Send us a text

Mark Loughney’s art has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (“MoMa PS-1”), and published in The New Yorker and The Atlantic.  His black-and-white ink drawings evoke a mix of M.C. Escher and Salvadore Dali, with surreal landscapes and bizarre figures.  But Loughney is also well known for his series of prison portraits.  They’re prison portraits, not only because they depict prisoners, but also because they were drawn when Loughney himself was serving a 10-year sentence as an inmate at Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution – Dallas.  That is where Loughney’s portraiture blossomed, and his exhibitions began. 

Send us a text

[For a complementary audio excerpt of Gary Tyler’s book, narrated by Cary Hite, describing the point when Tyler is considering accepting a government plea agreement, and starting life outside Angola, listen here.  Copyright © 2025 by Gary Tyler. Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster. Audio read by Cary Hite, from the audiobook Stitching Freedom by Gary Tyler, published by Simon & Schuster Audio, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Used with permission from Simon & Schuster, Inc.]

In 1974, at the age of 16, Gary Tyler, who is African American, and was born in St. Rose Parish, Louisiana, was convicted by an all-white jury of a crime he did not commit:  the murder of a white teenager.  Tyler was sentenced to death.  He was sent to Louisiana’s infamous Angola prison, where he was the youngest person on death row in the United States.  A song by the British reggae band, UB40, titled in his name, “Tyler,” captures the injustice.  

But Gary Tyler survived to tell the tale, and to write a magnificent book about his life experience:  Stitching Freedom:  A True Story of Injustice, Defiance, and Hope in Angola Prison, written with Ellen Bravo, and published by Simon and Schuster.  

Gary Tyler was released from custody in 2016, having spent four decades in prison.  Despite the compelling evidence of his innocence, he has never been exonerated.  We had the honor of recording our discussion with Gary on October 6, the day before his book’s release, and the October 7 anniversary of his arrest, decades later.

Send us a text

The honorable Mark W. Bennett is a retired U.S. District Court Judge, and the former Chief Judge of the Northern District of Iowa.  Judge Bennett retired from the federal bench in 2019, and is now Director Emeritus of the Institute for Justice Reform & Innovation at Drake University Law School.  

Judge Bennett is known for his advocacy for sentencing reform—including his criticism of the federal sentencing guidelines and statutory mandatory minimum sentences—for his research on implicit bias, and, unusually, for his prison visits to check up on hundreds of the defendants he sentenced.  For some of those inmates, Judge Bennett has written, he is the only visitor they have ever had.  Equally unusually, Judge Bennett has often met with the families of those he’s sentenced, at their request, to explain his sentences.  

We were honored to discuss with Judge Bennett his own quest for justice, his experience sentencing thousands of federal criminal defendants, and so much more.

Send us a text

Joseph De Gregorio was raised in a middle-class working family in Brooklyn, and comes from a line of hard workers.  His father regularly got up at 4am to work at a plant, where he was a machinist.  Joseph himself had the opportunity to get into finance, but the allures of Wall Street, gambling, and addiction, ultimately took him down a path toward fraud, and eventually a federal criminal conviction and a term of imprisonment.  Today, as the founder of JN Advisor (www.jnadvisor.com), Joseph shares his own experience as a consultant to defendants facing criminal charges and the threat of imprisonment.  He’s learned a lot along the way, and we were fortunate to hear some of his lessons on this episode of the JustPod.

Send us a text

Joe Whitley (Womble Bond Dickinson) discusses the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s International White Collar Crime Institute (a special convening of the Global White Collar Crime Institute and the London White Collar Crime Institute) in Geneva, Switzerland on November 17-18, 2025, with Nina Marino (Kaplan Marino) and Lucian Dervan (Belmont University College of Law). Registration is ongoing at Criminal Justice Section Events.

Send us a text

Elie Honig is CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst, and a former federal prosecutor.  He is the bestselling author of Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor's Code and Corrupted the Justice Department (published by HarperCollins in 2021), and Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away with It (also published by HarperCollins, in 2023).  Elie is most recently the author of the recently released book When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ's Pursuit of the President, from Nixon to Trump, a history of the Office of Independent Counsel and Special Counsel investigations.  We recorded a lively discussion with Elie shortly before the book’s release. 

Send us a text

Nina Marino, Joe Whitley and Brian McEvoy share in a meaningful discussion about the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s Annual Southeastern White Collar Crime Institute and what to expect at this year’s 11th conference next week at Chateau Elan, Georgia.  Registration is ongoing.

Send us a text

What is the process for transferring a criminal defendant from U.S. custody to a foreign country?  We learn this and more from our discussion with Bruce Zagaris, a Partner in the Washington, DC Office of Berliner, Corcoran, and Rowe, who is an expert on international prisoner transfers.  Bruce is a widely known expert in the field of international criminal law, and is the co-author of International Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (now in its 4th edition), as well as International White Collar Crime: Cases and Materials (in its 2nd edition).  Bruce is also the Founder and Editor of the International Enforcement Law Reporter. 

Send us a text

What do the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, zt”l, and the Chabad Chassidic movement have to do with criminal justice reform?  Find out in the latest episode of the JustPod, with our guest, Rabbi Yossi Bryski, the Director of Alternative Sentencing at the Aleph Institute. 

Aleph was founded in 1981 at the Rebbe’s direction, and for over 40 years since, has served individuals of all backgrounds and faiths in prison programs, reentry programs, alternative sentencing programs, and in advocacy, while providing services for the families of inmates, including summer camps for the children of inmates.

Rabbi Bryski and his team work with defense counsel to craft alternative sentencing proposals for offenders.  And as a result of their work, federal and state courts across the country have accepted Aleph’s creative alternative sentencing proposals.  You’re just a click away from stories and experiences that are both heartwarming and inspiring.

Send us a text

Please join co-hosts Joe Whitley and Nina Marino for an insightful discussion with our distinguished guest, Susan Bozorgi.

Susan started her impressive career in the public defender’s office in Miami where she found her calling opposing the government in representing people accused of crime. She tried hundreds of jury trials which honed her skills as a formidable trial attorney.

Susan is the founder of Bozorgi Law PLLC based in Miami. She is known for her persistence and perseverance and regularly wins cases that objectively have little chance of success. She is also a champion of women as her blog “Women Criminal Defense Attorneys” highlights the successes of women in the criminal justice space, and she is a leader in the Women White Collar Defense Association, the global premiere women white collar defense organization.

Susan’s passion for her work shines through in this interview. She is nothing short of a trailblazer for young lawyers and an inspiration for all, as she has broken barriers and torn down ceilings and achieved significant success and respect.

Send us a text

Gianna Toboni’s book, The Volunteer: The Failure of the Death Penalty in America and One Inmate’s Quest to Die with Dignity, is a morally provocative chronicle about Scott Dozier, a former Army Ranger, who was sentenced to death, and “volunteered” for the death penalty.  Dozier had been convicted of murder, sentenced to death, and ultimately demanded the state enforce its own penalty.  

What unfolds in Toboni’s book is a story not just about death, but also about the bureaucratic, moral, and psychological theater that surrounds it.  As the book makes clear, Dozier was not a hero or a martyr.  Nonetheless, in Dozier’s story Toboni has put a magnifying glass on the contradictions of a system that claims to value life, even while enforcing the ultimate penalty, death.  

Toboni is an Emmy-award winning journalist and documentary film maker.  The Volunteer, her debut book, was published by Simon and Schuster in April 2025.  We’re grateful she included the JustPod among other notable stops (including The Daily Show and Comedy Central!) on her first book tour.