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Crunching the numbers
- Harvard University pledged to spend $100 million researching and addressing its ties to slavery. The university plans to provide support to descendants of people enslaved by faculty, staff and university leaders, including several Harvard presidents. According to a recent university report, Harvard relied on and profited heavily from the slave trade.
- From 2013 to 2021, Oklahoma law enforcement have killed 53 people who presented signs of mental illness, according to data from Mapping Police Violence.
- Hispanic home borrowers are more likely to use alternative financing methods that can be risky, according to research from Pew Charitable Trusts.
In local news
- An eighth grader in Decatur, Alabama created a 13-page anti-racism guide for his school’s teachers. That’s one of the reactions students have had to adults’ ongoing political debates over a slew of topics on campuses and in school board meetings across the country.
- A federal lawsuit alleges Oklahoma City police used unreasonable force on Dawawn McCoy, who died in 2020 after officers tased him and knelt on his back during an arrest at a hotel.
- College students are expected to have a difficult time finding housing next school year. (Read more: Rents rose 11% nationally last year.)
New from BigIfTrue.org
After someone is arrested, their first appearance in court, also called an arraignment, is their first moment before a judge. It’s often their first opportunity to ask for a lower bond or to be released from jail.
I wrote about why these seemingly dull hearings can have a big impact on a defendant’s case. Some highlights from my reporting:
- In South Carolina, if a defendant can’t afford to bail out of jail, they could spend four months waiting for a chance to ask the court for a reduced bond. It’s faster for attorneys to arrange plea deals than receive a bond modification hearing. Attorneys say that pressures defendants to take the deals to get out of jail, even when they aren’t guilty.
- In Oklahoma County here in Oklahoma, arraignments are supposed to happen 48 hours after someone’s been arrested, but they don’t. They sometimes take place up to a week after an arrest, and people are regularly released from jail 10 days after their arrest because the state hasn’t filed charges.
- In Sedgwick County, Kansas, public defenders, prosecutors and jailed defendants often aren’t in the courtroom during first appearances.
Read more here, and donate to support our work here.
Thank you for reading Hard Reset. You can get in touch with me at bryant@bigiftrue.org and 405-990-0988.
– Mollie Bryant
Founder and editor, BigIfTrue.org
