-
Dec 18, 2024 | 
boltsmag.org | Camille Squires |Lauren Gill
By the time Arrianna Jentink-Bristol paid off the $800 she owed in court debt, it was six months before her 18th birthday, and she had spent nearly the entirety of her teenage years on probation. Jentink-Bristol first entered Michigan’s juvenile justice system when she was 13 after getting into a physical fight with her mother, who she said was intoxicated and punching her three-year-old sister in the face.
-
Nov 5, 2024 | 
boltsmag.org | Michael Barajas |Lauren Gill
One of the two Florida state attorneys ousted by Governor Ron DeSantis over her reform policies won her job back on Tuesday, while another lost to the tough-on-crime replacement the governor appointed in his place.
-
Oct 8, 2024 | 
boltsmag.org | Michael Barajas |Lauren Gill
This article was produced as a collaboration between Bolts and The Intercept. Alan Miller had spent the six months leading up to his execution confined to his cell. Though Miller was never given an explanation for the heightened captivity, which had over the past few years become routine for people facing execution in Alabama, he used the time to conduct his own research on the state’s plan to kill him with nitrogen gas.
-
Sep 24, 2024 | 
boltsmag.org | Michael Barajas |Daniel Moritz-Rabson |Lauren Gill
This article was produced as a collaboration between Bolts and The Intercept. As the leader of Alabama’s execution team, Brandon McKenzie is sometimes the last person to touch a prisoner while they’re still alive. He has played a key role in executions, directing a team of around a dozen prison guards on execution nights and performing tasks that can impact how long it takes for someone to die or whether they feel pain.
-
Aug 14, 2024 | 
boltsmag.org | Daniel Nichanian |Lauren Gill
Andrew Warren is running to win back his old job as Tampa’s top prosecutor. Since the Democrat joined the race in April, he has released campaign videos, basked in endorsements, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars—all the staples of a typical campaign. But this campaign is anything but typical.
-
Jul 24, 2024 | 
boltsmag.org | Camille Squires |Lauren Gill
For the past 25 years, Keith Gavin practiced Islam inside the walls of death row at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. He was the prison’s imam for a time, leading the row’s Sunni Muslim community in prayer. He’d even adopted an Islamic name, Kamar Kernell Gavin Gabuniquee, meaning “strong prince, strong one, and wonder.” The religion had saved his life, Gavin told me as we sat at a plastic folding table in the prison’s visitation room on Thursday morning.
-
Jun 25, 2024 | 
boltsmag.org | Daniel Nichanian |Lauren Gill
Addy Lubin remembers feeling helpless when a police officer arrested her for driving with a suspended license in Miami 15 years ago. Lubin had recently paid off her unpaid toll bills, which should have reinstated her license, but one of the payments didn’t go through because of a clerical error. Seeing that her license was still suspended, the officer who stopped Lubin then arrested her and booked her into jail. Lubin spent the night there. “It was so disgusting and it was dirty,” she said.
-
May 9, 2024 | 
boltsmag.org | Camille Squires |Lauren Gill
For Virginians facing criminal convictions with plea deals on the table, the unalienable constitutional rights they typically enjoy suddenly become negotiable. Under state law, prosecutors can ask people to sign away their Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure in exchange for reduced charges or sentencing.
-
Mar 15, 2024 | 
boltsmag.org | Michael Barajas |Lauren Gill
Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, Ohio, once led the nation in death sentences. In 2018 and 2019, Cuyahoga County prosecutors sent five people to death row, more than anywhere else in the country during that time. Prosecuting Attorney Michael O’Malley, a Democrat who took office in 2016 and is running for reelection next week, defended his decision to repeatedly seek the death penalty and said it was warranted because those cases were particularly brutal.
-
Oct 6, 2023 | 
boltsmag.org | Michael Barajas |Lauren Gill
In February 2021, two men wearing masks entered a convenience store in Donora, Pennsylvania, and shot the clerk, Nicholas Tarpley, six times. Months later, police arrested Sidney McLean and Devell Christian, and charged them with murder. Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh announced that he would seek the death penalty against them should they be convicted. Then that December, police arrested a third suspect, Jah Sutton.
