Writers and Editors

Sep 29, 2017 3:32 PM EDT

See also When ‘Not Guilty’ Is a Life Sentence (Mac McClelland, The New York Times Magazine, 9-27-17) What happens after a defendant is found not guilty by reason of insanity? Often the answer is involuntary confinement in a state psychiatric hospital — with no end in sight. Mac McClelland writes about the grim uncertainty that faces defendants who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity — and placed into a system that may deprive them of their freedom for longer than if they'd been convicted. One man she speaks to has been in a hospital for almost two decades. McClelland visits him alongside his mother, who says she put her life on hold to help tend to him for what she thought would be a few years, given that her son is technically, legally, not responsible for his crime. "On James's birthday," McClelland writes, "she brings a party: relatives, presents, a cake. And almost every week, on every visiting day, she and James try to make a life here together at the hospital — because it now seems possible that he could die there." Do read the comments, as well as the piece.

- PM

Dec 21, 2018 3:59 PM EST

She Was Exonerated of the Murder of Her Son. Her Life Is Still Shattered. (Pamela Colloff, NY Times Magazine, 12-20-18) Julie Rea was convicted of killing her 10-year-old son largely on the testimony of bloodstain-pattern analysts. She was later acquitted and exonerated, joining a growing community of Americans wrongly convicted with bad science. “Surviving your child’s murder, only to find out that you’re being accused of murdering your child, is a kind of trauma that I wouldn’t wish on any living being. I wouldn’t wish it on a snake.”~Julie Rea

- PM