Maine Public

Resident Darren McKenzie (right) and Jesse Mackin water tomato plants on the grounds of the Mountain View Correctional Facility’s garden in Charleston in June 2021 Maine is one of 16 states that has abolished or severely limited parole. It's the only state in the Northeast to do so. Different from probation, which is part of someone's sentence, parole is the conditional, supervised release of a prisoner into the community before a sentence is completed. Four years ago, a state commission...

In this Wednesday, May 31, 2017 court-appointed "lawyer of the day" Merritt Hemingway defends a person charged with a crime at Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland, Maine. Gov. LePage's $6.8 billion budget includes a plan to shake up a system that currently sends millions of dollars in state money to hire private lawyers for indigent defense. The long-running legal challenge over Maine's failure to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who can't afford them has reached the state...

In this Wednesday, May 31, 2017 court-appointed "lawyer of the day" Merritt Hemingway defends a person charged with a crime at Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland, Maine. Maine's federal defender and court-appointed attorneys are sounding the alarm about a dire   funding shortfall that they say could mean delayed trials for indigent clients. Nearly 60 private attorneys in Maine stopped getting paid to represent low-income clients in federal criminal cases on July 3. Read the full...