News

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  Only “Good Victims” Need Apply: “Tales of the Grim Sleeper” and Poor Black Women in Crack Culture
  May 27
  The story of a serial killer who took advantage of crack culture to prey on black women can tell us much about what is wrong with the notion of “the good victim.”
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  “Last Day of Freedom”: Bill Babbitt’s Struggle with the Stigma of Being the Brother of a Murderer
  January 25
  How does a brother cope with the shame, guilt, regret, and anger of being the relative of a mentally-ill ex-Marine who committed a murder, but should not have been executed for it?
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  Not Girls in a Gang nor a Gang of Girls: A Law-Focused Review of “Out in the Night”
  August 11
  The law uses the term “gang” too loosely.  “Out in the Night” explores what happened when the term was applied to four young-adult black working-class lesbians from Newark.
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  Forget Flattery: The Attributes of a Good, Effective Sentencing Video
  May 29
  A sentencing video should be more than a flattering portrait of a defendant; it should tell the story of what the defendant has done to deserve a lighter sentence and why he or she is unlikely to reoffend.
• Occupy Wall Street Filmmaker Wins First Round in Lawsuit Against Police, NYC
  March 28
  A federal judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit by an activist who was arrested while filming protests in 2011. Now the filmmaker and her legal team will have a chance to investigate the city’s training policies regarding the First Amendment and handling the media.
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  A Feature-Length Black Feminist Autobiographical True-Crime Amateur Documentary: “Justice for Her”
  April 13
  “Justice for Her” is a compelling, insightful documentary directed and produced by a black mother about her struggle to secure the acquittal of her daughter who was charged with capital murder during the “War on Drugs.”
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  Portraying Young Black Men “with a Background”: An Authenticating Audience Reviews “Evolution of a Criminal”
  February 26
  “Evolution of a Criminal,” with its complex portrait of the filmmaker, offers an good starting point for an audience with lived experience to consider how the media should portray young black men with criminal records.
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  “Get Digi With It”: AUDIOVISUAL TECHNOLOGY’S CHALLENGE TO RESTRICTIONS ON RECORDING IN PENNSYLVANIA PRISONS
  October 21
  The PA Department of Corrections’ nearly complete ban on recording in its facilities by lawyers and the media needs to be reexamined in light of advances in the use of digital audiovisual technology and visual legal advocacy.
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  Showing Where We Come From – A Public Defender’s Use of Video in Pretrial Plea Negotiations
  June 16

  In making the case for resources and training in visual legal advocacy, a public defender describes how a video she shot in a client’s home with his mother was effective in reducing his sentence.   

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  Documenting Social Justice Protests #3: The Supporting Roles of Three Different Kinds of Lawyers
  May 27
  Lawyers play a supporting role in protecting and assisting protesters who interact with digital visual technology. The lawyers may be practicing criminal law, civil liberties, or international human rights.
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  Sentencing Videos: Visual Legal Advocacy for Criminal Defendants
  April 25
  Sentencing videos are short nonfiction advocacy pieces that can help criminal defendants obtain better sentences by illustrating with images, sound, and text their capacity as a human beings to suffer, err, grow and change.