Brickbat: America’s Ally
A Saudi court has sentenced Salma al-Shehab to 34 years in prison after she was found guilty of using the Internet to “cause public unrest and destabilize civil and national …
Prison sentence
Brickbat: Anyone Else Got Something to Say?
In Russia, a court has sentenced Moscow council member Alexei Gorinov to seven years in prison for spreading “knowingly false information.” Charges were brought against Gorinov after he opposed the …
Imagine Having a Decade of Your Life Erased. It Happened to 161 People Exonerated from Prison in 2021.
Wrongfully imprisoned persons lost a total of 1,849 years of their lives before being cleared in 2021, according to the newly released annual report from the National Registry of Exonerations. …
Biden Administration Reverses Course, Will Let Prisoners Sent Home Due to Pandemic Stay There
Thousands of federal prisoners put into home confinement for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic may not have to return to prison cells after the crisis is over, according to …
He Wouldn’t Wear a Mask on a Bus. One Thing Led to Another, and He Ended Up Dying in Jail.
Maurice Monk was arrested in June for shouting threats, not carried out, at two bus drivers in the same day after both told him he had to don a mask. …
Pennsylvania Homeless Man Spared Felony Charge for 43-Cent Misunderstanding
In September, Pennsylvania prosecutors charged a homeless man with theft over a 43-cent misunderstanding, which due to the state’s three-strikes law could have subjected him to years in prison. Last …
ACLU Sues a Pennsylvania County for Detaining Probation Violators for Months With No Hearings
A Pennsylvania county is locking up alleged probation violators for months with no court hearings to examine their cases, the American Civil Liberties Union claims in a class-action lawsuit filed …
Pennsylvania Could Put a Homeless Man in Prison Over 43 Cents
A homeless man in Pennsylvania faces years in prison for not reading the fine print. Joseph Sobolewski picked up a single Mountain Dew from a convenience store, listed as two …
A Philly Man Who Spent 37 Years of a 50-Year Prison Sentence in Solitary Confinement Has Been Freed
A Philadelphia man who spent 50 years in prison—37 of them in solitary confinement—was released Wednesday after a judge agreed with prosecutors that the murder case for which he was …
Only Biden or Congress Can Prevent 4,000 Inmates From Being Forced Back Into Federal Prison Post-COVID
Some 4,000 federal prisoners temporarily released during the COVID-19 pandemic will have to return to serve out their sentences once the emergency has ended unless President Joe Biden commutes their …