Outside the Beltway

Once again, Republicans are attacking someone for doing a job the Bill of Rights itself makes necessary and important.

Justice delayed, but justice nonetheless.

TNR makes the worst possible case for a proposition that’s almost certainly right.

Innocent men have been put to death on the orders of the state.

Contrary to popular belief, eyewitness testimony is often quite unreliable.

Continuing the discussion from earlier this week on hate crimes.

Republicans attack an attorney for doing his job. So much for that whole “constitutional conservative” thing, I guess.

Does it really matter why Fraizer Glenn Miller murdered three people in Kansas?

Only a tiny percentage of those in American prisons ever got a trial.

The Justice Department is reportedly not planning to prosecute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in connection with the Bradley Manning case.

Wendy Lower documents the half-million women who helped Hitler carry out the Holocaust.

The Attorney General wants to fight the war on drugs less stupidly.

President Obama has once again weighed in on the Trayvon Martin case in a personal manner.

Thoughts on the Zimmerman verdict (or, more accurately, to reactions to the verdict).

George Zimmerman was acquitted on all charges by a Florida jury late Saturday night.

Glenn Reynolds has an interesting piece out today in the Columbia Law Review.

Focusing on Edward Snowden is largely a waste of time.

An absolutely ridiculous criminal case out of West Virginia.

Another body blow to the Fourth Amendment from the Supreme Court.

It’s a mistake to think of the Bill of Rights as only protecting people who are “innocent” or “guilty.” It exists to protect all of us.

An American city was essentially shut down today. Was that the right thing to do?

We treat violence by lone individuals differently than organized violence. Race, religion, and national origin have nothing to do with that.

Keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people while protecting individual liberty isn’t easy.

Calvin Watkins considers “The sad case of Sam Hurd,” a former wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys and Chicago Bears.

David Ranta spent 23 years in jail because of lying witnesses and corrupt police.

Conor Friedersdorf contends “The U.S. Already Had a Conversation About Guns—and the Pro Side Won.”

When it comes to issues like medical marijuana, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are reading from the same playbook.

A Kafkaesque legal proceeding is unfolding in Kentucky.

We don’t know what the Supreme Court will have to say about the Affordable Care Act, but their decision is already being attacked.

There is no evidence that the Capital Punishment works.

New York’s Governor is proposing a change in the law that could spare thousands of people a year from an unnecessary trip through the legal system.

A surprisingly short sentence in a case that caused a nationwide sensation.

Innocent people have gone to jail, and some of them are still sitting there.

While the United States has some serious problems with policing, we’re not a police state.

The Libertarian Party has chosen another former Republican politician as their Presidential nominee.

The Rule Of Law is incompatible with political rabble rousing

The Atlantic’s Max Fisher reflects on “What America Can Learn From Norway’s Anders Breivik Trial.”

The media circus around the shooting of Trayvon Martin is getting worse.

Texas is ending the time-honored tradition of allowing condemned men to pick their last meal before being put to death.

The execution of Troy Davis brings back to the forefront the reasons why the death penalty is inherently flawed.

There was a somewhat disturbing moment during last night’s GOP Debate.

Everyone has rights, even the person accused of the most vile of crimes.

Prosecutors as asking a Judge to dismiss all charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, because that’s their only option.

Usually, Defendants plead guilty for perfectly rational reasons.

I have been only peripherally aware of the trial–and then only in the way that I’m aware of Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and reality TV.