Every day, somewhere in the country, a conviction cracks open — and somewhere else, an oversight body decides whether the people responsible face consequences. Here's what's on our desk this week, with the receipts, the data, and what you can do about it.
1. New Mexico's high court doubles down on removing a judge
On July 10, the New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts released a unanimous Supreme Court opinion explaining the legal reasoning behind its earlier order removing McKinley County Magistrate Judge Brent Detsoi from the bench and permanently barring him from holding judicial office. The Court rejected Detsoi's challenge to the disciplinary process itself and concluded he had committed willful misconduct. (New Mexico Courts)
Why this matters beyond one magistrate: challenges to the process are the most common way discipline gets delayed for years. A state supreme court putting its reasoning in writing gives every other judicial standards commission a citation to lean on.
Take action: Complaints against New Mexico judges go to the New Mexico Judicial Standards Commission, the body that investigates and prosecutes judicial misconduct before the Supreme Court acts on it. Complaints are accepted from any member of the public, including litigants and courtroom observers.
2. Maryland's Supreme Court removes Judge Marc Knapp
In an opinion issued this month, Maryland's Supreme Court held that removal was "the only disposition sufficient" to preserve the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary in the case of Judge Marc Knapp, following findings by the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities that he violated the Maryland Code of Judicial Conduct. (Maryland Judiciary opinion)
Two removals from two different state high courts inside a month is unusual. It is also a reminder that judicial discipline is almost entirely complaint-driven — commissions rarely go looking.
Take action: The Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities takes public complaints through the Maryland Judiciary. In New York, where the Commission on Judicial Conduct is the only entity with power to remove a judge, complaints and published determinations are at cjc.ny.gov — the same commission whose investigative work preceded the arrest of a Brooklyn judge earlier this year, and which determined in April that Smithville Town Justice Jordon R. Lilley should be removed from office. (NY Daily Record)
3. Chicago has spent at least $225 million on police misconduct — six months into the year
A WTTW News analysis found Chicago spent at least $225 million resolving police misconduct lawsuits in the first half of 2026 alone. Fourteen lawsuits alleging misconduct by former detective Reynaldo Guevara have been resolved for a combined $142 million, with one additional case potentially costing $105 million more. The city's 2026 budget had set aside just $82.5 million for misconduct settlements and authorized borrowing another $283.3 million. (WTTW News)
That is the wrongful conviction pipeline showing up as a line item. Guevara-related payouts are settlements to people who lost decades to convictions built on identifications that a detective is alleged to have manufactured.
Take action: In Chicago, misconduct complaints go to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), with policy oversight by the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability and its elected District Councils — the district council meetings are public and are the most direct place a resident can put a question to police leadership on the record.
4. The Midwest Innocence Project may close
The Midwest Innocence Project — which has helped free or exonerate 18 people, including Kevin Strickland, Lamar Johnson, and Christopher Dunn, who served 33 years for a St. Louis County murder he did not commit — is in jeopardy after losing federal grant funding. (KCUR, July 13; KCUR, July 15)
This is the story we'd flag hardest. Innocence litigation is slow, unglamorous, and almost entirely dependent on a handful of underfunded nonprofits and law school clinics. When one closes, the cases don't disappear — they just stop moving.
5. Clinics still winning, one case at a time
The University of Michigan Law School's Innocence Clinic reports that a judge vacated the double-murder conviction of client LaVone Hill, who was convicted in 2002 in Wayne County and has sought relief for more than 22 years; the clinic attributes the conviction in part to police corruption. (Michigan Law) In Philadelphia, a judge vacated the convictions of Jermal Shuler, Marc Brittingham, and Rasheed Smith in a 1997 North Philadelphia murder after new forensic evidence discredited expert testimony at their trial. (The Exoneration Project)
The numbers behind the pattern
The National Registry of Exonerations recorded 97 exonerations that occurred in 2025. Official misconduct was a factor in at least 70 of them. Among homicide cases, 40 of 51 exonerations — 78% — were marred by official misconduct. (NRE 2025 Annual Report)
That is the through-line in nearly every story above: not honest error, but suppressed evidence, coerced or fabricated identifications, discredited forensic testimony, and informants with something to trade. The Innocence Project describes the same recurring causes in the non-DNA cases it litigates — eyewitness misidentification, jailhouse informant testimony, and false confessions among them. (Innocence Project) And the stakes run to the top of the system: at least 202 people wrongly convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated since 1973. (Death Penalty Information Center)
Where our own cases fit
The Registry's finding — that misconduct taints nearly four out of five homicide exonerations — is the exact profile of Richard Barge's case in Camden County, New Jersey, where the sole eyewitness and the informants have all recanted and new evidence points elsewhere. If you've read this far, add your name.
And the Chicago numbers illustrate the cost of the alternative: cities pay nine figures years later for convictions that a prosecutor's review unit could have unwound for a fraction of the price. That's the argument in Stephon Downer's case, where four witnesses place him away from the scene and the man they identify has never been charged — a matter now before the New Jersey Conviction Review Unit. Sign here.
Three things you can do today: file or support a complaint with your state's judicial conduct commission when you witness misconduct in a courtroom; show up to a civilian police oversight meeting in your city; and donate to or volunteer with your regional innocence organization before it becomes the next one announcing it may close.