“Justice has been done today.” Payton Gendron, the racist gunman who killed 10 Black people and wounded three others at a Buffalo supermarket in May pleaded guilty on Monday to all of the state murder and hate crimes charges against him. Buffalo News He faces likely life-without-parole sentences. He also still faces federal charges, which carry a possible death penalty. The New York Times “This country is inherently violent. It is racist. And his voice showed that to me,” said the mother of a young shooting survivor who was in court to hear Gendron’s plea. Listen to hear more family members and victims. WBEN Missouri executioners plan to kill Kevin Johnson later today by lethal injection even though a special prosecutor a concluded that “unconstitutional racial discrimination infected this prosecution and this error requires the judgment to be set aside.” Johnson, who is Black, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2005 murder of a White police officer. The Intercept More: The Missouri Supreme Court late Monday rejected an effort by Johson’s lawyers to stay his execution so a lower court can evaluate the evidence of racial bias. St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Somebody is going to die. I promise you that.” Conditions inside Los Angeles County’s juvenile detention centers are so dangerous that guards are begging their supervisors to be assigned elsewhere. Dozens of officers who are supposed to guard the facilities are on leave or simply refuse to come to work. The facilities are run by the county’s probation department, which cannot solve chronic understaffing, and defense attorneys say some of their clients have taken plea deals just to get transferred to safer facilities. Los Angeles Times TMP Context: Things are bad for youth in detention in Louisiana, too. The Marshall Project When usury laws don’t apply. Finance companies are charging as much as 33% interest on loans to formerly incarcerated people who cannot afford to wait until they receive state settlements for being wrongfully convicted. Often, the advances come with a catch. If the victim does not receive compensation from the state, the victim does not have to repay the loan. But if an exoneree does get paid by the state, the finance company reaps an extraordinary profit. The New York Times TMP Context: The price of innocence for some exonerees is not limited to high-interest loans. It includes fraud, too. The Marshall Project Florida’s foster care system is so dysfunctional that efforts to protect children have the opposite effect. The odds that young, vulnerable girls will be trafficked for sex increases when child welfare agents try to protect them, a new investigation reveals. South Florida Sun-Sentinel Three White jail guards in Camden County, Georgia, were arrested last week for allegedly beating Jarrett Hobbs, a Black detainee, in an episode captured on security cameras inside the facility. USA Today As New York legalizes marijuana, it saves prime spots — the first 175 dispensary licenses — for “justice-involved” people with past pot convictions. Politico More: A reminder that relatively few people with criminal records for marijuana possession were helped by President Biden’s federal marijuana pardons. The New York Times Federal taxpayers are paying $2 million a month to detain 15 migrants in the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico — an immigration prison so dirty and dangerous it prompted an unprecedented “management alert” by federal officials. Searchlight New Mexico Police officials in Chicago, Illinois, are preparing to launch a new gang database even though they never fully resolved the problems with the last, flawed gang database. WTTW TMP Context: We are witnesses, Chicago edition: Stories of people affected by the criminal justice system. The Marshall Project The problem of violent crime is obvious. So are the solutions. “Producing a sustained reduction in violence may not be possible without addressing extreme, persistent segregation by race, ethnicity and income.” The Atlantic More: “The key is to combine three elements: a focus on where violence is most concentrated; the balanced use of both rewards and punishments; and outreach to ensure that communities see anti-violence measures as fair and legitimate.” The Wall Street Journal The FBI continues to fail to adequately address white supremacist violence. The Bureau “is not willing to critically examine its performance in combatting white supremacist violence and instead has taken steps to obscure the data necessary to conduct such an appraisal.” Brennan Center for Justice U.S. Customs and Border Protection is desperately in need of significant reform. The sacking of Chris Magnus, a reformer, tells us how far the federal law enforcement agency has to go to achieve those reforms. Los Angeles Times A bad idea whose time has come. The effort to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner “is misguided, an affront to local control and democratic choice. If successful, the recall would set a dangerous precedent.” The Washington Post Massachusetts has a chance to do better for its prisoners. Legislators meet next month to discuss the failure of corrections officials to implement a 2018 law designed to help incarcerated people get an education behind bars. Boston Globe When every day is May 24. It’s been six months since the school shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers. For many of the survivors and families of victims, the anger they felt that day has transformed itself into protest and political activism. USA Today In praise of “freedom libraries” behind bars. “People don’t understand how many of us sought to become more than our crimes or how many of us starved for lack of a conduit to the dignity that we sought,” writes Reginald Dwayne Betts. The New York Times Requiem for a police officer. Melvin C. High, an iconic police chief in Virginia and Maryland, died earlier this month, just a few weeks before he was set to retire after 53 years of service. The Washington Post New allegations against private prison operator MTC. The company is now accused of charging Texas millions for prisoner treatment programs it is not providing. Texas Tribune “You can’t wait to care until it happens to you.” Mia Tretta, a teenage shooting survivor, now travels the country speaking about the perils of gun violence. Los Angeles Times | 
