{"id":166861,"date":"2026-10-19T06:45:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T11:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=166861"},"modified":"2026-10-19T06:45:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T11:45:35","slug":"the-justice-narrative-when-journalists-put-the-legal-system-on-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-justice-narrative-when-journalists-put-the-legal-system-on-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"The Justice Narrative: When Journalists Put the Legal System on Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Award-winning journalists, a Supreme Court litigator, and a Yale Law scholar join a UM roundtable on Thursday, October 22, at 6 pm at the Overby Center<\/em>.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For centuries, the courtroom has served as the principal and final mechanism for presenting evidence and rendering a verdict. But, as any consumer of popular culture knows, the courtroom does not always have the last word. Today, perhaps more than ever, the court of public opinion is a powerful rival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True crime has likely captivated audiences since the first human engaged in the first anti-social act. Today, true crime has exploded into every contemporary medium: from traditional print media into viral podcasts. What was once mostly the purview of sensationalistic and factually dubious yellow journalism has now become a genre that, for many of its best practitioners, is characterized by deep investigation and rigorous reporting that has unlocked and applied the full power of narrative storytelling to the world of true crime. In many instances, it, and not the courtroom, is where people turn for true justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the contemporary true crime genre continues to grow and evolve, its impact and potential become all the more important. Understanding the intersection of investigative journalism, true crime, and the law is increasingly important for lawyers, journalists, and the public alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, a conversation about the justice narrative is a conversation about the stories through which we attempt to understand the idea of justice itself. It asks us to challenge ourselves to ask:  Who gets to tell those stories? How should they be told? Whose voices should be heard? And what should happen when these stories, and the public scrutiny that follows, reveal a new truth? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, October 22<\/strong>, the University of Mississippi School of Law<\/a><\/strong>, in partnership with the School of Journalism and New Media<\/strong><\/a>, the Overby Center, Department of Southern Studies<\/a><\/strong>, and the First Regional Library<\/strong><\/a>, will present a roundtable discussion, \u201cThe Justice Narrative: Investigative Journalism, True Crime, and the Law.\u201d<\/strong> The symposium will take place at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics<\/strong><\/a> Auditorium at 6 pm and will feature five panelists, each with their own perspectives on the justice narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The featured speakers are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Pamela Colloff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pamela Colloff<\/strong> is a two-time National Magazine Award winner, New York Times Magazine and ProPublica reporter, and author of true crime book Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, which investigates and questions the 1987 conviction of Jim Dailey for the murder of a 14-year-old girl, Shelly Boggio. Catch the Devil<\/em> which was recently awarded the 2026 Kirkus Prize<\/strong><\/a> for nonfiction. She has spent her career drawing on deep reporting and character-driven storytelling, attentively exploring the American criminal justice system and revealing the ways in which it falls short of delivering justice. Through her work investigating and reporting complex criminal cases to the public, Pamela offers valuable insight into the justice narrative, including how a story is discovered, investigated, and ultimately told.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Madeleine Baran.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Madeleine Baran<\/strong> is a Pulitzer and Peabody award-winning investigative journalist and host of The New Yorker podcast, In the Dark<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, which TIME Magazine heralded as \u201cthe best podcast to emerge from the 2010s true-crime boom\u201d and  \u201cperhaps the best true crime podcast ever made.\u201d Madeleine offers unique insight into what it looks like to meticulously investigate complex criminal cases and translate them into compelling stories with both strong journalistic rigor and resonant narrative force. Season Two of In the Dark<\/em> examined the case of Curtis Flowers<\/strong>, a Black man from Winona who was tried six times for a quadruple homicide and spent over 20 years on Death Row. His case was finally thrown out, and he was released in December of 2019. Flowers passed away on October 7 of this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Jo-Ann Sagar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jo-Ann Sagar<\/strong> is a partner at Hogan Lovells Cadwalader<\/a><\/strong>, where she has an active pro bono practice focusing on civil rights, criminal law, and prison conditions. She is also a former law clerk to US Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer<\/strong>, Brett Kavanaugh<\/strong>, and Ketanji Brown Jackson<\/strong>. Having argued several complex cases and issues before the United States Supreme Court, Jo-Ann has proven herself remarkably effective at bringing something new and persuasive to questions that courts have already answered in different ways. Most recently, Jo-Ann represented Mississippian Terry Pitchford<\/strong> before the Supreme Court on his claim of a racial discrimination in jury selection. In a 5-4 decision, the Court vacated Pitchford\u2019s conviction and death sentence. Jo-Ann\u2019s specialized knowledge of the Supreme Court has allowed her to strategically litigate numerous high stakes appeals on behalf of criminal defendants, giving her a distinctly unique perspective on what it takes to persuade the highest court in the nation to take another look at a case that lower courts have considered settled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Kate Rodemann.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kate Rodemann<\/strong> is a longtime magazine and book editor whose projects have won National Magazine Awards and been optioned for film and television. Kate has devoted her career to helping writers condense and refine years of reporting, research, and competing perspectives into elegant sentences, paragraphs, and narratives capable of reaching and leaving a lasting impact on wide audiences. She has worked on numerous true crime stories and stories that have to do with the many complexities of our justice system. Now Director of Nonfiction at Verto Literary<\/a><\/strong>, Kate brings an editor\u2019s instinct for finding and bringing out the questions at the very heart of these complex stories. That instinct and her wealth of invaluable experience guiding writers makes her an excellent choice as a moderator for the discussion.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Laura Fernandez.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Laura Fernandez<\/strong> is a Clinical Lecturer in Law, Research Scholar, and Senior Liman Fellow in Residence at Yale Law School\u2019s Liman Center for Public Interest<\/a><\/strong>, where her research focuses on prosecutorial power, ethics, and accountability. However, Laura\u2019s work reaches far beyond the world of academia. As a fierce public interest advocate, she has devoted her career to challenging the accepted narrative and demanding greater accountability from the institutions entrusted with administering justice. She was a vital member of the legal defense team that worked tirelessly to overturn the wrongful convictions of dozens of residents in the notorious 1999 Tulia, Texas, drug bust scandal. She also played a pivotal role in the defense of Wilbert Rideau, \u201cthe most rehabilitated prisoner in American history,\u201d who served 44 years at Louisiana\u2019s Angola Penitentiary before being released in 2005. Laura was also instrumental in uncovering and exposing the systemic misuse of jailhouse informants within the Orange County, California DA\u2019s Office, bringing to light injustices that had long escaped public scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Tucker Carrington.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The primary organizer of the symposium, W. Tucker Carrington<\/a><\/strong>, professor of law, dean of clinical programs and George C. Cochran Innocence Project<\/a><\/strong> director, hopes the event will stimulate interest in finding a deeper understanding of the justice system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOftentimes, you think of journalists as trailing the law,\u201d said Carrington. \u201cIn other words, there\u2019s a case, there\u2019s a trial, and the journalists come in and cover what happened. What [these panelists] have done as investigative journalists is to come in behind the case. They don\u2019t just report on it. They excavate the case in a way you would think the justice system should have done but didn\u2019t. So, their work begs questions about the efficiency and correctness of the system, about whether things need to be recalibrated. And if so, how? And why did this happen? They\u2019re not only the consumers and reporters of what happened in court, they\u2019re actually skeptics. And as it turns out, they have some profound things to report on and to say about what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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