John S. Cooper is the executive director of Safe & Just Michigan, an organization that advances policies that end Michigan’s over-use of incarceration and promote community safety and healing. As currently constituted, Michigan’s criminal justice system prioritizes punishment, over public safety. Most policies emphasize being tough on crime instead of helping people get back on...
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Tricia Rojo Bushnell is the Executive Director of the Midwest Innocence Project, which works to free innocent people convicted of crimes they did not commit. Megan Crane is Co-Director at MacArthur Justice Center, an organization that fights cases to right individual wrongs, and confront racial and social inequality. Together, they have partnered to demand effective...
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Dr. Jon Gould is an internationally known expert on justice policy, social change, and government reform. An accomplished author, his book The Innocence Commission: Preventing Wrongful Convictions and Restoring the Criminal Justice System was named an Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association. In this episode of Open Mike, Dr. Gould walks us through...
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On April 15, 1994, two men in Kansas City, Kansas were shot dead in broad daylight. Lamonte McIntyre, an innocent seventeen-year-old, was falsely accused of the crime. Due to multiple, hideous perversions of justice, he would spend the next twenty-three years in prison. Today, he is a successful businessman and co-founder of Miracle of Innocence,...
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Crime affects all of our lives—anyone can be accused, know someone accused, or serve on a jury. Mitigation expert and author Victoria Rusk gets to the “whys” behind a crime, helping jurors, DAs, and attorneys to work for fair and appropriate punishments, in hopes of reducing the American mass incarceration crisis. Her recent book The...
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Sean Dustin has led a tumultuous life. After a troubled childhood, he found himself in and out of state and federal prisons as an adult, serving time for drug trafficking, and fraud. After his 2006 release, he suffered with a meth amphetamine addiction before finally kicking the habit and committing himself to a life on...
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In 2003, Julie Baumer took her six-week-old nephew to the hospital after noticing he was fussy, lethargic, and refusing food. It kicked off a chain reaction that ended in Julie wrongfully serving four years behind bars after prosecutors erroneously claimed she violently shook her nephew, causing permanent brain damage. A 2010 retrial confirmed the true...
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Everyone inevitably approaches mortality — why do some people seem to linger on in this world as spirits, while most don’t? We all know the well-established Hollywood trope of “unfinished business,” but paranormal investigator Kris Sumner thinks the answer is more complicated than that. Since the 2014 launch of Soul Sisters Paranormal, her all-female paranormal...
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Coming out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community can be a sensitive, complex process for someone to navigate. Enter Annie Henderson, Life coach, educator, consultant, and coming-out coach. After getting married at age nineteen, Annie embarked on her own journey of rejecting her people-pleasing ways and embracing her authentic, full self. These days she...
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For the last eleven years, Nick Hathaway has been a Referee in Wayne County Circuit Court’s Family Division, dealing with cases of serious child abuse and neglect, as well as juvenile criminal matters. Currently, he’s running as a judicial candidate for the Wayne County Third Circuit Court, targeting one of two vacant seats. In this...
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Everyone remembers where they were on of September 11, 2001, a day that forever changed the fabric of our country. On that fateful morning, Virginia Buckingham was working as the head of Boston Logan International Airport — the departure site for the airliners that slammed into the Twin Towers. In this powerful installment of Open...
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Emily Gaudreau was on assignment shooting Playboy’s 2008 “Party School of the Year” showcase when she put her camera away, vowing to never use it again. Since then, she has aligned with her true purpose as a sexual abuse prevention advocate and parenting coach. In this episode of Open Mike, Emily and Mike discuss crucial...
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