Crime Story Editor

Welcome to our weekly review of the events at crimestory.com. In this time of pandemic, Crime Story will continue to examine how stories of crime and justice are told in our society and in our culture. That includes exploring narratives about the functions and dysfunctions of our criminal legal and punishment processes in a period of national crisis. It also includes covering fascinating trials that are impacted by the crisis. This past week, we presented two stories that continued our deep-dive into the trial of Robert Durst. On Monday, we published Defending Robert Durst: The Opening Statement by Karen Ann Coburn, which explores the roadmap offered by...

Chris and I got married on February 29th, 2020—just in time, it seems. Only two of our guests cancelled at the last minute for fear of travel due to the coronavirus. This was before Governor Inslee called for the cancellation of any event with over fifty participants. Now, just two weeks later, Chris and I are grateful that we’ve only had to cancel our honeymoon. We were planning on travelling to Germany to visit Jens Soering who, after 33 years wrongfully imprisoned, has reentered the world at a very strange time. We were hoping to write about meeting him in person for the first time, after months...

"Without it…the Game is Over": Justin Brooks, director of the California Innocence Project, on the DOJ's move to suspend habeus corpus On March 21, 2020, Politico reported that the Trump Administration Justice Department submitted documents to Congress requesting lawmakers to grant the Attorney General power to ask the chief judge of any district court to pause court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation.” This broad authority to pause court proceedings during emergencies would apply to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest,...

“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.” Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon Anne Andersen-Doyle has traveled to Los Angeles from North Stradbroke Island, off the coast of Brisbane, Australia, where she volunteers teaching indigenous children to read. When asked by Prosecutor Habib Balian whether she was eager to come testify in the trial, Andersen-Doyle replies:  ANDERSEN-DOYLE: CONSIDERING THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MATTER, I THOUGHT I OWED IT TO KATHIE. THEN I WAS WORRIED ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS, BUT THEN I CHANGED MY MIND AND THOUGHT, WELL, I WILL GO ANYWAY. Andersen-Doyle goes...

Robert Durst did not murder his long-time friend Susan Berman on December 23, 2000, and he doesn’t know who did. A generous man with Asperger’s syndrome, psychological damage from a traumatic childhood, and a history of poor decision making, Durst discovered Berman’s body when entering her home for a planned holiday visit. And because he had been hounded by the press and an overzealous New York prosecutor in the years following the disappearance of his first wife, Kathie, he ran. Later, out of love and respect for his friend Berman, he sent an anonymous note to the Beverly Hills Police...

The following is Part 2 of Crime Story’s coverage of the People vs. Jose Peralta. You can find Part 1 here. You’re innocent.  So when a detective accuses you of murdering your neighbor, you agree to take a polygraph test. It doesn’t matter that the officer claims that they have security footage and DNA evidence of your guilt. This is a misunderstanding. It’s a nightmarish who-dunnit that manifested in reality. It should be easy to clear up. Because you know you’re innocent. The detective drives you to the polygraph testing facility where you’re sat in a small, stark room. As the examiner explains...