Policing and Criminal Justice

Their names have become famous: Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Alton Sterling, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, and now George Floyd. All were black men or boys killed by police, and their deaths sparked outrage and protests across the nation and the globe. Following these tragedies, APM Reports has produced stories investigating police tactics, training, hiring practices, weapons and efforts to hold officers accountable for abuse. In addition, reporters have examined numerous criminal justice issues.

September 20, 2018

Law enforcement comes clean on botched Wetterling investigation

Two years after the first season of In The Dark revealed numerous mistakes by law enforcement investigating Wetterling's disappearance, the Stearns County sheriff provided harsh detail of his predecessors' failures and made public thousands of documents from the investigative file.

September 18, 2018

Why don't prosecutors get disciplined?

In most jurisdictions, district attorneys who break the rules are rarely held accountable.

July 24, 2018

Cops' psychological testing cited in lawsuit

Family: Minneapolis didn't properly assess mental fitness of officers involved in daughter's death.

July 3, 2018

Execution in Mississippi: Who lives and who dies

Can Mississippi, with its ugly history of racial oppression, administer the death penalty fairly?

June 26, 2018

The saga of Bobby Joe Townsend

Not long after the Tardy Furniture murders, Doug Evans may have sent an innocent man to prison.

June 26, 2018

The other suspects: Who law enforcement did and didn't investigate in the Tardy Furniture murders

What an Alabama crime spree might reveal about the Curtis Flowers investigation.

June 26, 2018

Was there a Brady violation in the Curtis Flowers case - and why does it matter?

If prosecutors didn't turn over critical evidence to the defense, Curtis Flowers could get a new trial.

June 19, 2018

Why the eyewitness IDs of Curtis Flowers may not be reliable

Catherine Snow and Porky Collins picked Curtis Flowers out of photo lineups. But, according to two experts, the flawed procedures used by investigators make these identifications highly questionable.

June 19, 2018

John Johnson: The investigator in his own words

The most extensive record of Johnson talking about his work comes from a sworn deposition he gave in 1978 after he was sued in federal court.

June 12, 2018

The rise and reign of Doug Evans

How to spend nearly three decades in office.

June 12, 2018

Mississippi D.A. Doug Evans has long history of striking Black people from juries

We gathered data on juries in central Mississippi going back 26 years. Analyzing hundreds of trials, we found that prosecutors were more than four times more likely to exclude Black jurors.

June 12, 2018

Mississippi D.A. Doug Evans has long history of striking Black people from juries

We gathered data on juries in central Mississippi going back 26 years. Analyzing hundreds of trials, we found that prosecutors were more than four times more likely to exclude Black jurors.

June 5, 2018

How did Curtis Flowers end up with a nearly all-white jury?

In 2010, a jury of 11 whites and one African-American convicted Flowers and sentenced him to death. Defense attorneys would later claim the trial essentially had been decided in jury selection. Here's how it went down.

June 5, 2018

Why a nearly all-white jury might be legal

When is a strike legal? Take our quiz below and try to spot an unconstitutional strike, using potential jurors from trials in the Fifth Circuit Court District, where Doug Evans is district attorney, and the reasons given for striking them.

June 5, 2018

Acquitting Emmett Till's killers

There was overwhelming evidence that J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant had murdered the 14-year-old in 1955, but they never spent a day in prison thanks to an all-white jury.

May 29, 2018

Letter from Parchman: Inside Mississippi's notorious prison

The state penitentiary began more than a century ago as a way to subjugate African-Americans after the end of slavery, and it later maintained segregation well into the 1970s. And it's where Curtis Flowers has spent much of his adult life, sometimes in brutal conditions.