Injustice

Posted by Heebie-Geebie
on 06.05.26

Via E. Messily, With a Chance at Freedom, They Faced an Unexpected Obstacle: Their Own Lawyers:

But Wagner had another chance at freedom under a state law that allowed him to get a new court-appointed lawyer to help him challenge his conviction. Court records show that the attorney never spoke with the informant or looked into the detective on the case, who made headlines after being benched for secretly paying a witness. Instead, Wagner's lawyer urged the judge to shut down his client's petition, writing in June 2017, "There are no meritorious issues that could be raised."

Wagner would remain in prison another six years before prosecutors acknowledged that police had hidden evidence suggesting that the informant had committed the murder and the detective was corrupt. Although Wagner maintains his innocence, he agreed to a plea deal for third-degree murder that allowed him to leave prison.

The opposition Wagner faced from his own lawyer is permitted under Pennsylvania's Post Conviction Relief Act, the law that allows people in prison to raise newly discovered evidence or argue that their previous lawyer mishandled the case. The state provides a lawyer in these cases, but with a catch: The attorney can argue against the client's claims and withdraw from the case by filing what's known as a "no-merit" letter.

The whole article is so infuriating.

Date-rape drugs

Posted by Heebie-Geebie
on 06.04.26

I was reading some throwaway Reddit along the lines of "Tell me about a bad feeling you once had that proved prescient". There are a few predictable themes in something like this: times when you're out in the woods and nature is about to turn deadly, times when a loved one's health is in danger or you have a feeling you should reach out to someone, and basically stranger-danger situations.

In the third category, you usually read about muggings, murders, and getting roofied. (Or narrowly avoiding these things, in the case of this particular thread.)

This particular time, I was struck by the mundaneness of date rape drugs. They basically weren't widespread in public conversation until I was in my 20s, and I (maybe naively?) have never needed to run down the checklist of considerations that I see frequently on Reddit: only drink an alcoholic drink if you watched the container get unsealed or you saw a bartender make it, never drink your drink after coming back from the bathroom, etc.

It seems absolutely insane that after 20 years, all that has happened is that young women in a bar or nightclub are supposed to lock down their drinks extra-tightly so that they don't get drugged and raped.

I don't even know what an effective solution would look like, but that's because I'm a frog in the slow-boiling pot of government dysfunction, who can't imagine what it might be like in a functional society that solved problems like "widespread drugging and rape of young women".

Note: I have no idea how widespread this is, but it doesn't take many predatory serial rapists to force all women to have to lock down their drinks at nightclubs. I have a belief that it happens often enough that this vigilance is appropriate and not fear-mongering.

Wisdom

Posted by Heebie-Geebie
on 06.03.26

The eldest Geebie is getting their wisdom teeth out today! Share your best or worst story, or idle commentary.