Crime Story Editor

The Guilty Project: An Interview with Mike Romano and Susan Champion On April 28th, the life sentences imposed on James Washington and Pablo Garcia under the infamous Three Strikes Law were vacated. After fighting their release for over seven years, in a stunning reversal, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office conceded that the two men, who had each already served over two decades in prison, should be released and their crimes reclassified as misdemeanors.  Mike Romano and Susan Champion, Director and Deputy Director of the Three Strikes Project based out of Stanford University, represented both Washington and Garcia in their resentencing...

EDITOR’S STATEMENT This week, CRIME STORY’S Sean Smith begins a weekly analysis of the news stories aggregated in CRIME STORY DAILY related to COVID-19 and our carceral system. By reconsidering early reporting on the crisis in the light of subsequent developments, CRIME STORY hopes to point out trends in the narrative of COVID-19 and the prisons. Someday, a granular chronology of this coronavirus’s spread will be written, one that captures all the complexities and contradictions of the crisis. For the moment, CRIME STORY will examine the lethal swath COVID-19 has cut through our penal system, at both the state and federal...

“Life Moves So Fast Out Here”: An Interview with Chester Hollman III In 1993, 23-year-old Chester Hollman III was wrongly convicted of the 1991 murder of Tae Jung Ho in Philadelphia. The state’s case rested entirely on false eyewitness testimony. He spent 28 years in prison before he was finally exonerated and released in July 2019. His story is featured in the new Netflix docuseries The Innocence Files. I reached out to Chester to learn what it was like for him to tell his story to Netflix, and to ask how he’s adjusting to freedom during the pandemic.  Amanda Knox   How...

In 1990, 19-year-old Marty Tankleff was wrongly convicted of the 1988 murder of his parents. After spending over 17 years in prison, a new investigation uncovered the real murderers and his conviction was vacated. Tankleff is now a lawyer, professor, and advocate for criminal justice reform who has been speaking out for prisoners’ rights in the midst of the pandemic. Amanda Knox  Let's get into COVID-19. How are you surviving quarantine? Marty Tankleff For me, I guess, it's manageable. After being in prison for so many years, to me, this really isn't “quarantine.” I try to tell people that quarantine really is more...

You can find links to all of Crime Story's reporting on the Robert Durst story here. It is rare for a jury to hear from a victim in a murder trial. But… Kathie Durst finally has her opportunity to offer her contribution to the effort to hold Robert Durst accountable for his actions. Nearly 40 years after her disappearance, Kathie’s plea is being relayed to a Los Angeles jury through her friend Marion Watlington.  WATLINGTON: SHE SAID, SHOULD ANYTHING HAPPEN TO ME, YOU MAKE SURE YOU DON'T LET THE BASTARD GET AWAY WITH IT. Watlington, a blonde-haired woman in her early...

Former federal prosecutor Mark Godsey is a law professor at UC Law and the co-founder and director of the Ohio Innocence Project, which has secured the freedom of 29 people on grounds of innocence who together served more than 525 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. On April 20, Marion Correctional Institution, an Ohio state prison, became the largest known source of COVID-19 infections in the U.S., according to the New York Times, with one in five confirmed COVID-19 cases tracing back to the state's prison system.  Amanda Knox What is the coronavirus situation in Ohio and particularly in...