When a man’s head has been blown off with a shotgun, you’d expect there to be more of a mess. But a 12-gauge to the temple, at close range, can be surgically precise. I was a third-year law student, still in my 20s, when I learned that. Our clinic director…
The true story of a tragic club fire that never happened
“Stumpy’s gonna breathe fire.”
“Do what?”
“Yeah, Stumpy’s gonna breathe fire. On stage.”
A long pause. We stare at the road.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Well, we don’t exactly know how he’s gonna do it yet, but there’s that middle part in ‘Godzilla’ where it’s just drums…
Now that it’s been two months since Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation, I can confidently say she is not qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. Sure, she was nominated by the vilest figure in the last century of American politics. Sure, McConnell rammed her nomination through the Senate while…
If you’ve spent any quality time in the Hoosier state recently, you may have noticed that very few people are masking or social distancing. It’s true that things looked bleak in September: Last month’s new infection rate was our second highest ever, hospitalizations were through the roof, and an average…
I TAUGHT THE LAW: LEGAL HORROR STORIES
In 1999, a cop named Tom Coleman framed forty-six people in Tulia, Texas, on felony drug charges. Thirty-nine of Coleman’s victims were Black, a number representing ten percent of the city’s entire adult Black population. Almost all of them pleaded guilty and received sentences of up to ninety years.
I TAUGHT THE LAW: LEGAL HORROR STORIES
Only he didn’t say “Fudge,” he said THE word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the F-dash-dash-dash word.
Earlier in this series, we examined how the hypertrophy of American criminal laws means you can be locked up for anything, or nothing at all, or even a law that a cop totally made up on the spot.
Here’s yet another example of how overcriminalization can lead to unnecessary and…
I TAUGHT THE LAW: LEGAL HORROR STORIES
Pedro Barbosa almost went to prison for fifteen years. But he was lucky enough to have been represented by veteran Brooklyn public defender Scott Hechinger. “I met Mr. Barbosa in the way I meet all the people I represent — at his arraignment, within twenty-four hours after his arrest,” says…
I Taught the Law: LEGAL HORROR STORIES
In the first installment of this series, we saw how people can “agree” to punishments that a court could not otherwise order, so long as those punishments are attached to a plea agreement. That’s how a 16-year-old boy could be sentenced to ten years of church. Sure, the penalty may…
The criminal law in America, with apologies to Douglas Adams, is “big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.” We’ve got crimes for everything you can imagine, and for stuff you could never dream up, no matter your degree of criminal genius. In Delaware, for example…
