Willow Higgins

1 month ago | thedailystar.com | Ryan Kost |Willow Higgins

There are perhaps hundreds of innocent people in New York prisons. Studies estimate that as much as 6% of the U.S. prison population is wrongfully incarcerated — that translates to about 2,000 wrongfully incarcerated people in the state. Their path to exoneration is narrow: They can appeal their convictions in court, but New York appellate courts rarely grant full exoneration.

2 months ago | rochesterbeacon.com | Ryan Kost |Willow Higgins

Justice & Public Safety This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for its newsletter here. Calvin Buari had served nearly half of a 50-year prison sentence for a double homicide he didn’t commit when, in 2015, prosecutors in the Bronx District Attorney’s Office asked him to stop fighting his conviction.

2 months ago | nysfocus.com | Ryan Kost |Willow Higgins

BEFORE YOU GO, consider: If not for the article you just read, would the information in it be public? Or would it remain hidden — buried within the confines of New York’s sprawling criminal-legal apparatus? I started working at New York Focus in 2022, not long after the outlet launched.

Jan 22, 2024 | texasobserver.org | Willow Higgins

A collaboration between Texas Observer and MuckRockIn 2013, a wealthy tech executive donated a 50-acre parcel of land near a loblolly pine forest called the Lost Pines in Central Texas.