The Guardian’s US southern bureau chief, Oliver Laughland, spent six months following what happened when a progressive Black district attorney was elected in Louisiana, the heart of the deep south. He had promised sweeping reforms across New Orleans, including opening up a civil rights division to look over old cases. Kuantay Reeder has been in Louisiana’s ‘Angola’ prison since 1995 for a murder he says he didn’t commit. Would the division be able to help him?
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This week we are revisiting some of our favourite episodes from the year so far. This episode was first broadcast on 6 May.
It’s 2020. New Orleans. The most incarcerated city, in the most incarcerated US state. The city has elected a progressive Black district attorney, Jason Williams, who promises to change the system from within. One of the first things Williams does after he wins is to set up a new department in the district attorney’s office – the civil rights division – led by Emily Maw.
A small team of lawyers and investigators is tasked with looking back through more than 1,000 old cases, examining whether each convicted person should still be in prison.
Twenty-five years earlier, Kuantay Reeder says he was playing basketball when Mark, his childhood friend, was killed outside a food store. Kuantay was arrested and eventually found guilty of Mark’s murder, a crime Kuantay says he didn’t commit. He was prosecuted by the office of one of the city’s old DAs, Harry Connick, infamous for his hardline tactics.
We hear from Prof Andrea Armstrong, a leading US expert on prison and jail conditions, and former city judge Calvin Johnson, who describes how Connick’s office was associated with frequent rights violations at the time Reeder was prosecuted.
Read Oliver’s reporting on his six months with the division:
- Inside the division: how a small team of US prosecutors fight decades of shocking injustice
- Life in prison for stealing $20: how the Division is taking apart brutal criminal sentences
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
