Today’s Lineup

Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet: a new book explores how innocent people end up in prison, why there is no center to find when it comes to abortion rights, we should have no tolerance for racism and homophobia from law enforcement officers, and other stories from California, politics, science, technology, and sports.

Leading Off

Justin Brooks, a criminal defense lawyer who is the Founding Director of the California Innocence Project, has written a new book with a blunt title that should serve both as a warning and a call to action: You Might Go to Prison, Even Though You’re Innocent.

I have been looking forward to reading this book since I saw an announcement on Brooks’ Twitter feed about it a few months ago. It tells several important stories, as the book’s promotional materials explain:

“Putting readers at the defense table, this book forces us to consider how any of us might be swept up in the system, whether we hired a bad lawyer, bear a slight resemblance to someone else in the world, or are not good with awkward silence. The stories of Brooks’s cases and clients paint the picture of a broken justice system, one where innocence is no protection from incarceration or even the death penalty.”

The National Register of Exonerations lists 3,298 exonerations since 1989, amounting to more than 29,000 years lost by innocent people in jails or prisons.

Each of the book’s ten chapters goes into detail about one of the ways people find themselves convicted of crimes they did not commit based on Brooks’ experience with clients:

You Hired the Wrong Lawyer (Pleas with No Bargain)
You Live in the Country or the City
You Are in a Relationship and Live with Someone Who is Murdered
You (Kind of) Look like Other People in the World
You Get Confused When You Are Tired and Hungry, and People Yell at You
You Have or Care for a Sick Child.
You Got a Jury That Was Blinded by “Science”
You Work with Children or Let Them in Your House
Someone Lies about You
You Are Poor and/or a Person of Color

You can get more details about these ten reasons from the book’s website. I would be surprised if any reader were not covered by more than one of these possibilities.

Throughout the book, Brooks explains how flawed procedures, junk science, police and prosecutor misconduct, and human bias can lead to innocent people spending decades in prison.

Brooks also lays out the reforms needed to reduce the possibility of future wrongful convictions. We should prohibit the use of deception during police investigations, limit the length of interrogations, ensure courts no longer allow junk science techniques, ensure that identification efforts follow scientific procedures, provide defense attorneys with more resources, and ensure people can access the courts when new science or new evidence indicates they have been wrongfully convicted.

I wish this book had existed when I faced my experience of being falsely accused. Thankfully, I listened to my attorney.

As Brooks makes clear, however, the criminal justice system is broken. We should take the steps suggested by Brooks and the Innocence Projects around the country to reform our criminal justice system to prevent more innocent people from being sent to jail or death row.

The Good Listener podcast interviewed Brooks about his book. You can find that interview on YouTube or Spotify.

Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

There Is No Center When it Comes to Abortion

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day recaps the news from across the country regarding reproductive freedom and sexual and reproductive health care.

The bad news around the country continues to grow, even beyond Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s appalling ruling last week that seeks to ban a drug that has safely ended pregnancies for over 20 years. In this column, Valenti explains how this ruling is the latest example of misogynist payback against women and other people who do not want to answer to white men over how they live their lives. (Slate Legal Analyst Mark Joseph Stern also explains why “Kacsmaryk’s ruling is indefensible from top to bottom and will go down in history as one of the judiciary’s most shocking and lawless moments.”)

These kinds of decisions have real-life consequences.

Valenti leads one of her daily newsletter roundups with the story of Samantha Casiano from Texas. As Valenti explains, Casiano “found out at 20 weeks that her fetus had anencephaly—part of her brain and skull were missing—but was forced to carry to term because of the state’s abortion ban. Samantha Casiano tried to find abortion care in other states, but the time, travel and money required made it impossible: “So she braced herself for five more months carrying a pregnancy that would end in a funeral.”

…

The response from Texas Alliance for Life? “Texas laws are working as designed,” Amy O’Donnell, director of communications, said. At least they’re being honest, I suppose. As more and more of these stories come out, anti-abortion activists and legislators have continually blamed doctors or claimed that their laws actually allow for the kind of care these women were denied. Now they’re just shrugging their shoulders and admitting that this was the point the entire time.”

I think it is essential for people to understand how these forced-birth laws are actually working and how they harm people. I still see too many pundits and Democratic politicians trying to seek compromise about this issue. But, as Valenti correctly assesses, that is not possible. Moreover, given all of the electoral victories of those seeking to protect abortion rights, those efforts are politically stupid.

“Yet both Democrats and Republicans seem intent on misunderstanding what these results really mean. Women are furious. Young people are terrified. And all of America can see the harm and suffering abortion bans cause.

These votes are absolutely smoking with rage, but for some reason politicians and activists on both sides of the issue are catering to a rapidly-evaporating middle. Conservatives are adding empty exceptions to their abortion bans in order to convince voters that they’re willing to compromise, while Democrats push for the restoration of Roe and nothing further—hoping that supporting restrictions on later abortion will help them avoid accusations of extremism.

But what’s happening with abortion has nothing to do with the middle. There’s nothing moderate about women in the ICU with sepsis, there’s no compromise to be made with those who would force raped 10 year-olds to give birth.

The ‘center’ on abortion disappeared the first time a woman underwent a hysterectomy because it was the only legal way for doctors to end her life-threatening pregnancy.”

Democrats should do everything possible to ensure Republicans own the damage their radical forced-birth policies create daily. There are, sadly, so many examples to highlight.

Thank you for reading Things I Find Interesting by Craig Cheslog. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Quick Pitches

California

Are some school districts using involuntary transfers to lower their expulsion rates? The impact on students is similar, but the practice could be hiding the actual state of the situation facing students from required reporting to the state. (Tara García Mathewson, Hechinger Report)

We should have no tolerance for this kind of activity by law enforcement officials. “In a move that deepened the scandals engulfing the Antioch police department, a Contra Costa County judge on Friday released the names of 17 city police officers accused of using racist slurs, jokes and memes in text messages over a period of more than two years. The names include the president of Antioch’s police union, as well as five officers already under investigation by the FBI for alleged crimes. The judge also named 11 other Antioch officers — at least eight of whom have been put on leave over the group texts, which reportedly included frequent use of racial slurs as well as racist memes.” (Nate Gartrell, East Bay Times)

Class action lawsuits have been filed seeking to end the obscene price markups changed to inmates in county jails. The initial lawsuits target Los Angeles and San Diego Counties but are likely to spread. It is wrong to target inmates and their families with these incarceration taxes. (Keri Blakinger, Los Angeles Times)

Public transit agencies in the state are facing a fiscal cliff as federal pandemic-related aid starts to run out. (Sameea Kamal, CalMatters)

Politics

You can register for free to hear ProPublica reporter Joshua Kaplan and Editor-in-Chief Steve Engelberg discuss their investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ acceptance of gifts from billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow. The event takes place on Tuesday, April 11, at noon Pacific. (ProPublica Events, Clarence Thomas’ Secret Life of Luxury)

I was concerned when I learned that Jeffrey Zients would succeed Ronald Klein as President Biden’s Chief of Staff. I doubt the Biden Administration’s rightward policy lurch in recent weeks—on oil drilling, immigration, and the D.C. criminal code repeal—is coincidental. I don’t think this is a successful way to prepare for re-election. (Alexander Sammon, Slate)

“University of Wisconsin–Madison researcher and assistant professor Nick Buttrick studies the psychological relationship that millions of Americans have with their guns. Buttrick’s research builds on the historical record to show that in the U.S.—the only country with more civilian firearms than people—white Southerners started cultivating the tradition of the home arsenal immediately after the Civil War because of insecurities and racial fears. During the rest of the 19th century, those anxieties metamorphosized into a fetishization of the firearm to the point that, in the present day, gun owners view their weapons as adding meaning and a sense of purpose to their lives.” (Sara Novak, Scientific American)

The Wall Street Journal profiles the United States Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Roger D. Carstens. A law gave this Ambassadorial-level position its own office in 2020. It will be Carstens who will take the lead on seeking the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich once Secretary of State Antony Blinken officially declares that he has been “unlawfully or wrongfully detained” by the Russian government. (James T. Areddy, Aruna Viswanatha, and Nancy A. Youssef, The Wall Street Journal)

The Washington Post talked to friends of Evan Gershkovich to profile his journey from high school, college, and reporting in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. (Timothy Bella, The Washington Post)

In his one season playing men’s soccer for my alma mater, Bowdoin College, Gershkovich scored the deciding goal in a penalty shootout to lead the Polar Bears over Amherst College in a 2010 NCAA Division III sectional final playoff match. (Bowdoin College Sports Information)

In the wake of his sliding polling numbers and missteps in New Hampshire, some major Republican donors are starting to suggest that it would be wise for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) to sit out 2024 and wait for 2028. (Tara Palmeri, Puck)

Science

Astronomers saw the brightest Gamma Ray burst ever recorded last October. “While the burst (its formal name is GRB 221009A) is probably not the brightest to ever occur, it is “likely the brightest burst at X-ray and gamma-ray energies to occur since human civilization began,” said Eric Burns, an astrophysicist at Louisiana State University a co-author of the study, in a University of Sydney release.” (Isaac Schultz, Gizmodo)

Nokia is sending a 4G internet service to the moon. An expected November launch will take the initial system to the Shackleton crater. (Nikki Main, Gizmodo)

Plants stressed by a lack of water, or in other ways, make an ultrasonic crackle that some animals may be able to hear. (Emma Harris, Scientific American)

Technology

“Antenna television is back. In recent years, millions of cord-cutters have rediscovered antennas as a reliable way to watch broadcast networks like ABC, NBC, and FOX, all for free — and now, broadcasters are eager to get the rest of us hooked. They’ve been marching ahead with the deployment of ATSC 3.0, a next-generation broadcast format that supports 4K, HDR, Dolby Atmos audio, and even interactive apps over the air, no cable or streaming subscription required.” (Janko Roettgers, The Verge)

Did someone use one of the new artificial intelligence chatbots to create a winning entry in the New Yorker cartoon contest? It may be a coincidence, but there is evidence of the possibility. (David Friedman, Ironic Sans)

Culture

The community name Riverside appears in the most states: 46. Only Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Oklahoma fail to have one. (United States Geological Survey Frequently Asked Questions)

An author wonders why his novel has been so successful in Italy after not getting a single major review after its release in the United States. (Erik Hoel, The Intristic Perspective)

Here’s an excerpt from the poet Maggie Smith’s upcoming memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, focusing on how her marriage split apart because her ex-husband could not handle her success after her poem Good Bones went viral in 2016. (Maggie Smith, The Cut)

Spotify has introduced an artificial intelligence deejay based on a real person’s voice. “Xavier “X” Jernigan is a real person, Spotify’s charismatic head of cultural partnerships. And the AI, which Spotify calls just “DJ,” is using his voice. The company says it trained the voice model on his cadence, inflections, and slang.” (Thomas Germain, Gizmodo)

Here is a video that includes clips of the most popular song in the United States for each month from January 1980-December 2022. We start with the Buggles and end with Bad Bunny. And there’s about a decade in here for which I appear to have no recollection.

Sports

I am quite excited by this news: the National Women’s Soccer League announced an expansion franchise for the Bay Area. A $125 million investment by Sixth Street is the largest institutional investment ever in professional women’s soccer. That total includes a record $53 million expansion fee. The bid is also led by four former United States Women’s National Team players—Aly Wagner, Brandi Chastain, Leslie Osborne, and Danielle Slaton—who also played for Santa Clara University. (Jeff Carlisle, ESPN)

The Men in Blazers Raven Newsletter also features a short interview with Aly Wagner by Roger Bennett (see point 7). (Men In Blazers, The Raven)

The history of sports teams visiting the White House is more complicated—and for many sports, not as long—as I had assumed. (Molly Knight, Vulture)

A newish way of throwing the changeup—focusing on using the air currents created by seam-shifted wakes—seems to be catching on. It certainly looks more comfortable than how the wrist and arm need to be pronated to throw the pitch traditionally. (Noah Woodward, The Advance Scout)

Roger Goodell has made more than $500 million as the Commissioner of the National Football League. He is quite the expert at managing the league’s 32 owners. (Joe Pompliano, Huddle Up)

The Closer

Clayton Rose, the president of my alma mater, Bowdoin College, sent a message to the college community last week after the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled Representatives Justin Pearson (Class of 2017) and Justin Jones.

“Since I became president of Bowdoin in July 2015, there have been more than 3,500 mass shootings in America—that’s well more than one shooting a day, and the pace is accelerating. In that time, hundreds have died and thousands have been injured. It is hard to imagine how, as a civilized society, we tolerate the murders of such innocents in this way. Justin, Mr. Jones, and Ms. Johnson were imploring their colleagues to address the issue. The response was an attempt to silence them, one that appears to have backfired badly.

Justin has devoted himself to serving the common good, and he is making a difference. I am proud of him, and I hope you are as well.”

I am, indeed.

Post-Game Comments

Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:

“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”—Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780), Commentaries on the Laws of England

Thank you for reading my newsletter. Let me know what you think about what you’ve read. You can email me at craigcheslog@substack.com.

Please help me spread the word about this newsletter by sharing this post via email or on the social media network of your choice. And if you haven’t already, please consider signing up for a free or paid subscription.