Jurors Thought a Gay Man Would Enjoy Prison. So They Sentenced Him to Death.
imaginima/Getty When Charles Rhines, a gay man, was convicted of the murder of Donnivan Schaeffer in January 1993, the jurors at his trial in South Dakota were tasked with deciding whether he would serve life in prison without the possibility of parole, or to sentence him to death. During deliberations, some jurors wondered if life…
Texas Asked Judges to Stop Throwing People in Jail for Unpaid Parking Tickets. They Didn’t Listen.
Hiob/Getty After Emily Gerrick became a lawyer in 2014 in Austin, Texas, one of her first clients was a mother who was jailed for 21 days because she couldn’t afford to pay her traffic tickets. “She was just beside herself because she didn’t know where her kids were,” she recalled. Gerrick, now a senior attorney…
America Is Not On a Path to Become Israel 2.0
Oliver Weiken/DPA via ZUMA Roger Cohen says that Bibi Netanyahu’s victory in Tuesday’s Israeli elections has ominous overtones for America: His victory contains a warning for any Democrat still imagining that the 2020 election will bring an easy victory over Donald Trump. The Netanyahu playbook will be President Trump’s next year. Gather nationalist and religious…
Barr: No Evidence That Trump Investigation Was Improper
Stefani Reynolds/CNP via ZUMA Here’s the headline that’s still on the New York Times front page: Via Axios, here’s the full exchange: Barr: I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. … There were a lot of rules put in place to make sure that there’s an adequate basis before our law…
“Libraries have become de facto homeless shelters”: Emilio Estevez on His New Movie “The Public”
The last time audiences saw actor Emilio Estevez in a library was in 1985 for a dance sequence in the brat pack classic, The Breakfast Club. Thirty-four years later in his new movie, The Public, Estevez is playing the librarian, caught in the middle of a police standoff with library patrons, most of whom are…
Lead in Topsoil Produces Kids With Cognitive Problems
A new study out of Carnegie-Mellon examines the effect of topsoil lead contamination on cognitive problems among toddlers. To start, the authors construct a map of large US counties showing which ones are above and below average in lead contamination: The green counties have a topsoil lead concentration of about 10 ppm, while the red…