Daniel Fernandez

Calvin Duncan wins Orleans clerk of court race - Verite News New Orleans Duncan, a political newcomer and former prisoner, defeated incumbent Darren Lombard by a wide margin in Saturday's runoff.

a big runoff last night, in New Orleans:

Calvin Duncan was exonerated after spending *28 years* in prison; he tried to get his own case records from the New Orleans city clerk—but the office dragged its feet.

So Duncan ran to become city clerk himself, and yesterday ousted the incumbent.

I share your skepticism—particularly given everything happening right now. But the questions abolitionists raise about state power and accountability are extraordinarily useful for anyone thinking about modern democracy. It’s a shame that posts like the one you flag turn people away wholesale!

The Dangerous Few: Taking Seriously Prison Abolition and Its Skeptics - Harvard Law Review Prison abolition, in the span of just a few short years, has established a foothold in elite criminal legal discourse. But the basic question...

If you’ve not read it, I highly recommend this essay. Also, FWIW, I think abolitionism is better understood as an intellectual movement like progressivism.
It’s an ecumenical group with lots of internal disputes over policy and practice, not a monolith!

harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...

After justices warned of prolonged suffocation, Alabama subjected Anthony Boyd to the longest nitrogen execution in U.S. history. Boyd was the chairman of Project Hope, a death row-led nonprofit. Its members are left reeling in the wake of their leader's suffocation execution.

Anthony Boyd's execution last night was the longest nitrogen suffocation execution in the method’s history, writes journalist Lee Hedgepeth, who witnessed it.

abducted by masked agents of the state in the streets of the capital and slated for deportation for the offense of being linked to views

I think that a due process defense that relies on a liberty interest (Wolff v. McDonnell, etc.) would be as strong as an Eighth Amendment claim. But Weems v. United States is an interesting case to think about, especially with El Salvador’s prisons being so widely condemned