Pre-Apocalyptic Prison Paranoia
. . . But not everyone was spared. Like many prisoners, a man in the next cell block already had some issues with paranoia. On New Year's Eve, 1999, he became convinced somehow that Y2K would destroy all computer records - including prison records - and chaos would ensue. Someone fed his paranoia with a tale that if all society and laws break down, and anarchy takes their place, the government has a plan to execute all the prisoners with poison gas. Many prisoners are convinced that every governor has just such a plan hidden in his desk drawer. So the prisoner spent the night with a needle and thread sewing his lips and eyelids shut to keep the expected poison gas from penetrating. No one could figure out how he managed to stitch that second eyelid closed, but he did. . . .
Sex, Lies, and Videotape: Lessons from the Duke University Rape Case
. . . dded to that uproar were the tactics of a now disgraced and disbarred state prosecutor. Former Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong was more interested in throwing "gasoline on the fire," according to USA Today, than gathering evidence. He ignored the complete lack of evidence, not to mention the accuser's constantly changing story, and vowed to continue his prosecution even after the case fell apart. This prosecutor suppressed exculpatory evidence, hid it from defense lawyers, and held repeated news conferences to keep the momentum of judgment going in the court of public opinion. Co-opting some Duke faculty into pre-trial condemnation of the accused was a tactical advantage for prosecutor, Mike Nifong. The result was a trial-by-media that should sound hauntingly familiar to Catholics reeling from the Church's own sex scandal. . . .