Month: February 2016

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Juries are asked to consider whether a defendant committed a particular act; they’re not supposed to decide cases based on evidence suggesting a tendency to commit such acts. ‘Propensity’ evidence—which indicates that a defendant has done similar things on other occasions—is therefore usually inadmissible. ¶ So the jury wouldn’t hear about a shooting by [Chicago police officer Marco] Proano two years after he killed Niko Husband—a shooting that was captured on video. …. ¶ The rule about propensity evidence also applies to alleged victims, so the jury wouldn’t hear about Niko’s criminal record either.

Steve Bogira, “Can a lawsuit deliver justice after a fatal police shooting?”

Five years after @MayorEmanuel

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People ask why I didn’t continue @MayorEmanuel. Hell, the Chicago Tribune published an editorial when the account was shutting down begging for it to keep going. But what’s happening in Chicago right now isn’t funny. The idea of ridiculing the day-to-day work of trying to fix the city never appealed to me, and the way that reality has played out in the last five years has only born that instinct out.

Dan Sinker, “Legacies: Five Years after @MayorEmanuel”

Malcolm Pryce quote about Shrewsbury “sacred arenas”

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“The train slowed down at the approach to Shrewsbury station and glided between the eleventh-century Abbey and the stadium of Shrewsbury Town Football Club. Two sacred arenas where men chanted and waited for a miracle that never came.”

—Malcolm Pryce, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being In Aberystwyth