Samantha Hogan

130 posts

Samantha Hogan focuses on government accountability projects for The Maine Monitor. She joined the newsroom as its first full-time reporter in 2019 with Report for America. Samantha was named the 2021 Maine’s Journalist of the Year by the Maine Press Association, and spent 2020 reporting on Maine’s court system through the ProPublica Local Reporting Network. Her reporting on county jails recording and listening to attorney-client phone calls won the Silver Gavel award from the American Bar Association and was also a semi-finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2023. Samantha previously worked for The Frederick News-Post and interned twice for The Washington Post.

Police cars outside the Lewiston bar where a mass shooting happened.

8 min

Maine’s vast rural expanse complicates the search for Lewiston shooting suspect

Boats and remote vehicles search Androscoggin River as part of massive manhunt.

ByEmily Bader Emmett Gartner Samantha Hogan

October 27, 2023

Lewiston mass shooting suspect seen in a still from surveillance footage.

8 min

Mass shooting turns spotlight on Maine’s sparse gun laws

Lawmaker in Gun Safety Caucus says lack of gun safety laws allowed her 'worst nightmare' to happen.

BySamantha Hogan David Dahl Rose Lundy

October 26, 2023

Joe Baldacci and Michele Meyer during a legislative hearing.

8 min

Lawmakers eye tighter oversight on guardianships

Committee holds meeting after Monitor reports about eight unexplained deaths of adults in public guardianship.

BySamantha Hogan

October 25, 2023

A drawn illustration of the inside of a courtroom. On the left, an inmate dressed in an orange jumpsuit is looking at the empty seat next to them where their defense attorney should be sitting. On the right, sitting at a separate table, is a prosecutor.

3 min

Judges, sheriffs ask Maine Supreme Court to dismiss petition filed by woman held in jail without a lawyer

Angelina Dube Peterson is indigent and unable to afford to hire her own lawyer. She waited for weeks in jail to be assigned an attorney.

BySamantha Hogan

October 13, 2023

An illustration of four overworked attorneys, as well as an inmate locked in a jail cell.

4 min

Commission endorses statewide public defender network for Maine

Proposed expansion would cost $8.8 million and hire more than three dozen public defenders.

BySamantha Hogan

October 11, 2023

Voters stand at voting booths to fill out their ballots on Election Day.

9 min

Maine’s constitution says people in guardianships with mental illness cannot vote. Voters can change that in November.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows urges approval of a ballot question that would eliminate "antiquated" language that is "not even legally enforceable."

BySamantha Hogan

October 8, 2023

9 min

Maine’s indigent defense crisis deepens

Advocates complain that defendants are being denied lawyers or assigned attorneys who aren’t up to the job.

BySamantha Hogan

October 8, 2023