A crackdown in Texas. America - land of the free. And to guarantee that freedom, everyone has to be constantly watchful. Like the photo store clerk from Eckerd who dutifully reported a Peruvian-born couple's lewd shots of their infants to the Richardson (Dallas/Texas suburbs) police. The photos showed the parents' two infants bathing naked, lying together in bed with their mother (again naked) and the 1-year-old Rodrigo suckling his mother's (naked) breast. So the couple was arrested -- the maximum prison sentence for the crime in question being 20 years -- and the children taken away. (verbatim k5)
posted by The Jesse Helms on Apr 20, 2003 - 77 comments

Cesar Chavez Day With our focus on the war lets not forget what DOES make this country great, its people! I have to confess ignorance of this mans accomplishments until I turned my calendar today. Read,enjoy, learn something about a man who fought injustice with the most powerful weapon...his mind!
posted by hoopyfrood on Mar 31, 2003 - 10 comments

Stephen Downing , aged 17, was arrested and interrogated for 8 hours by the police without caution and without legal counsel. Despite having the reading age of an 11 year old, he was allowed to sign a confession to the brutal slaughter of typist Wendy Sewell. 27 years later at the UK Court of Appeal, he became today the victim of the longest miscarriage of justice in the Britain's history.
posted by dlewis on Jan 15, 2002 - 7 comments

Chandra Levy disappearance solved? A deaf man with a serious mental illness who cannot speak was wrongly jailed for nearly two years in the nation's capital even though minor charges against him were dismissed, prison officials said on Friday... Department of Corrections Director Odie... was ... quoted as telling the Post: ``It was kind of unbelievable to me that we could hold a guy for nearly two years who should not have been there,'' he said. Color photographs with arrows and pictures and a paragraph on the back to follow...
posted by dchase on Aug 31, 2001 - 7 comments