Tennessee electrocutes convicted killer

From the Nashville Scene we learn that there’s just been an execution in Tennessee (why is it always the Red States that execute people?). The details are given in this article in The Nashville Scene (click on screenshot): The details are horrific, and nobody claims that Stephen West is completely innocent. He did have an […]

Jeffrey Epstein commits suicide in jail

UPDATE: The NYT updated report says that Epstein was on suicide watch, but had been taken off it, though I have no idea why—nor are officials forthcoming about it: But one federal prison official with knowledge of the incident said Mr. Epstein had been taken off suicide watch a few days ago, and was being […]

More horror from the Trump administration: federal government to resume executions after a sixteen-year hiatus

Given the lack of evidence that capital punishment is a deterrent, the fact that it’s more expensive—given the appeals system—than life without parole, the ineluctable fact that innocent people have been executed and, if the death penalty were abolished, they could have been freed, and the fact that capital punishment is barbaric and often painful, […]

Iran executes two teenagers in secret, informs them only the day before

According to the Amnesty International article below, Iran just executed two teenage boys for rape after what they say was an unfair trial as well as flogging during detention. The report also adds that the pair didn’t know they were to be executed at most one day before it happened (click on screenshot): Part of […]

Should the college-admissions scam participants get jail time?

On the news tonight, and now via CNN, I learned that thirteen parents and college staff who participated in the college-admissions scam, falsifying college applications to improve kids’ chances, have pleaded guilty. These include the best-known participant, actor Felicity Huffman. I suspect that others like Lori Laughlin will follow shortly with similar pleas, for there’s […]

Supreme court approves execution with a substantial likelihood of causing agony (vote, naturally, was 5-4)

This is what we’re in for the foreseeable future: a Supreme Court whose conservative majority, while concerned with preserving the life of every fetus, sends criminals to their deaths with impunity, even when those deaths are horribly painful. As the article below in The Atlantic relates (click on the screenshot), Justice Neil Gorsuch, who heretofore […]

A mystery: Why were all charges against Jussie Smollet dropped?

I just learned this from CNN (click on screenshot): As you probably know, Smollett was charged with 16 felony counts for faking a racist and homophobic attack on himself, and according to the Chicago Police, they had him dead to rights, including the cooperation of the fake “attackers” and a copy of the check Smollett […]

Jack the Ripper identified?

UPDATE: Go here to see a post from later on this day, detailing Adam Rutherford’s objection to this paper, which he calls a “joke” because of the possibility of contamination, the lack of provenance of the shawl, the sloppy calculations, and the weak genetic evidence. _____________   The paper below is getting a lot of […]

Actors and other rich folks charged in scheme to defraud colleges by faking test scores and school accomplishments

Bedridden as I am, and unable to brain, all I can do is pass the news onto you (see CNN here and here and the New York Times for the details).   But I do know the two most well known people among those just charged and arrested, since I used to watch television in the […]

When wokeness overwhelms reason: Harvard students demand punishment of a law professor for his legal defense of Harvey Weinstein; university administration waffles

A few years ago I would not have thought this possible. After all, it’s Harvard (for which I retain some vestigial affection), and the protestors, who are demanding the scalp of a black law professor who is defending Harvey Weinstein, are so terribly ignorant of the basis of criminal defense that they seem almost stupid. […]