The Guardian – Inside the Division: How a Small Team of US Prosecutors Fight Decades of Shocking Injustice

The Guardian – Inside the Division: How a Small Team of US prosecutors Fight Decades of Shocking Injustices
Click here to read the original post written by the Guardian’s US Southern Bureau Chief, Oliver Laughland.

The Guardian – Life in Prison for Stealing $20: How the Division is Taking Apart Brutal Criminal Sentences
Click here to read the original post written by the Guardian’s US Southern Bureau Chief, Oliver Laughland.

The Division: New Orleans – Part One

The Guardian’s US southern bureau chief, Oliver Laughland, has spent the past six months following what happened when a progressive Black district attorney called Jason Williams was elected in Louisiana, the heart of the deep south. Jason had promised sweeping reforms across New Orleans, and part of that change involved 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. Will the division be able to help him?

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The Division: New Orleans – Part Two

In 1995, Kuantay Reeder is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit. He spends years doing hard labour in the fields of the prison, and trying to have his conviction overturned. By 2020, he has exhausted almost every legal avenue available to him. But 2020 is also the year that Jason Williams is elected to be the new district attorney of New Orleans. Will the creation of a new civil rights division in his office offer hope to Reeder?

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The Division: New Orleans – Part Three

In 2020 a change comes to New Orleans. The city elects Jason Williams, a progressive Black prosecutor who promises to reckon with the past. One of the first things he does is set up a civil rights division, led by Emily Maw. The division takes on the case of Kuantay Reeder, and assistant district attorney Bidish Sarma is able to view Reeder’s case file. Will there be evidence inside to support his claim of innocence?

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The Division: New Orleans – Part Four

The division begins to reinvestigate Kuantay Reeder’s case, discovering new evidence that could hold the key to his freedom. The Guardian’s US southern bureau chief, Oliver Laughland, goes to interview Harry Connick, the district attorney from 1973 to 2003, to ask how he felt about presiding over an administration accused of rights violations and disproportionately punishing the city’s poorest Black residents.

Click here to listen.