Longreads •

In Sickness, In Health — and In Prison

Niccole Wetherell and Paul Gillpatrick were engaged in 2012. The state of Nebraska has prevented their wedding ever since​. Wetherell is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, housed in a prison about 50 miles away from her fiance, Gillpatrick, who is serving a 55-to-90-year sentence for second-degree murder. The pair, who met in 1998, have come to accept they cannot marry in person. Instead, they want to wed via video conference, and they want an end to a prison policy that forbids Nebraska inmates from marrying each other except in “special circumstances.” Wetherell and Gillpatrick argue they have a “fundamental right to marry.” In June, U.S. District Judge Robert Rossiter ​affirmed​ that right. The case is now in appeal. But the legal precedent Rossiter cited has a quirky history that involves an infamous co-ed prison, an impromptu wedding, a soon-to-follow divorce and a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
The Marshall Project •

In an Apparent First, Genetic Genealogy Aids a Wrongful Conviction Case

It started as a way to trace family history. It evolved into a tool to help solve decades-old cold cases. Now, for apparently the first time, a genealogy database is expected to lead to charges being dropped against an Idaho man convicted in a decades-old rape and murder case. There is “clear and convincing evidence” that Christopher Tapp, who served 20 years in prison, was wrongfully convicted in the 1996 killing of 18-year-old Angie Dodge, Bonneville County Prosecutor Daniel Clark wrote in a court filing last week.
The New York Times •

Opinion | We Have the Resources to Prevent Cervical Cancer. Do We Have the Will?

PANAJACHEL, Guatemala — If someone had come to her community in western Guatemala sooner to offer cervical cancer screening, perhaps Micaela Yac Jeteya, 56, wouldn’t be fighting for her life. Now Yac Jeteya, a mother of six whose youngest son is 16, is suffering from a disease that is both very common and highly preventable. “Almost no one needs to die of cervical cancer,” said Dr. Kirsten Austad, the director of women’s health for the Maya Health Alliance, the organization that tested Yac Jeteya and is now trying to help her navigate treatment options. Yet, in 2018, cervical cancer killed more than 311,000 women — one woman every two minutes. More than 85 percent of those deaths were in low- and middle-income countries. During the same year, the World Health Organization estimates there were 570,000 new cases.
The New York Times •

Opinion | Where a Miracle Substance Called Breast Milk Saves Lives

CHICHALUM, Guatemala — Painted on the side of a health post in this rural town in Guatemala’s western highlands is a simple message: Breast-feeding is a lifelong gift. But around the world, breast milk is a gift that many children are given incorrectly or not given at all — and the results are devastating. Health scholars report that a child dies more than once a minute somewhere in the world for lack of proper breast-feeding. This isn’t the case in the United States, where debates about breast-feeding don’t normally involve child mortality. In rich countries where water is clean, a bottle is not lethal the way it sometimes is in poor countries.
The New York Times •

Opinion | Two Women, Divided by Opportunity

EXCHIMAL, Guatemala — When I was 15, I started to learn how to drive a car. When Olga Marina Mendoza Raymundo was 15, she got married. When I was 16, I took the SAT. When she was 16, Olga gave birth to her first child. And 10 months ago, as I was enjoying the beginning of my senior year of college, Olga was mourning the death of her husband. Now as I begin a journalism career, Olga is a 25-year-old widow, a single mother who works full-time farming crops and embroidering clothing, trying to make enough money to feed her three daughters. She wishes she could have made it beyond second grade and thinks an education would have opened up more opportunities for her. But that is a distant fantasy, a useless “what if” that she has little time for.
Cronkite News - Arizona PBS •

Focus on crime breeds misinformation about Venezuelans in Peru

LIMA, Peru — “Will anything be done against the Venezuelan criminals who enter Peru?” reads the Twitter post. “I have read hundreds of news stories where they are involved in big robberies and MURDERS. Where are the rights of the Peruvian? Will they continue to protect these criminals? WILL YOU DO SOMETHING?” “Venezuelan threatens a delivery man with a knife,” claims a Facebook video, and another on YouTube claims “VENEZUELA EXPORTS CRIMINALS AND SICKNESS.”Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram and even some traditional news sites are crowded with posts like these. They have different messages, styles and intensities but are unified by an underlying assertion: Venezuelan migrants are a threat to Peruvians.
Slate •

Would-Be Gig Worker With a Criminal Record? Good Luck Figuring Out if You Qualify.

In March, Chris C. was disqualified from driving for Uber. The reason? Two criminal convictions had been found in his most recent background check. The news confused Chris for a few reasons. For one, his convictions were relatively minor, one for a fake ID (officially, criminal possession of a forged instrument) and one for theft. For another, they happened nearly 20 years ago (specifically, in 1999, when he was 19) and had never disqualified him from other jobs.
Slate •

Is This What Prison Mail Looks Like Now?

When I think of the importance that contact with the outside world has for incarcerated people, I think of my uncle, who has been in and out of prisons in Arizona for most of my life. More specifically, I think of a letter he sent me a few days before I graduated from high school. “Thank you for the letter you wrote me. … It lifted my ‘spirit!’ ” he wrote in his characteristic block letters. “I’m sorry I won’t be able to come to your graduation but will be thinking of you & the family on your ‘Special Day’!” Even now, there’s something comforting about looking at the letter. There’s still a piece of folded-over tape at the bottom of the paper, a remnant of when I stuck it to the wall next to my bed in my freshman dorm. As I trace the indents of pen on paper where my uncle scrawled about release dates and Bible verses, I feel closer to him.
The Arizona State Press •

Charles Koch Foundation is spending big on an ASU criminal justice center. Why?

In July, ASU announced the Charles Koch Foundation had awarded a $6.5 million grant to fund the newly minted Academy for Justice, a research coalition based out of the University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. The Academy says the grant will help bridge the gap between academics and policymakers in order to promote positive change in the criminal justice system. But critics say it represents another attempt by one of the country's most prominent political donor networks to exert its influence.
Slate •

Here’s What We Can Learn From Disinformation in Mexico’s Recent Presidential Election

The details of the plans went like this: After the election, the government will take full control of the internet. It will establish a stringent schedule of times citizens will be allowed online and will restrict access to websites it considers harmful to society. According to the new rules, the feds will gain the power to remove any media they consider false, biased, or defamatory. In order to eliminate obesity, junk food will be prohibited, and each person will be given a monthly cap on the amount they spend on meals. No private sector employee is to make more than $800 per month. No individual will be allowed to own more than one car.
Slate •

Digital Sales Are Transforming Business Within Prisons

Many companies seek captive markets—those in which consumers have little choice, like food in a sports arena or cable access in a rural area. But the ultimate captive market is the U.S. criminal justice system, where consumers are captive in both an economic and a physical sense. Traditionally, private companies providing services in prisons have focused on food and personal items, as well as phone calls. These items are often priced at rates incarcerated consumers deem inaccessible—think $21 for a cheeseburger and wings, $31 for a hygiene essentials kit, or $15 for a 15-minute phone call (no small cost when you’re earning an hourly wage of between 33 cents and $1.41).
The Arizona State Press •

An ASU student's perspective on Mexico City's deadly earthquake

On Sept. 19, 2017, I was sitting at a table on the Tecnológico de Monterrey Ciudad de México campus reviewing a PowerPoint presentation I was supposed to give that evening. I was enjoying the sun and the low hum of conversations that flows through the halls and plazas of any college campus, which is surprisingly less distracting when it occurs in a language that’s not your own. And then, the world started to shake. When I decided to study abroad in Mexico City through an ASU exchange program, I never thought that while there, I would experience one of the deadliest earthquakes in the city’s history. But on that Tuesday afternoon, I did. And it changed my life.
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