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Smuggled drugs cause chaos, death behind bars. It’s not hard to understand why. What’s harder to grasp is why state officials can’t do more to stop contraband from entering prisons. The Marshall Project Meet the drone pilot who flooded prisons with drugs. He’s now serving time in one. The Marshall Project Corrections staff are the obvious and overlooked sources of smuggling into prisons. And they are rarely prosecuted for it. The Marshall Project How an incarcerated dealer coerced a former corrections officer into smuggling. The Marshall Project This Marshall Project series was published in partnership with the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and Canton Repository. It was reported and written by TMP’s Doug Livingston and USA TODAY Network Ohio’s Laura A. Bischoff.

Club Fed? Not so much. The federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, got a lot of attention last year when Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred there. But as sprawling and open as the minimum-security prison appears, some women and staff whistleblowers say it conceals a sinister secret. Six women have accused staff members of pressuring them into unwanted sex acts in deserted corners where there were no security cameras or witnesses. Some of those who tried to speak up said they were punished in retaliation. In a collaboration with NBC News, this new Marshall Project investigation by Beth Schwartzapfel and Erik Ortiz brings us inside a federal prison dealing with repeated allegations of staff sexual abuse. The Marshall Project

Immigration nation. A private prison company, not the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, is investigating claims of sexual assault at the Otay Mesa Detention Center. Cal Matters Immigration arrests at or near courthouses in Massachusetts more than doubled in 2025 compared to in 2024. State legislators are trying to limit those arrests. The Boston Globe Republican sheriffs in Florida continue to complain about the Trump administration’s immigration policies but won’t ask the White House to change them. The New York Times “Due process is not a game of keep-away,” a federal judge in Minnesota wrote last week in a decision to extend an order ensuring attorney access for immigration detainees. The Associated Press

“They want you to put protesters in prison as terrorists.” Earlier this month federal prosecutors in Texas were able to convince a jury to convict a group of anti-Trump activists as “antifa” terrorists. This portends a new threat to civil liberties for left-wing protesters. Attorney General Pam Bondi promised as much following the verdict against nine people seized while protesting at an immigration detention facility in Prairieland. A police officer was wounded by one of the protesters during the melee, but the Trump administration was successful in tagging all of them as part of an “antifa” cell despite little evidence of such affiliations. The New Yorker

Rap, the First Amendment, and the death penalty. Here’s yet another chance for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on prosecutors’ use of rap lyrics to convict or sentence people. James Broadnax is scheduled to be executed in Texas in late April but there are two clear reasons why he may not be killed. Last week, another man confessed to the murder for which Broadnax has been condemned. Meanwhile, some of the most famous rappers in America have asked the justices in Washington, D.C. to stop the execution because prosecutors used Broadnax’s rap lyrics to incriminate him. TMP’s Maurice Chammah has the latest edition of Closing Argument, our weekly newsletter. The Marshall Project

Idaho legislators just passed the nation’s harshest ban on the use of bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms by transgender people. The law prohibits the use of such facilities by people whose sex at birth does not match the designation on the door. The state’s Republican governor is expected to sign the measure. Violating the law would be a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to one year in prison. A second offense would be a felony. The New York Times

A grand jury in Costilla County, Colorado recently indicted four of the county’s seven law enforcement officers. The sheriff and a former deputy have been charged with allegedly mishandling human remains found in 2024. And the sheriff’s son and another deputy were charged with assault during an interaction with a man in the midst of a mental health crisis last month. The Associated Press

Federal prosecutors say the leader of an immigrant rights group in Vermont has secretly ferried undocumented immigrants across the border from Canada into the U.S. Burlington Free Press A federal grand jury indicted José Ignacio De La Cruz last month and he was arrested last week. The Boston Globe

The Florida Supreme Court last week temporarily stayed the scheduled execution of James Duckett amid questions about the results of DNA testing his lawyers say could exonerate him. The execution was scheduled for Tuesday. The Associated Press State attorneys say the tests are inconclusive and want the execution to proceed on Tuesday. Orlando Sentinel

Trump administration officials renewed attempts to punish New York Attorney General Letitia James on behalf of the president. Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte made two criminal referrals last week alleging that James committed insurance fraud. The Justice Department has tried and failed three times to indict James. NBC News

A postscript to another No Kings Day: Protesting and activism in an age of authoritarianism. “Hope is a responsibility. You cultivate it in order to share it with others. It cannot be a private possession. It only blooms when given away. Hope is the prelude to action. So every morning, arise and hope, and go from there.” The Guardian

The attorney general plays a game of chicken with Congress. Pam Bondi doesn’t want to testify again, especially about the Justice Department’s failed rollout of the Epstein files. But she still wants to pretend that the administration is providing unprecedented claims of transparency. New York Magazine More: Trump calls on Congress to pass an unconstitutional law cracking down on federal judges who rule against him. The New York Times

Minnesota nice takes on agents of ICE. “What do these people look like in their day-to-day lives? I wanted to know who they are and what motivated them to patrol their streets, drive strangers to work and provide food and rent money for the families who have been in hiding since the surge began.” ProPublica

Georgia’s ballots on our minds. “The affidavit supporting the Fulton County search warrant does not hold up under scrutiny. Its theory of probable cause relies on allegations that are legally uncertain, factually unsupported, or directly contradicted by prior investigations — investigations whose exculpatory findings it consistently omits.” Lawfare Related: Expert testimony on Friday undermined the Trump administration’s justification for seizing ballots from the 2020 presidential election. Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Department of Homeland Insecurity. “Noem is gone, and Mullin is in. But unless Congress acts, the underlying problem that got us here remains. The cycle will continue, and DHS will continue to be vulnerable to the same instability that has defined it for years.” Just Security More: “[T]he president views DHS, but specifically ICE, as a kind of personal federal force that is at the beck and call of the president and he can just deploy whenever he needs a tough job done.” The Atlantic

Correction. Friday’s edition of Opening Statement was edited by Caleb Bedillion and Geoff Hing. We apologize for not including their names at the top of that edition of the newsletter.

More trouble for transgender prisoners. The Justice Department is investigating corrections officials in Maine and California over policies that allow transgender people to be housed in prisons consistent with their gender identities. The Associated Press TMP Context: The Bureau of Prisons bans gender-affirming care for federal prisoners. The Marshall Project

An unrepentant Capitol rioter is running for office in Florida. Adam Johnson, the Jan. 6 insurrectionist who took House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern, is running for a seat on the Board of Commissioners in Manatee County. He pleaded guilty to trespassing and spent 75 days in jail before being pardoned by President Donald Trump. The Washington Post

Another Epstein settlement. Bank of America announced late Friday that is has agreed to pay $72.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of hundreds of people who say they were victims of sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein. The New York Times More: Someone hacked Kash Patel’s personal email account and circulated photos online on Friday. The images were from a period before he became FBI director. The New York Times

ICE has doubled its use of ankle monitors over the past year. It’s an effort to push people to leave the U.S. without being deported. The Guardian More: When ICE agents lie about being local law enforcement agents. Wired The Justice Department admitted last week that it had wrongfully relied on a memo from ICE lawyers trying to justify arrests at courthouses. NBC News Measles outbreaks at two immigration detention facilities in Texas have spread to the public, officials say. At least four El Paso residents have been infected. The Texas Tribune

“I really do believe that I have been assigned this mountain to show it can be moved.” Jordan Costa chose a career in gun violence prevention before she learned that her father took his own life in 2005 using a gun. The Trace