Since 1994, when he officiated at the trials of Jessie Misskelley Jr., Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, otherwise known as the West Memphis Three, Judge David Burnett has had several opportunities to make further rulings in their cases.

Some of the petitions he heard concerned new DNA test res… Read full post »

It is true, and let me say this from the outset, that I often find myself defending the most heinous men; “defending” may not be precisely the word for it, but in our culture there is a predisposition to vilify men for behavior we excuse in women, and this is… Read full post »

Occasionally one of my girlfriends would have ventured,

I know he's a jerk, but he is good-looking…

wouldn't you maybe go out with him just once,

and his friends would've said,

Would ya poke her,

and they would've laughed when he said, sure,

if she asked me nice,

and our… Read full post »

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
—Edward Abbey 

On March 24, 2004, at the 9/11 Commission hearings, senior executive counter-terrorism and intelligence expert Richard A. Clarke testified: “To the loved ones of the vic… Read full post »

On November 28, 1987, Tawana Brawley, who had been missing for four days, was found lying conscious but unresponsive in a garbage bag several feet from an apartment where she had once lived. Her clothing was torn and burned, her body smeared with feces. When she vanished, Miss Brawley had been… Read full post »

Spring becomes summer, 

just like before; 

the days grow long, 

the wind blows high.

These are the days 

some try to ignore. 

These are the days, when grown men cry.

It's figures and profits and losses 

to some,

and a more or less white li… Read full post »

I told Raelynn, she should've played the game I wanted to play.

Some people just don't listen, until you make them listen.

After we got back to Raelynn's house that day, she asked me "what d'ya wanna do now ?" I said "Let's play with George". George was this hamster (or… Read full post »

The sky was just as blue back then, the grass was just as green, my dad had the same bad temper he's always had. So he bit his tongue, or grit his teeth, and tried to listen when my uncle said people followed him in the street or in their cars;… Read full post »

About four months ago I was straightening up around my apartment. Which, if you knew me, you'd know is something that happens with the regularity of the proverbial blue moon, so there I am, shoveling, uh, picking up around the place, and then--WHAM-O. 

I remember falling, in what seemed like slo… Read full post »

You awaken and It's there.

Piss and grease and sweat

and disinfectant,

metal on metal on metal;

radios, and bets

made out of boredom.

A slim young thing

swishes by in roach-bitten flip-flops.

Some call him the… Read full post »

Sure.

Things seemed to be getting better.

Things always seemed to be getting better—then something always happened, some little thing or other always set it off.  And you could never tell what that little thing might be.

When he was five months old the boy weighed eig… Read full post »

“I've myself been crucified a hundred times and more by those institutional drugs that are for some sinister reason called "tranquilizers." They are phenothiazone drugs, and include Mellaril, Thorazine, Stelazine, Haldol. Prolixin is the worst I've ever experienced. One injection lasts for two… Read full post »

It was a hot one.

A scorcher, and the man was sort of gray.

The grandfather they assumed,
at 61 the gray man looked every bit of 81,
and some recalled a package on the seat beside him;
some said, could've been a present.

What… Read full post »

When you're five,

if you let go of an emerald green balloon

and watch it getting small as it ascends into the sky;

if a storm's about to break and you can hear the clouds

in marbled veins of cream,

and if the sky tastes dark gray,

more than light;… Read full post »

She was 18 and she loved it when they honked their horns or whistled and never acted like she didn’t; she wore thin-strapped cotton tops that hugged her warm brown shoulders and her breasts, she rolled her cutoff shorts to make them shorter, it was summer and her hair… Read full post »

I've heard girls say, a part of me was missing until HE came into my life lalala. But that’s not how it was with me and Will.  It was more like the law of the jungle, or something. I bet lion kings and lion queens know each other the way… Read full post »