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OPINION: How John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle Helps Us Navigate Social Discord

Stephen Cooper

 

Rarely since the Great Depression has our country been as polarized and angry as it is today. On television, in newspapers, on social media, around the office water cooler, in line at the supermarket, even at the family dinner table, there is constant clashing and creating of divisions. […]

OPINION: Is the Alabama Department of Corrections hiding facts about execution

MONTGOMERY–Before Ronald Bert Smith’s corpse grew cold – following his patently botched execution by lethal injection on December 8, 2016 – authorities in Alabama launched a campaign of obfuscation and misinformation about what happened to him.

It began when Prison Commissioner Jeff Dunn, himself a witness to Smith’s execution, protested: “Early in the execution, […]

The Joy of Public Defense

When a zealous public defender acting as the effective lawyer guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment was handcuffed in a Las Vegas courtroom in May for doing her job – pleading for “some leniency” for her indigent client – I wrote in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Being a public defender is tough. It’s grinding, under-compensated, […]