Welcome to The Tennessee Justice NewsLadder, a new forum dedicated to highlighting the urgent need for criminal justice reform in the Volunteer State. Every day, the 6 million residents of Tennessee depend on a fair and accurate criminal justice system to determine the truth when crimes are committed. Too often, however, the system comes up short for a variety of reasons. The problems include inadequate representation for indigent defendants; excessive caseloads; geographic disparities in the administration of justice; unreliable eyewitness identification; false confessions; jailhouse snitch testimony and more.

An unjust system produces unreliable results. In the most egregious cases, the wrong person is convicted and punished for a crime while the real perpetrator remains free to commit more crimes. Tennessee deserves better.

At The Tennessee Justice NewsLadder you will find news articles, photos, videos, blog posts and other materials designed to promote a greater understanding of the problems -- and potential solutions -- to our error-plagued criminal justice system.

You are an important part of The Tennessee Justice NewsLadder. All you have to do is sign up, sign in and link to relevant stories or blog posts that you think are interesting. You vote stories up the ladder simply by clicking the plus or minus buttons under the large number to the left.