Julie Warren is Deputy Director for Right On Crime and the State Director for Tennessee. Julie is a graduate of Marshall University and of Regent University School of Law, and she also attended Georgetown Law Center as a visiting student. While in law school, she clerked on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Julie served four years at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
The long-awaited release of the “affidavit” of probable cause in support of the Trump raid is finally here. Oh, there are plenty of redactions; more than 20 out of 38 pages are full or partial redactions. Even the list of reasons for the redactions is completely redacted except for a couple of “Agent Safety” references....
Headlines of violent crime strike fear in the hearts of Tennesseans. Our leaders have a duty to combat the scourge of violence with strong leadership aimed at crime prevention, not political posturing. It is through prevention that success is measured—by victims never created, prison beds vacant for want of occupants, and billions of dollars not...
For anyone who cares about the rule of law, civil liberties, and individual freedom, the Kyle Rittenhouse trial should shake you to your core. The Kenosha County District Attorney’s Office attempted to sacrifice 18-year-old Rittenhouse to the protesters determined to see Rittenhouse punished while allowing a “trial by Twitter” to shape the charges and sentencing. Rittenhouse’s constitutional...
Where use of incarceration is concerned, thoughtful criminal justice advocates tend to draw a distinction between those to be “scared of” versus others “we are mad at.” This makes sense. Conservative leaders in Tennessee, led by Gov. Bill Lee, are enacting policies that recognize this distinction in order to improve the overall effectiveness of the state’s criminal justice system. The 2021 Tennessee...
Society cannot incarcerate its way out of the public health crisis that is drug addiction. But in making the possession of drugs a felony rather than a misdemeanor, Kentucky shows a stubborn willingness to continue to try. Meanwhile, the drug addicts incarcerated alongside drug traffickers and violent criminals continue to suffer a health crisis, along...
The principle of innocent until proven guilty is a bedrock of America’s criminal justice system. However, the favor that courts and prosecutors continue to lavish upon pretrial detention and our bail system has eroded that same bedrock of our justice system, and imposed significant costs to local taxpayers. What does pretrial detention entail, and what...
Tennessee’s criminal justice system is not short on laws that have good intentions with overly harsh sanctions. One example is the state’s drug-free school zone law. At first glance, one may think it is hard to argue with such a well-intentioned law. No one thinks we should make it easier for drug dealers to...