Besides the drama that unfolds within its majestic walls, a courtroom can illuminate the justice system -- sometimes by a revealing slip of the tongue.

That is what happened on Wednesday in room 307 of the George N. Leighton Criminal Court Building, where Cook County Judge Maura Slattery Boyle was...

A 20-year fight for freedom by two Northwest Side Chicago men will culminate tomorrow in a hearing on allegations they were railroaded. And, at the center of the controversy is a little-known Chicago cop whose tactics resemble those of Jon Burge, the infamous South Side police commander.

Armando...

And, here's to the judges of Mississippi

Who wear the robe of honor as they crawl into the court
They're guarding all the bastions with their phony legal fort
Oh, justice is a stranger when the prisoners report
When the black man stands accused the trial...

As doctors fight to save the life of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, hospitalized with a "self-inflicted-style" gunshot wound, officials and pundits are calling for the federal government to finish the job.

"Throw the book at him," demanded Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. "I would...

The pregame ritual happened every spring between 1951 and 1956. I bounded down the stairs of my family's two-flat in the Gravesend neighborhood of Brooklyn, a leather mitt covering my left hand, and excitedly knocked on my grandparents' door. Ready to go, Pop?

My grandfather always seemed eager to...

Jonathan "Flip" Moore had already served almost a dozen years for murder when he suddenly got help from an unexpected source. Two cops with the same department that had arrested Moore began re-investigating his case in 2011 based on a tip from a confidential informant. Moore was innocent,...

Eric Caine was wary of man's best friend, but he took a job as a dog-walker in 2011 because he needed the money. Besides, work was hard to come by for a 45-year-old African-American just released from prison after 25 years -- even though he hadn't committed the crime. Caine...

In the spring of 1999, a French journalist was in Chicago to write about the latest death row exoneration and, as our lunch concluded, made a stunningly bold prediction. "Your country will abolish capital punishment in the next 25 years," she declared.

Laughing, I reminded her that public support...

As spring nears, it's time to talk baseball rather than injustice, though the two are intertwined when it comes to the Chicago Cubs. But I'm not going to use this space to whine about predictable Cubs issues, such as 104 years and counting or the latest rebuilding project.

No,...

"Dennis Williams, a former death-row inmate whose exoneration became a rallying cry for opponents of the death penalty in Illinois, died on Thursday at his home. He was 46. An autopsy has not yet been performed..." -- The New York Times: March 25, 2003

To outsiders a decade...

In light of the progress that's been made by the LGBT movement, it's hard to imagine that not too long ago an innocent woman could be convicted of murder because she was a lesbian. And, it's harder still to believe that it could happen in a progressive city like Madison,...

To loosely paraphrase Dorothy, sometimes there's no place like jail.

Ask Daniel Taylor, a Chicago teen arrested for disorderly conduct at 6:45 p.m. on Nov. 16, 1992 and taken to a police station lockup. Taylor, a 17-year-old who lived in the Uptown neighborhood on the North Side, remained in...

On a frigid February evening in 1999, I called home to check my messages. "Gov. Ryan just called you," my teenage son Ben claimed. I laughed at the seemingly obvious prank. "No, Dad, it really was the governor. I recognized his voice. He wants you to call him at home."

When the criminal justice system gets you in its grip, it does not let go easily. The screws can tighten harder for the innocent, as law enforcement loathes admitting its mistakes. Take the case of Stanley Wrice.

Convicted for his role in an interracial gang rape in 1982, Wrice claimed...

In the spirit of the holidays, Texas is taking a break from lethally injecting the residents of the Allan B. Polunksy Unit, better known as death row.

Executioners need time off, too, especially after a busy year that reduced the surplus population by 14 -- six executions...

Standing outside the barbwire fence of the Danville Correctional Center last Friday, Anthony Porter waited for a ride home. Hours passed on the bleak morning that marked November's end. Dragging on a cigarette, he watched as other prisoners were welcomed back to the free world.

Finally alone, just another...

For the fortunate among us, Thursday is a day to give thanks for the love of family and friends, the necessities of food and shelter, and the right to individual freedom and personal security.

Those less fortunate, however, are not necessarily less grateful. The opposite can be true, even for...

Tuesday, Nov. 6

The ring tone on his cell phone blared the '60s hit, "Hold On, I'm Comin'." Recognizing his girlfriend's number, Eric Caine anxiously took the call.

"It's OK," Tina reassured him. "You're on the voter rolls."

Caine breathed a sigh of relief. Having been denied the right to...

When I last wrote about Stanley Wrice, he was hoping to walk his daughter Gail down the aisle on Aug. 12. Hope does not come easily to a man serving a 100-year sentence for a gang rape back in 1982, but Wrice had seized the momentum in his...

Earlier today, an Oklahoma judge handed a 23-year-old African-American basketball player at Oklahoma State University two one-year suspended sentences for sexually assaulting a pair of Caucasian women at an off-campus party in 2010.

Darrell Williams, a Chicago native, was convicted in July by a Stillwater jury for thrusting...