Crime & Courts

In early may, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced that he will reopen one of the most notorious criminal proceedings in American history: the trial of National Pencil Company superintendent Leo M. Frank for the murder of child laborer Mary Phagan.

Atlanta City Council voted unanimously to pass legislation that will decrease penalties for less than an ounce of marijuana possession. But misinformation about the law started spreading as soon as the vote was passed. Here's every question you have about the new ordinance, answered.

The news that 21 Savage had been detained by ICE on February 3 in many ways overshadowed the Super Bowl that was taking place just miles away from where the rapper was arrested. Here's an overview of everything that's happened in the case since then.

Atlanta Police Department chief Erika Shields has a lot of progressive ideas, such as having APD build relationships with the city’s top 100 young offenders to help break the vicious cycle of arrests and jail. But will Atlanta's next mayor keep her around?

The Fall Line is investigating the cases of seven Grady newborns who went missing decades ago—two of whom were never found. Inspired other true-crime dramas like Serial, Laurah Norton, a writer and Georgia State University senior lecturer, and Brooke Gently-Hargrove, a grief counselor, launched the true-crime serial podcast last year, which has since racked up 2.3 million listens.

After a 6-year-old boy was killed and a 5-year-old girl mauled by loose dogs earlier this year, the Atlanta Police Department decided to create a new sworn position, Animal Cruelty Liaison Officer, to tackle animal cruelty cases and educate the community about the relationship between animal cruelty and crime. Meet Amy Soeldner, the first person to hold the position.

In June 1995, Aron Tuff was charged for his third felony conviction and put behind bars for with mandatory life without parole. Twenty one years later, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal's criminal justice reform almost forgot Tuff—but the Southern Center for Human Rights didn't.

Acquitting Tex McIver of malice murder meant the state had not proven that he had planned to kill his wife Diane. But convicting him of aggravated assault meant he had intended to shoot her.

With several more episodes to go in his scheduled series, Payne Lindsey looks forward to following new evidence—and even hopes to persuade Ryan Duke to do a jail house interview. “My audience has learned, as I have, not to jump to conclusions,” he says. “We just want to find the truth—wherever it leads.”

Anyone who’s watched an episode of The Americans, the FX series about Russian spies living undercover during the Cold War, has gotten a taste of the life Jack Barsky lived for more than 10 years as what U.S. intelligence called an “illegal.”