Criminal law for the laygirl

November 30, 2016 2:23 AM

I am searching for the best online writing (blogs and columns) regarding criminal law that it not geared towards professionals. I've always been a true crime aficionado, but lately, upon listening to season 2 of the podcast Breakdown (which I couldn't recommend enough), I realized I am in fact much more interested in the actual legal writing side of thing rather than the often too typical sensationalist generic writing that falls under the definition of "true crime" (does that make sense?).

I would especially be interested by blogs written by defense attorneys, but anything goes. Snark is totally acceptable. Also, I should add I am much more interested reading about "heavy" rather than petty crime. Anything that follows ongoing trials would be great, but analyzing and shedding some light on past crimes/trials is good as well.

posted by denika to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Not sure if this fits, but you might be interested in the podcast Undisclosed :"The Undisclosed podcast investigates wrongful convictions, and the U.S. criminal justice system, by taking a closer look at the perpetration of a crime, its investigation, the trial, and ultimate verdict... and finding new evidence that never made it to court." The first season is based around the same case as the first season of Serial, but focuses much more on the legal aspects. (I loved Serial but found Undisclosed a bit too dense for me, but that's probably because it's not really my area of interest.)
posted by Cheese Monster at 4:41 AM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Court Junkie podcast might be of interest to you.
posted by rabidsegue at 5:38 AM on November 30, 2016

Lee Lofland's blog is a mixed bag but I think if you look through it you'll find a lot of stuff. I found him through either Mystery Writers of America or Sisters in Crime.
posted by BibiRose at 7:16 AM on November 30, 2016

Best answer: It's less analysis of particular cases and more explanation of the law and legal system, but you may find Nathan Burney's Illustrated Guide to Law of interest, currently covering Constitutional law, criminal law, and criminal procedure.

Fault Lines is a blog about the criminal justice system written mostly by criminal defense attorneys with contributions from a prosecutor, a federal judge, and a former police officer.
posted by fogovonslack at 8:13 AM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Nthing Undisclosed. For me, it is FAR more interesting than Serial, so I just wanted to throw that into the ring. The legal basis for appeals and the rules under which criminal law is adjudicated are fascinating to me. For full disclosure, I was a corporate lawyer for 8 years, so I guess it's obvious that minutiae would be interesting to me. But I listened to Breakdown, too, and found it very well done, but even that was a bit too "newsy" and not sufficiently "legal" for me.
posted by janey47 at 10:56 AM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

When I get bored, I enjoy reading articles from https://longform.org/sections/crime.

They are all long-form articles that really go into the specifics of crime, and they cover everything from fraud to murder to missing persons cases. I'm not sure how often they update, but I keep the site bookmarked and check every few weeks.
posted by tacodave at 1:49 PM on November 30, 2016

SimpleJustice.com and http://mimesislaw.com/category/fault-lines are pretty wonky, but they may be linked to sites aimed more at a general audience.
posted by SemiSalt at 2:10 PM on November 30, 2016