“A young mother rents a house near Milwaukee. The previous tenant tells her, ‘Baby, they shouldn’t have let you move in.'”
courts
The Most Lawless County in Texas
“Suzanne Wooten did the impossible and became the first candidate to defeat a sitting judge in Collin County. What followed is the unbelievable, epic tale of the craziest case in the history of jurisprudence.”
The Roots of the Insanity Defense
For centuries, courts have struggled to protect the mentally ill while also trying to distinguish between sanity and insanity. In the 1700s, the British courts relied on the “wild beast” test as their barometer for the latter: if the defendant’s understanding of his crime was no better than that of a infant or beast, he couldn’t […]
The 1944 Court Decision That Changed Hollywood
The showbiz press has been abuzz all day with news of a surprise shake-up (a group of high-powered talent agents defected en masse from one top agency to another). Most of the coverage has been inside baseball, but an analysis in The Hollywood Reporter by Matthew Belloni provides some interesting insight into Hollywood history: Consider the case of the late legendary agent, who […]
Meet the ‘Vexatious Litigants’: People Who Can’t Stop Going to Court
Rahman, whose wife died a few years ago in a traffic accident, is now primarily devoted to litigating. In what little spare time he has, he reads the Koran, tends to his fruit trees and studies law, making do on a few hours’ sleep a night. As a vexatious litigant, he will now need special […]
Suspended Justice: The Story of a Wrongful Conviction, Our College Pick
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick: There’s a marvelous detail buried deep in Indiana University senior Katie Mettler’s story about the wrongful conviction of David Camm, who was tried three times for the murder of his wife and children. At a diner […]
Suspended Justice: The Story of a Wrongful Conviction, Our College Pick
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick: There’s a marvelous detail buried deep in Indiana University senior Katie Mettler’s story about the wrongful conviction of David Camm, who was tried three times for the murder of his wife and children. At a diner […]
“The Divorce from Hell, The Battle for Alimony and Empty Pockets.” Leonora LaPeter Anton, Tampa Bay Times.