jmartinelli

Julieta Martinelli is an award-winning investigative reporter, currently a producer at Latino USA and co-producer of Suave, Futuro Studios’ new podcast about juveniles sentenced to die in prison. In 2018 she was named a Soros Justice Media Fellow by Open Society Foundation and spent the following year documenting the human repercussions of changing legal policies along the U.S.-Mexico border. .

She previously covered the criminal justice system, policing and immigration for Nashville Public Radio. In 2018, her series profiling a man named Matthew Charles went viral and her reporting was used to illustrate the need for passing of the First Step Act — Charles then became the first person to be freed from prison as a result of the bill. In 2020, Joseph Webster was exonerated after nearly two decades following her earlier investigation into a conviction review unit that had refused to reconsider Webster’s case.

Her stories about immigrant youth, life in prison — and what happens after — have aired nationally on NPR programs including Here and Now, Morning Edition and All Things Considered.