Karen Houppert

Karen Houppert is a Baltimore-based freelance journalist. Her book on indigent defense will be published by the New Press in March 2013 to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright.

44 Hours in a Baltimore Jail for Filming the Police

44 Hours in a Baltimore Jail for Filming the Police 44 Hours in a Baltimore Jail for Filming the Police

Along with hundreds of others, Geremy Faulkner was swept up in one of the haphazard mass arrests that are overwhelming the courts.

May 6, 2015 / Karen Houppert

Without Parents or Lawyers, Thousands of Children Brave Chaos of Immigration Courts Alone

Without Parents or Lawyers, Thousands of Children Brave Chaos of Immigration Courts Alone Without Parents or Lawyers, Thousands of Children Brave Chaos of Immigration Courts Alone

An overwhelmed system struggles to meet President Obama’s order to fast-track deportation hearings on 62,000 lone child migrants.

Aug 25, 2014 / Karen Houppert

Locked Up Without a Key in New Orleans

Locked Up Without a Key in New Orleans Locked Up Without a Key in New Orleans

Seven years after Katrina, poor people accused of crimes are being denied their right to counsel and left to languish behind bars.

Aug 22, 2012 / Feature / Karen Houppert

KBR on Trial–At Last KBR on Trial–At Last

 Five years after alerting authorities that she was gang-raped in Iraq, KBR/Halliburton employee Jamie Leigh Jones will finally get her day in court

Apr 16, 2010 / Karen Houppert

KBR’s Rape Problem KBR’s Rape Problem

Three women contractors raped in Iraq testify before a Senate committee: why has the Justice Department failed to prosecute crimes like these?

Apr 17, 2008 / Karen Houppert

Another KBR Rape Case Another KBR Rape Case

In the wake of Jamie Leigh Jones's highly publicized charges, a woman comes forward with new allegations of a brutal sexual assault and cover-up at a KBR camp in Iraq.

Apr 3, 2008 / Feature / Karen Houppert

Maryland Judge: Some Domestic Violence Victims Like Being Hit Maryland Judge: Some Domestic Violence Victims Like Being Hit

Domestic violence cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute. But every once in a while, prosecutors get handed the tools for a conviction on a silver platter: An impartial eyew...

Oct 25, 2007 / Karen Houppert

Nobel Prize Winner “Abandons” Family Nobel Prize Winner “Abandons” Family

Why is it that when a man leaves his wife and she retains custody of the kids we say, simply, "he is divorced?" Yet when a woman, say Doris Lessing, leaves her husband a...

Oct 15, 2007 / Karen Houppert

Soldiers Who Steal Soldiers Who Steal

When it comes to this whole scandal regarding graft in US military contracts, I like to muse over the strange mea culpa put forward by military brass who admitted to The New York T...

Sep 25, 2007 / Karen Houppert

Dispatch from War-Torn Baltimore Dispatch from War-Torn Baltimore

I live in Baltimore, Maryland. At the moment, that is slightly more dangerous than being an American soldier in Afghanistan. In Afganhistan, just over eighty US soldiers have bee...

Sep 13, 2007 / Karen Houppert

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