Word: conviction
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...Ohio as elsewhere, cops and prosecutors attack the law as superfluous at best: judges and juries rarely convict people for attacking intruders, and similar statutes have been on the books for decades in many places. Texas, for example, has a lot of other laws that protect homeowners in similar situations, some on the books, some not. As Shannon Edmonds, a lobbyist for the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, put it: "There's an unwritten rule in Texas courthouses: It ain't against the law to kill a son of a bitch." Horn clearly thought the Castle Doctrine applied...
...decency is a big part of both candidates' "brands"? If so, swift-boating could backfire. But it never has before. And the most enthusiastic and skilled swift-boater so far--George Bush the Elder, who built his campaign against Michael Dukakis around the Pledge of Allegiance and a furloughed convict named Willie Horton--was also someone peddling decency as part of his official persona. History shows that any candidate who relies on the voters to punish a swift-boater is going to be disappointed. People tell pollsters they are sick of nasty politics, then they respond to it every time...
...While in Britain the poor starved, the colonists of Van Diemen's Land enjoyed plenty - kangaroo, oysters, wombat, echidna "stuffed with sage and onion." There was no money for prisons, so many convicts "simply wandered off to live a life of quiet freedom in the well-watered, game-rich bush". With absorbing detail and first-hand accounts, Boyce shows that while life in this new world was hard, it was, for many, better than what they'd left behind. One convict wrote of being "unaccountably indifferent" to the notion of returning home. Hunters, bushrangers and soldiers wore kangaroo and possum...
...That all changed in the 1820s. More free settlers arrived seeking their fortunes. As huge land grants were made, convicts and Aborigines were pushed further into the bush. Disgusted by the colony's convict "stain" and keen to reproduce the trappings of English society, the new élite soon had an ally in Lieutenant Governor George Arthur. "If my hands are strengthened," wrote Arthur in 1825, "I hope to make transportation a punishment which, at present, it certainly is not." His legacy would include chain gangs, the horrors of the Port Arthur prison settlement, and hundreds of hangings. Though...
...Those lives tended to be burdened by occupational hazards: dermatitis for lacquerers, mercury poisoning for gilders and exhaustion for manacled convict artisans, often worked into their graves. Convicts, it seems, had it even worse than slaves (who by some counts may have numbered as many as 1 million, or 2% of the total population, during the former Han dynasty) since slaves were considered valuable property and used mostly for light or clerical duties. One to six convict laborers, on the other hand, died each day at a typical large imperial worksite, building roads, opulent palaces and tombs, including the most...