Innholdsfortegnelse for Sep-01-14 i The New Yorker

JUDGMENT CALL Nicholas Schmidle’s investigative article on how the Chicago criminal-justice system could go horribly wrong paints a picture that many lawyers will recognize, no matter where they practice (“Crime Fiction,” August 4th). I spent years both as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney, and I am a founding member of the Georgia Innocence Project. I’m sadly familiar with the many causes of wrongful convictions. Reading Schmidle’s piece, I was troubled to learn that Tyrone Hood waived his right to a jury trial. There may have been a good reason—every case is unique—but it’s not often done. A judge feels political pressure, especially in a “heater” case like Hood’s. It’s usually better to depend on the collective wisdom of a panel of citizens, and that’s why many judges…

If there’s no need for movement, then no need for a brain, I’ve learned,a fact demonstrated by the sea squirt, a small creature that swimsfreely in its youth until it settles on a rock. Then it devours its own brain.And spinal cord. It simply doesn’t require them any longer.(God, don’t let me settle.) Need for movement leads to need for muscle.The brain evolves in order to plan and execute reaching, grasping,turning, according to the expert on Charlie Rose, which I watchon my iPad while walking on the treadmill to rebuild my strength.Plenty of species thrive without brains, he says. It could be differenton another planet, I suppose, but here evolution of the brain is about muscle.Just ask Arnold Schwarzenegger or an evolutionary biologist.Yet the brainless sea squirt still gets upset,…

Your little eyesbrake lights and gray furscrunched up beneaththe house Your huge balls andsmall hands Your see-through babies still alive in the dirt blinking your blind fruit jellies still alive Your frozen nose searching for yourbrothers and sisters I couldn’t hit you with a hammer Oh look you have a mother * Your whiskers in a storm Your pleasure center radio antennae checking the latest score Bumblebee marbles of shit Your ears folded over like paper airplanes covered in birch bark flying through heavy fog Your brain somewhere elsealtogether Singing late into the nightin the kitchen under the ruinedlinoleum Chasing the cat through the Comet Your legs ridea bicycle in your sleepuntil you stop * Your familycurled up in the cornereating themselvesin circles Your dreams rolled up inside the paper…