “Your Voices, Your Choices”: Candid conversations between youth and law enforcement. The goal of the event was to bring together local youth, local law enforcement and youth specialists who provide social and emotional support to students, to have candid conversations around some difficult topics – the positive and negative effects of social media, mental health, and teen perceptions about police.

We are fortunate to be joined for this episode by two key individuals who made this event happen and participated in its success: Ashley Oddo, Director of the Academy for Justice at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and Commander Raj Johnson, Tempe Police Department. Ashley and Commander Johnson discuss the key takeaways from the event, what momentum can be taken from this event moving forward, and what some specific next steps are.

A diverse group of practitioners and scholars recently gathered for a working-group process to create the Miscarriages of Justice: Litigating Beyond Factual Innocence Guide. The hope is that this Guide will provide post-conviction litigators, conviction integrity prosecutors, judges, legislators, and wrongly convicted individuals themselves with innovative and creative approaches to addressing miscarriages of justice. In this episode, we are joined by the three authors of the Guide, Valena Beety Professor of Law and Deputy Director of the Academy for Justice at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University; Karen Newirth, Founder and Principal, Newirth Law, PLLC; and Karen Thompson, Civil Rights Attorney, ACLU New Jersey. Our guests discuss the importance of this guide, how it can be used to create meaningful change, and where they see future research in this area going.

The Miscarriages of Justice: Litigating Beyond Factual Innocence Guide will be unveiled at the Miscarriages of Justice Symposium hosted by the Academy for Justice on January 27, 2023.

Measured Justice is excited to launch a new series – Leaders and Legends of Criminal Justice Reform – where we will be speaking with those who have paved the way and led the charge in trying to make positive changes to how our criminal justice system works. Last week we posted our inaugural episode to this series where we spoke with Pat Nolan, Director Emeritus of the American Conservative Union Foundation’s Nolan Center for Justice. Pat’s story as a once tough-on-crime rising member of the GOP who found himself in federal prison with the same people he spent his career advocating tough sentences for, had so much to unpack that we had to split it into two episodes. Here is that conclusion. Hear from Pat as he discusses his time in prison and how it gave him a new outlook on incarceration and lead to the second half of his career – becoming a champion for Criminal Justice Reform.