Article:
Korn Lead Singer's Wife Dead at 39

 Deven Davis, Wife of Korn Lead Singer Jonathan Davis, Dead at 39

 EXCLUSIVE

 The wife of the lead singer of Korn has died Friday ... and it comes on the heels of a request for a domestic violence restraining order and major drug issues ... TMZ has learned.

 Deven Davis was the estranged wife of Jonathan Davis. Deven was a former porn star who married Jonathan in 2004. They had 2 kids together.

 Jonathan filed for divorce in October 2016, citing irreconcilable differences. Jonathan filed for a domestic violence restraining order today -- August 17, 2018. The judge issued a temporary order blocking any child custody or visitation by Deven. The restraining order also prohibits her from having contact with the family dog, Chaos.

 Our sources say Deven was unaware Jonathan filed the restraining order ... she had not even been served.

 Jonathan alleged in the docs Deven was deep into drugs -- something she had struggled with for more than 20 years. He alleged her drug use was causing emotional harm to the kids through neglect. He says in his court declaration she has been dependent on both prescription and illegal narcotics. She'd been to rehab 6 times and "is constantly under the influence of the nitrous oxide, cocaine and Norco."

 Jonathan claimed she had a drug dealer boyfriend who was recently passed out on her living room couch when he brought the kids to her house. Jonathan says he found a heroin pipe and cocaine floating in the toilet bowl and found Deven passed out on the floor upstairs.

 And there's this ... Jonathan claims when she binged on drugs she would "routinely bring home unsavory characters, including strangers. Some of these people are random fans of my music who she allows to come into the house, go into the master bedroom closet and try on my clothes."

 According to the docs, Deven had been in a sober home but went AWOL last Friday and hadn't been seen for a week.

 At this point we do not know the cause of death.

 Story developing ... ||||| Korn frontman Jonathan Davis’ estranged wife Deven Davis has died PEOPLE confirms. She was 39.

 “The Davis family is brokenhearted over the devastating loss of Deven Davis,” the family said in a statement to PEOPLE.

 “We ask that you respect their privacy — and the privacy of those close to the family — and allow them the space to mourn in private. We thank you for your love, understanding and prayers of support during this difficult time.”

 The 39-year-old former model’s cause of death has not yet been revealed, however, she reportedly suffered with sobriety and substance abuse throughout her life, according to TMZ.

 In 2016, Jonathan, 47, filed for divorce from Deven and on Friday filed for a domestic violence restraining order, the outlet reports.

 Jonathan was reportedly granted a temporary order, which prohibits Deven from visiting their two children or having any contact with the family’s dog.

 Jonathan and Deven Davis Stephen Lovekin/FilmMagic

 In the documents, obtained by TMZ, Jonathan claimed Deven has struggled with drug abuse for over 20 years.

 Jonathan alleged Deven was addicted to prescription and illegal narcotics and has been around their children while under the influence.

 He also claimed his estranged wife “is constantly under the influence of the nitrous oxide, cocaine and Norco,” according to TMZ.

 RELATED ARTICLE: Korn Singer Felled By Blood Illness

 Although Deven has battled addiction for many years, she was recently sober, but relapsed last Friday, Jonathan alleged in the documents, the outlet reports.

 Jonathan and Deven got married in Hawaii in 2004.

 They welcomed their first child together, Pirate in 2005. Jonathan and Deven had another child together in 2007 — a boy named Zeppelin.

 Before Deven, Jonathan was married to Renee Perez and they share son Nathan, 22.

 If you or someone you know is in need of help, please contact the SAMHSA substance abuse helpline at 1-800-662-HELP. |||||Summary:

– The wife of Korn lead singer Jonathan Davis died Friday—the same day Davis issued a domestic violence restraining order against her, People reports. "The Davis family is brokenhearted over the devastating loss of Deven Davis," says the family in a statement. "We ask that you respect their privacy." The cause of death is unknown, but TMZ reports that 39-year-old Deven had lifelong substance abuse problems and had gone to rehab six times. Jonathan, who had two children with the former porn star, doesn't hold back in his court declaration: Deven "is constantly under the influence of ... nitrous oxide, cocaine and Norco," the document reads. Jonathan adds that when she got high, she would "routinely bring home unsavory characters, including strangers. Some of these people are random fans of my music who she allows to come into the house, go into the master bedroom closet and try on my clothes." He also accuses her of having a drug-dealer boyfriend who was recently unconscious on her sofa when Jonathan brought over the kids. Jonathan, 47, had filed for divorce in 2016 and the pair remained estranged. Deven apparently went missing from a sober home last week and hadn't been in contact with Jonathan since. Sources tell TMZ she never even saw the restraining order.


Howard Klein talks to 24 Hour News 8 on July 21, 2015.

 GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Prosecutors have dropped the case against an 87-year-old man charged with soliciting a prostitute.

 Howard Klein was arrested for soliciting prostitution in the area of Leonard Street and Broadway Avenue NW in July.

 Police refused to discuss details of the case, but said it was part of a sting targeting prostitution that has plagued the West Side neighborhood.

 However, Klein denied trying to pick up a prostitute. He told 24 Hour News 8 he thought the woman standing near the street was a lady he’d seen at church.

 The Kent County Prosecutor’s Office told 24 Hour News 8 they had reviewed the case and decided to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors said that given his age and the fact that he had no prior criminal record, he did not seem to pose a danger to society.

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  ||||| GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The 87-year-old man police say was soliciting an undercover cop posing as a prostitute will not be prosecuted.

 "What would be the purpose in prosecuting him? " Kent County Prosecutor William Forsyth said Tuesday, Sept. 1. "He wouldn't and shouldn't go to jail and 87 years without involvement in the criminal justice system has, in my opinion, earned him a pass."

 Howard Arthur Klein, likely the oldest person ever charged with this crime, was arrested by Grand Rapids Police around 10 p.m. June 26, near Broadway Street NW and Leonard Avenue, not far from his home.

 Klein was arrested along with two other men and two women, the rest of whom were booked into the Kent County Jail. Klein was not taken into custody, due to his age, and was arraigned July 8.

 Related: 87-year-old man charged with soliciting a prostitute

 Klein allegedly claimed he thought the woman he approached was someone he knew from church.

 Klein faced a maximum of 93 days in the Kent County Jail if convicted.

 "I could see no compelling reason to continue to prosecute Mr. Klein on the ticket he was issued for accosting and soliciting," Forsyth said. "He is 87 years old with absolutely no criminal record. In addition, I am told he struggles to some degree with dementia."

 E-mail Barton Deiters: bdeiters@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/GRPBarton or Facebook at facebook.com/bartondeiters.5 ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video

 GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- An 87-year-old man was one of several people arrested in a prostitution sting in Grand Rapids in late June. Howard Arthur Klein was arrested in one of two operations by the Grand Rapids Police Department.

 GRPD said they conducted the stings in the area of Leonard Street and Broadway Avenue SW and S. Division Avenue between downtown Grand Rapids and Alger Street SE.

 Tia Booth, 32, and Tammy Glautney, 45, were arrested for prostitution . Police said Booth pleaded guilty to solicitation of an illegal act, and Gaultney was arraigned for solicitation of prostitution.

 Police said two female detectives posed as decoys during the second part of the operation. Three people were arrested, including Paul Alan Leys, 35, Felipe Reuben Manuel, 22, and Klein.

 Leys was arrested for indecent exposure, while both Manuel and Klein were arrested and arraigned for solicitation of prostitution. Due to Klein's age, police cited the man instead of taking him into custody. |||||

Write a summary.

– Howard Arthur Klein lived 87 years without so much as a blot on his criminal record. In truth, the elderly Michigan man didn't have a record at all until a night in June when he was nabbed in a sting, accused of soliciting a prostitute who was actually an undercover cop. But it seems all will be forgotten as a Kent County prosecutor has decided to throw out his case. "He is 87 years old with absolutely no criminal record. In addition, I am told he struggles to some degree with dementia," he tells Michigan Live. "He wouldn't and shouldn't go to jail and 87 years without involvement in the criminal justice system has, in my opinion, earned him a pass." Two accused prostitutes, aged 32 and 45, and two other males arrested alongside Klein in the June sting in Grand Rapids were booked into the Kent County Jail, but Klein was allowed to go free because of his age, reports Fox 17. He was arraigned on July 8 and faced 93 days in jail if convicted. Klein, who MLive reports is "likely the oldest person ever charged with this crime," has denied any wrongdoing. He tells WOOD-TV he simply thought the woman he approached on a street was someone he knew from his church.


Here is a news article: GoFundMe has verified that the funds raised will go directly to the intended recipient.

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 How does the pro-rated refund/change get calculated? For weekly meal plans, there will be a charge for the number of days enrolled in the plan that is being terminated, and a credit for the number of days elapsed before enrolling in the new plan. For Block Plans, there will be a charge for the meals eaten in the Block Plan being terminated. If you are enrolling in a Block Plan after the beginning of a semester, you will be charged for the full set of meals in the Block Plan.

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 Rates are per semester

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 For more detailed information, please visit the website for Georgetown Student Living. ||||| Seth Owen endured "conversion therapy" and homelessness to rise to the top of the class. Now he needs some help with his college tuition.

 After a year of "conversion therapy" that attempted to turn him straight, Seth Owen was told by his parents he could either continue the counseling or move out of their home. After choosing the latter, Owen walked across his high school stage in Jacksonville, Fla., as co-valedictorian, and he is currently trying to raise funds through a GoFundMe page to attend Georgetown University.

 The 18-year-old’s devoutly religious parents discovered he was gay after finding a picture on his phone. Their response was to force him to attend their church, which held anti-LGBT views, while he attended counseling intended to alter his sexual orientation.

 “They made it clear the intention was to make me straight,” Owen told Jacksonville TV station WCWJ. “[That]was their end goal.”

 Despite being technically homeless and crashing with friends, Owen maintained at 4.16 GPA and “[walked] across the stage in a Jacksonville arena weighed down by more cords and medals to count," according to biology teacher Jane Martin, reports Towleroad.

 Martin was the same teacher who started the GoFundMe campaign, and reiterates that she had a close relationship with the valedictorian. According to her message on the campaign’s page, he was ringbearer at her wedding.

 Tuition at Georgetown is $77,000, and the original financial aid package Owen received was based on the premise that he would be financially supported by his parents, which means that the package wouldn’t have been generous enough for Owen to attend in the fall.

 After appealing to the university with letters from mental health professionals, school personnel, mentors, and community organizers, Georgetown refused to amend his financial aid package, which left Owen with a $22,000 tuition bill for his first year.

 “Georgetown University admits and enrolls students without regard to their financial circumstances and is committed to meeting the demonstrated financial need of eligible students through a combination of aid programs that include grants, scholarships, employment and loans from federal, state, private, and University resources," a spokesperson from Georgetown told The Advocate. "While we cannot comment on any individual case, we work closely with students whose financial circumstances change after admission to modify financial aid assistance and ensure they can still enroll regardless of their ability to pay.”

 However, the GoFundMe page has already accumulated over $30,000, which means that Owen will be be covered for his first year.

 Owen plans on paying off his debt one day by becoming a defense attorney for teens, according to WCWJ. ||||| JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Thousands of teens will leave the familiar life of high school and family next month to head off to college. But 18-year-old Seth Owen separated from his family months ago has been living on his own because he is gay and his religious beliefs didn't agree with his parents.

 Owen said he too is college bound, and he's determined to become successful with or without anyone's acceptance of his lifestyle. Owen is optimistic about the future and ready for new experiences.

 He said he has survived with the help of friends, his reality is far too common for LGBTQ teens.

 His lesson in adversity began in his sophomore year of high school.

 "I was writing a paper one night and my dad decided to check my phone," Owen said. "He was searching for quite a few hours and found a photo that clearly showed that I was gay and questioned me for quite a few hours that night."

 Days later, Owen said his parents sent him to counseling.

 "They made it clear the intention was to make me straight. (That) was their end goal."

 That end goal failed and Owen lived in his truth, that he is gay.

 Seth continued to live with his parents for a couple years, staying busy will three jobs, after school programs, dual enrollment classes and swimming.

 "I guess you could say it was easier to try to avoid home. I felt like I was doing something good with the struggle instead of doing something damaging," Owen said.

 But Owen and his parents would reach a breaking point.

 The pastor at his parents' church had strong opinions about women's place in society and the LGBTQ community -- opinions that Owen couldn't abide. He asked his parents to send him to a different church, but they said no.

 "Either go to church or you can move out," Owen quoted his parents telling him. "I called a mentor. I said, I can't do this. I went back in and asked, "Is there any way that we can compromise,' and my dad said no."

 He moved out in February of this year -- two-thirds of the way through his senior year.

 "I was really, really upset," Owen said. "It was extremely hurtful to know that I was walking out that door not knowing what lay ahead and feeling I don't know how to explain it it was devastating, absolutely devastating."

 Owen was homeless, sleeping on friends' couches and find support through his mentors.

 Despite the challenges, Owen maintained a 4.16 GPA and became co-valedictorian of his First Coast High School's class of 2018.

 Seth story is not unique, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Bullying and assault are common for LGBTQ teens who come out. One study published on the CDC website shows 30 percent of LGBTQ teens consider suicide, compared to 6 percent for heterosexual teens.

 Owen, by contrast, is looking forward to the future. He was accepted to Georgetown University, but that is its own challenge.

 Tuition is $77,000 annually. Owen was awarded about $50,000 in scholarships, but has no one to help make up the difference or sign a student loan.

 One of Owen's former teachers created a GoFundMe account. Within five weeks, more than 300 people donated and the total has surpassed $25,000.

 "I don't think thank you is good enough," Owen said. "Of course I am extremely grateful, but I think thank you doesn't say it. Now it's time to pay it forward."

 He has already decided he will pay it forward by becoming a defense attorney for teen criminals. Owen says they too have been neglected and need more help. Owen leaves for Georgetown Aug. 22.

 Copyright 2018 by WJXT News4Jax - All rights reserved. ||||| / Updated By Alexander Kacala

 Seth Owen, 18, said attending college has always been his “life goal,” one he has been working on diligently since elementary school.

 “I was the nerd in fifth grade who walked around recess talking about how I wanted to be an astronaut,” Owen told NBC News. “I was always in a textbook, always in the library, always reading something.”

 Seth Owen, left, and his swimming coach, Kaylee Petik, on graduation day Courtesy Seth Owen

 With a 4.61 GPA and an acceptance letter from Georgetown University, it seemed like the high school valedictorian’s dream would become a reality. But when he received his financial aid package from the prestigious school, a different reality set in: The financial aid package had been determined based on the expected contribution of his family, a family he said drove him out of his home due to his sexuality.

 “I started to cry, because I realized there was no way that I could go to college,” he said. “Georgetown was my only option, because I had already denied my other acceptances.”

 With Georgetown refusing to amend his financial aid package and $20,000 needed for his first year’s tuition, the Florida teen thought his situation was hopeless. But then his former biology teacher stepped in.

 “Seth was just a kid that really stood out to me,” the teacher, Jane Martin, told NBC News. “He was super ambitious and was always trying to go above and beyond to make sure he could be as successful as possible.”

 Martin set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for Owen’s tuition, hoping to “make the impossible possible,” and she succeeded. As of Tuesday afternoon, the fundraising page raised over $50,000 — more than double its initial $20,000 goal.

 “AWKWARD CONVERSION THERAPY”

 Trouble at home began for Owen during his sophomore year of high school, when his Southern Baptist parents discovered he was gay.

 “I was writing a paper, and my dad decided to check my phone late in the evening,” Owen recalled. “He found a damning photograph of me and another guy. Nothing inappropriate, but it clearly indicated that I was gay.”

 Owen said his dad informed his mother of the discovery, and the two questioned him about his sexuality until 4:30 a.m.

 “Soon after, they sent me to a Christian counselor,” he said. “It was clear that their intent was for me to walk out of therapy straight.”

 “It was not like a conversion camp, but it was definitely awkward conversion therapy where they tried encouraging stereotypical masculine tasks and things like that,” Owen added. He said he participated in the Christian therapy program for a “few months” before eventually convincing his parents to let him stop.

 Conversion therapy, also known as "reparative therapy" or "ex-gay therapy," aims to change one’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Despite widespread opposition from health associations, like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, approximately 700,000 LGBTQ Americans between the ages of 18 and 59 have been subjected to this practice at some point in their lives, according to a 2018 report from UCLA’s Williams Institute. The report also estimates tens of thousands of LGBTQ youth currently between the ages of 13 and 17 will undergo “gay conversion therapy" before they turn 18.

 Seth Owen, left, was on the swim team at First Coast High School in Jacksonville, Florida. Courtesy Seth Owen

 On February 11, two-thirds of the way through his senior year, Owen said he left his parents’ home for his own well-being.

 “I started bringing up my disagreements with the church that they attend. I mean, there was just incident after incident,” Owen said. “They talked very negatively about the LGBTQ+ community. They said that gay people would not serve in the church. Then they were talking about transgender people as though they weren't human, and that really, really bothered me.”

 Owens said he tried to convince his parents to let him attend a different church, but they refused. They then gave him an ultimatum: attend their church or move out.

 “The worst part was I was packing my bags, and I was walking out the door, and I was hoping that my mom would stand in my way. I was hoping that she would say ‘I love my child more than I love my religion.’”

 Just a few weeks after leaving his parents’ home — when he was sleeping on friends’ couches and thought things couldn’t get any worse — Owen received his financial aid package and tuition total from Georgetown.

 “I was just devastated once again,” he said of realizing his college dream was in jeopardy.

 “YOU ARE NOT ALONE”

 When Jane Martin, who taught Owen freshman biology and served as his mentor throughout high school, found out about his situation, she met with other teachers and students to figure out a way they could help him.

 “We know that he's not the type of person to always say, ‘I need help.’ He tries to be very solution-oriented and deal with things on his own,” Martin said about Owen. “We just got to the point where we came together and said, ‘This is something where we need to take the lead, and make sure that he gets what he needs”

 Seth Owen Courtesy Seth Owen

 Martin set up a fundraising page for Owen’s tuition on GoFundMe, with a goal of raising $20,000.

 “I know the goal seems unrealistic and the circumstances aren’t ideal, but I also know communities can make the impossible possible,” Martin wrote in her GoFundMe plea.

 Six weeks and more than 750 donations later, the fundraising page surpassed $50,000.

 “After we had hit $2,000, Seth was just like, ‘I'm so surprised that people, like, actually care about me,’” Martin recalled.

 “He has had so much support and so many people reach out and say ‘You're not alone,’ and ‘It gets better,’ all of the things that we all need to hear when we're queer teenagers and are suffering,” Martin, who is also gay, added. “I'm just excited for him to have this community literally come around and put all of our arms together and bring him up and raise him up for the first time.”

 If Georgetown does end up readjusting Owen’s financial aid package, which Owen and Martin are still hoping for, they plan on using the donations to create a scholarship fund for other teens facing a situation similar to Owen’s.

 A spokesperson from Georgetown told NBC News the university “admits and enrolls students without regard to their financial circumstances and is committed to meeting the demonstrated financial need of eligible students.”

 "While we cannot comment on any individual case, we work closely with students whose financial circumstances change after admission to modify financial aid assistance and ensure they can still enroll regardless of their ability to pay,” the spokesperson added.

 CLASS OF 2022

 Owen said he hopes his story inspires others to talk more openly and honestly about the adversity they’re facing.

 “I remember growing up and saying I had really strict religious parents, and people would brush it off,” Owen explained. “If someone were to say that to me today, I would sit down, and I would ask them, ‘What's going on? What's going on at home? What's happening? What kind of messages are being preached in your church?’”

 When asked what he would say to his sophomore self or other teens facing similar issues at home, he said, “I would tell that sophomore kid to hold their head high, roll their shoulders back and be exactly who they are.”

 “It’s difficult to be who you genuinely are when you have all this pressure around you from all these different people in your life,” he added, “but if you become comfortable with who you are, you're that much more equipped to face these difficult times.”

 Owen plans to move to Washington, D.C., next month to join Georgetown University's Class of 2022.

 Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Owen's GPA was 4.16: It was 4.61.

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A summary of this is?

– Seth Owen was over the moon when he received what appeared to be the path to his "life goal" of going to college: an acceptance letter from Georgetown University. But the Florida 18-year-old, who was the co-valedictorian of his senior class, had his hopes dashed when he later received his financial aid package from Georgetown, which had been based on the expected contribution from his family. The problem: He's estranged from his Southern Baptist parents, and was essentially forced out of his home, because he's gay, NBC News reports. Owen says his parents found out he was gay when he was a sophomore, made him go to Christian-based conversion therapy, and eventually told him he had to keep going to their church—which Owen says bashed the LGBT community—or leave. And so in February, he did, crashing with friends instead. He says he was "devastated" when he realized he couldn't afford the tuition for his first year at Georgetown—annual tuition and fees comes to around $70,000, and Owen would have to pay about $22,000 of that, per the Advocate—let alone for all four years. Enter Jane Martin, Owen's former bio teacher, who says Owen always "stood out to me." Martin, who's also gay, set up a GoFundMe for her ex-student, who also served as the ring bearer in her wedding. She explained she wanted to "help … bring a rainbow in the midst of Seth's storm" and "make the impossible possible." The GoFundMe has so far raised more than $82,000—and if Georgetown eventually acquiesces and adjusts Owen's financial aid package, Martin and Owen say they'll use leftover donations to set up a scholarship fund for other gay teens. Owen plans on studying to become a criminal defense lawyer for teens, per WJXT.


Write a summary based on this article:

GREENSBURG, Ind. -- A mom who has been behind bars since 1996 accused of murdering her toddler son in an arson fire, walked free from jail Wednesday after new evidence was presented that led a court to grant her a new trial.

 A sheriff led Kristine Bunch, wearing a new dress and black patent leather shoes and carrying her prison clothes in a Wal-Mart bag, out the door of the jail. He let go of her arm and then said quietly: "You're free."

 Bunch, 38, turned down the sidewalk and went straight to her mother, Susan Hubbard. They had a long embrace.

 Next in line for Bunch was her son, 16-year-old Trenton, who had never visited his mother outside of prison, who has never slept under the same roof with her except for his very first night. Bunch went back to the Indiana Women's Prison the day after giving birth at a local hospital.

 Authorities say Bunch set fire to her mobile home in a blaze that killed her 3-year-old son, Tony.

 Bunch, then 22, was sentenced to 60 years. But on Wednesday, at 38, she was released, pending a new trial that was granted in March by the Indiana Court of Appeals.

 The Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law took up Bunch's case in 2007 and was joined in the cause by Chicago attorney Ron Safer, whose Schiff Hardin firm worked on the case at no cost. In 2009, they presented new evidence to the appeals court based, in part, on technological advances in fire investigations.

 The new evidence, Safer said, made it impossible for the fire to have happened the way the state alleged, that some test results the state provided were simply incorrect. In actuality, tests showed that he died of carbon monoxide poisoning, Safer said. Had the fire been set with an accelerant in the manner prosecutors alleged, he would have died from burns.

 On Wednesday, Senior Circuit Judge W. Michael Wilke, based on the fact that Bunch's family put up bond money for her in 1996, said the words she and her family had waited 16 years to hear: "The defendant will be released from the Department of Corrections."

 Decatur County prosecutors were unavailable for comment. Bunch has a court appearance next week. But, Safer said, "Today she is a free woman, and we are determined to make sure that she has spent her last day behind bars."

 Bunch said she was initially in a state of shock upon being sentenced to 60 years for arson and the murder of her son. She likened it to a bad dream that wouldn't end. Upon her release, Bunch was joyful but expressed no bitterness over a conviction she has always maintained was a mistake.

 "I haven't been by myself," she said. "I had a family that stood by me. I had people that believed in me and stepped up. And you can't receive blessings like that and be bitter."

 While in prison, Bunch said she took part in Kairos prison ministry and became a Catholic. She earned undergraduate degrees in English and anthropology from Ball State University. And now she has dreams of going to law school, focusing on criminal law and joining a wrongful conviction team.

 "I want to give back. I've been very blessed," she said. "One day I want to fight for others because others fought for me."

 First, Bunch said she wants to get reacquainted with her family.

 Trenton already has a long list of things he wants to do with his mom.

 He wants to take a trip to the zoo, go to a concert, have her watch him run track in the spring if he makes the team.

 "I want to do the stuff that I should have been able to do a long time ago," he said, "and never got to do."

 Initially, though, Trenton may have to help his mother navigate her 16-year time warp. When she was last free, cellphones were the size of shoeboxes, and she was amazed at the tiny devices her friends and her legal team were toting, that half the courtroom had to cough up at the judge's order before her hearing began.

 And then there's the Internet -- she's heard about it but never seen it. There's no access in the prison.

 "My son said I'm going to teach you how to Facebook," she said, "and we're going to look at the Internet."

 But Bunch also relishes the idea of much simpler pleasures. She wants to watch her son sleep.

 "I've never gotten to see my son sleep except for little naps when he would come visit me," she said. "I want to be able to bounce in his room all night and look at him while he's asleep." ||||| Women's Project

 Featured article by Emily Halter, CWC alum and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law 2018 graduate

 "While some programs exist in the United States, for the most part, there are few avenues of support for incarcerated mothers. This Comment explores the possibilities currently available to incarcerated mothers, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right to parent and that right should be extended to incarcerated mothers."

 Center on Wrongful Convictions Spring Symposium

 Celebrating the Fifth Anniversary of the Women's Project

 March 16, 2018, 1:00-4:45 P.M.

 Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Thorne Auditorium

 Reception immediately following in Thorne Lobby

 Kerry Masterson Exonerated!

 On November 2, 2017, Kerry Masterson was found not guilty after a second jury trial. Kerry was represented at her retrial by the Center on Wrongful Convictions and Neal Gerber Eisenberg. Read more about Kerry's case here. Read our press release here. Media coverage here and here.

 Tyra Patterson may be home by Christmas. Due to the efforts of her many supporters, the Ohio Parole Board granted Ms. Patterson an early parole hearing in July 2017. News that she was granted parole came October 24, 2017. The Women's Project was honored to send a letter in support of Ms. Patterson to Govenor John Kasich in 2015. Congratulations, Tyra!

 Podcasts featuring CWC exoneree Kristine Bunch

 CWC exoneree Kristine Bunch is a tireless advocate for justice. In many different settings she has told the painful story of her wrongful conviction for the accidental death of her son - always with the objective of shedding light on the issues of false forensic science and serious flaws in the criminal justice system. Here are some recent podcasts featuring Kristine:

 Everyday Law podcast

 Actual Innocence podcast

 Court Junkie podcast part I

 Court Junkie podcast part II

 Women's Project files amicus brief in Minnesota Supreme Court

 The CWC Women's Project has filed an amicus brief in the Minnesota Supreme Court on behalf of Danna Back, a woman wrongfully convicted of second degree manslaughter. The actual perpetrator was an acquaintance of Ms. Back, and the high court overturned her conviction after holding she was not legally responsible for the perpetrator's actions. State prosecutors are nonetheless attempting to block her bid for compensation for the years she spent in prison. The Innocence Network has also filed an amicus brief in support of Ms. Back.

 Amanda Knox tackles women and false confessions

 We highly recommend this article by exoneree Amanda Knox, making the case for more research on how women experience interrogation tactics. The article quotes Women's Project Co-Director Judy Royal and cites an article by CWC attorneys Andrea Lewis and Sara Sommervold on the role of stereotypes in the wrongful conviction of women.

 Women's Project screens San Antonio Four documentary

 On September 29, 2016, the Women's Project hosted a screening of Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four. The San Antonio Four are Kristie Mayhugh, Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassandra Rivera and Anna Vasquez, four Latina lesbians wrongfully convicted in 1997 sexually abusing two children. Their attorney, Mike Ware, began the program by discussing the recently passed Texas junk science law that helped free them. Following the film screening, these inspiring women discussed their experience and their continuing efforts to clear their names and answered questions from the audience. Event page Facebook photo album

 Women's Project Featured in Mother Jones Magazine

 The attorneys of the Women’s Project, and Center on Wrongful Convictions client Kristine Bunch, are featured in an in-depth article by Molly Redden in the current issue of Mother Jones. The article discusses Kristine’s case, the reasons behind the formation of the Women’s Project, and some of the unique characteristics of Women’s Project cases. Andrea Lewis, Kristine Bunch, and Karen Daniel were interviewed on August 5, 2015, on HuffPost Live #FreeSpeechZone.

 Why Women's Cases Are Different

 Innocent women accused of heinous crimes face extraordinary challenges. In many cases, they are suspected of harming their children or other loved ones. As a result, when under investigation, they may be coping with deep personal loss, rendering them especially vulnerable to high-pressure interrogation tactics that can lead to false confessions or seemingly inculpatory statements. When women—traditionally viewed as nurturers and protectors—are accused of murdering or sexually abusing children, they are particularly reviled by society, including, of course, police, prosecutors, judges, jurors, and witnesses. 40% of female exonerees were convicted harming children or loved ones in their care.

 In cases in which no crime has occurred—such as accidental or natural deaths that are mistaken for homicides—the evidence is often entirely circumstantial. DNA evidence, the gold standard for exonerating the innocent, has been central to less than 3% of women's exonerations (compared to 22% of men's exonerations). In circumstantial cases, other types of forensic evidence may play an unusually large role, yet the evidence may be erroneous. More than a third of exonerated women's cases involved flawed or misleading forensic evidence. Two-thirds of female exonerees were convicted in cases in which no crime occurred.

 *Statistics on this webpage are derived from the National Registry of Exonerations and are reasonably current but may not be fully up to date. ||||| Center on Wrongful Convictions

 CWC client Tommy Ward featured in The Innocent Man, premiering on Netflix December 14, 2018

 The Innocent Man Netflix series includes the story of the Center on Wrongful Convictions’ client Tommy Ward. Tommy was convicted and sentenced to death in 1985 because of a false confession and official misconduct. The CWC, along with Oklahoma licensed attorney Mark Barret, continue to fight for Tommy in his post-conviction proceedings before a district court in Oklahoma.

 Learn more about Tommy's case

 CWC Client Marcel Brown Exonerated!

 On July 18, 2018, prosecutors dismissed first degree murder charges against CWC client Marcel Brown, who had served 10 years in prison, since the age of 18. More details to follow, but here is a clip of Marcel walking free from the Cook County IL criminal courthouse with his CWC attorneys and family members:

 Marcel Brown release clip

 Wrongful Conviction podcast featuring CWC exoneree Jason Strong

 Corey Batchelor and codefendant Kevin Bailey Exonerated!

 On January 30, 2018, murder charges were dismissed against Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth client Corey Batchelor and his codefendant Kevin Bailey, who maintained they were physically coerced into falsely confessing to a 1989 murder. Media coverage here and here.

 CWC Client Gabriel Solache Exonerated!

 On December 21, 2017, murder and kidnapping charges were dismissed against CWC client Gabriel Solache, a former death row inmate, and his codefendant Arturo Reyes - both of whom had been behind bars for nearly 20 years. The dismissals followed lengthy post-conviction proceedings during which a Cook County Circuit Court judge found credible evidence that former Chicago detective Reynaldo Guevara had engaged in a pattern and practice of misconduct, and further that Guevara lied in court and could not be considered credible in any proceeding. Media coverage here and here.

 CWC Client Raymond McCann II Exonerated!

 On December 7, 2017, prosecutors dismissed perjury charges against Raymond McCann II, who had been wrongly suspected of murdering a young girl in Michigan in 2007, and then wrongly convicted of perjury in 2015 for statements he made during the murder investigation. McCann was represented in post-conviction proceedings by the Center on Wrongful Convictions and the Michigan Innocence Clinic. Read more about McCann's case here. Read our press release here.

 CWC Client Kerry Masterson Exonerated!

 On November 2, 2017, Kerry Masterson was found not guilty after a second jury trial. Kerry was represented at her retrial by the Center on Wrongful Convictions and Neal Gerber Eisenberg. Read more about Kerry's case here. Read our press release here. Media coverage here and here.

 How Dana Holland Became the Country's First Double Exoneree

 The CWC weighs in: Is Chicago really the 'False Confession Capital'?

 CWC Director Karen Daniel's podcast interview on eyewitness identification evidence

 "Exonerated" film

 "Exonerated" vividly captures six of our clients' experiences before and after their exonerations. We gratefully thank photographer Andy Goodwin for creating this film, and we congratulate him for winning Best In Show at The Midwest Independent Film Festival.

 Charles Johnson exonerated!

 CWC client Charles Johnson was granted a new trial on July 11, 2016, based on fingerprint evidence discovered after trial pointing to an alternative suspect. On February 15, 2017, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office dropped all charges against Charles and his coodefendants Larod Styles, LaShawn Ezell, and Troshawn McCoy, all of whom were only teenagers when they falsely confessed to a 1995 double murder. More...

 CWC Director Karen Daniel discusses wrongful convictions on the Undisclosed podcast

 The friendship of two CWC clients is front-page news

 Dana Holland and Christopher Coleman shared more than a cell in prison; they shared claims of innocence and dreams of freedom. Eventually, they also shared an attorney: Karen Daniel, now Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions. Chicago Tribune investigative reporter Steve Mills details their friendship and their eventual exonerations, a decade apart, in this incredible story: Innocent prisoners jailed in same cell forge friendship, and freedom.

 Jane Beber Abramson Award

 Thanks to the generosity of the family of the late Jane Beber Abramson, the Center on Wrongful Convictions is able to specially recognize one or more individuals every year "for extraordinary dedication to pursuing justice for the wrongly convicted." The award winners to date are:

 2008: Judy Royal and Ron Safer

 2009: Marian Tomlinson

 2010: Gary Elden and Phyllis Mandler

 2011: James Kaplan

 2012: Amy Kaplan

 2013: Amy Berg, Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, Peter Jackson, David McMahon, and Fran Walsh

 2014: Mararet Soffin and Susan Swanson

 2015: Michael Sklar

 2016: Esther Hernandez

 2017: Laura Caldwell and Joey Mogul

 2018: Kristine Bunch and Juan Rivera

 Thomas P. Sullivan Justice Award:

 2018: Stephen B. Bright

 Center on Wrongful Convictions Lifetime Achievement Award:

 2018: Thomas F. Geraghty

 In Memoriam: Our Beloved Jane Raley

 It is with the greatest sadness that we announce the passing of Co-Director Jane Raley, a member of our legal staff since 2000 and truly the heart of the Center on Wrongful Convictions. She died peacefully at home on Christmas morning 2014, surrounded by her loving family.

 The cause of criminal justice lost one of our greatest and most compassionate warriors. Jane was an incredible lawyer, a tenacious advocate for her clients, a revered mentor of law students and young lawyers, and an exceptionally loving and caring person. All who knew her will miss her beyond measure. Many innocent men and women are free from their convictions due to Jane’s work, and many young lawyers are out doing good in the world—and understand the good that attorneys can accomplish—due to Jane’s magnificent example during her 14 years as a law professor at Northwestern University School of Law.

 A sampling of online tributes to Jane:

 Rest in peace, our dear Jane. ||||| In the early morning hours of June 30, 1995, a fire sparked to life in Kristine Bunch's mobile home. It fanned out across the floor and climbed up the walls, then formed an impassable barrier across the middle of the trailer. Bunch, 21, snapped awake in the living room. Her three-year-old son, Tony, shrieked for her on the other side of the flames.

 Bunch staggered outside and howled for a neighbor. She bashed Tony's window with a tricycle. As the flames lashed 30 feet into the dawn sky, a fire engine tore up to the house. A firefighter, crawling on his belly, found Tony's charred body in the bedroom.

 Bunch told police she had no idea what caused the fire. Soon, though, arson investigators determined that a liquid accelerant such as kerosene or lighter fluid had been poured in Tony's bedroom and the living room. Police arrested Bunch on charges of arson and felony murder. Eight months later, Bunch went on trial. By then, she was 22 and unexpectedly pregnant with a second child. The evidence against her seemed overwhelming. Two arson investigators gave compelling testimony for the prosecution, and the jury took only a few hours to convict her on both counts.

 At sentencing, Bunch recalled, the judge sneered down at her belly.

 "I understand that you have arranged to have yourself impregnated," he said. "You thought it would work to your advantage somehow in this process. It will not. You will not raise that child."

 The judge gave her the maximum sentence: 60 years.

 Karen Daniel and Judy Royal are obsessed with people like Bunch.

 During their nearly 30 combined years at the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Law School, the two lawyers have helped exonerate more than two dozen people once found guilty of horrendous crimes. Most of the people they have freed are men; just four are women. And for a long time, Daniel and Royal thought that disparity made perfect sense. Men are convicted of crimes, especially violent crimes, at much higher rates than are women. So it follows that most people exonerated of crimes are also men: The National Registry of Exonerations, a University of Michigan Law School database that has cataloged information on more than 1,600 exonerations nationwide since 1989, includes just 148 women.

 About three years ago, however, Daniel and Royal began to question whether that number was too low. Women make up about 11 percent of the people convicted of violent crimes, but just 6 percent of those exonerated of violent crimes. At the urging of a former client, Julie Rea Harper—who spent four years in prison for the murder of her son before a serial killer confessed to the crime—Daniel and Royal decided to try to figure out if there was anything that set exonerated women apart.

 They started by looking at the few women whose cases they had worked on themselves. "I haven't had any men's cases that looked like these four cases," Daniel recalls thinking. "Could that really be a coincidence?"

 After three years of pursuing that question, Daniel and Royal have concluded that most innocence projects—including their own legal clinic—are failing to bring justice to wrongly convicted women. They have identified factors that make female clients more difficult to exonerate, and uncovered startling facts that distinguish the cases of wrongly convicted women from those of men. And they have launched a project that could change how the American innocence movement helps these women get justice.

 Daniel and Royal started by digging deep into the exonerations database. Their first insight had to do with DNA evidence—the very breakthrough that launched the innocence movement a quarter century ago. "Women tend not to be convicted of the types of crimes that can be overturned based on the results of DNA testing," Daniel explained. Men perpetrate the overwhelming majority of rapes and murders of strangers. These crimes are much more likely to leave behind DNA evidence that can rule out an innocent suspect, or point to the real rapist or killer.

 But when women kill, they usually kill someone close to them. And in most of those cases, DNA isn't relevant. When a woman is suspected of killing her husband or her child, investigators are likely to find her DNA all over the crime scene whether she's guilty or innocent—so DNA testing can do little to exonerate her. Sure enough, 27 percent of the men in the exonerations registry were freed using DNA evidence. The same was true of only 7.6 percent of the women.

 Yet many exoneration projects, including the original Innocence Project founded in 1992, only work with convicts who can be absolved through DNA. Because courts consider DNA tests definitive and trustworthy, genetic evidence is often the most effective way to overturn a wrongful conviction. Innocence projects have tended to avoid cases in which the offender knew the victim, because it can be hard to disentangle what happened in a domestic crime. In some cases, Daniel said, "you almost have to look into that person's brain to know what happened." About half the women in the registry went to prison for harming someone in their care.

 But reliance on DNA and aversion to domestic cases weren't the only hurdles for wrongly convicted women. In a whopping 63 percent of the women's cases, Daniel and Royal realized, it turned out that there was never a crime to begin with—the death was actually a suicide or an accident. That was true in only 21 percent of the men's cases.

 This was a critical discovery. The tools innocence projects rely on are designed to solve crimes. When DNA evidence isn't available, innocence investigators may seek to establish alibis, interview witnesses overlooked by police, undermine mistaken witness identifications, or track down alternative suspects with a history of similar crimes. Attorneys have a much easier time getting a wrongful conviction reopened when they can point to the real culprit.

 Yet if a woman is wrongly convicted for an accident that kills her child, there is no crime to solve, no "real killer," and probably no alibi.

 Overturning convictions for crimes that were really accidents is difficult and time-consuming. Attorneys may have to prove that the prosecution misused or misunderstood forensic science or withheld crucial evidence. Proving that something was an accident may require attorneys to understand highly technical and controversial evidence on fire science, shaken-baby syndrome, toxicology, or rare medical conditions, and hire expensive expert witnesses to bolster their arguments. These hurdles disproportionately affect women: Daniel and Royal have found that 37 percent of the women (but around 20 percent of the men) in the exonerations registry were cleared because their original convictions used false or misleading forensic evidence.

 There was one more thing that set exonerated women apart: Daniel and Royal have come to believe that, in many cases in which women were freed because no crime had been committed, sexist stereotypes had been used to conjure up a motive.

 "Almost every case has something like this," Daniel told me, recounting one trial in which a prosecutor suggested a mother had killed her son so she could pursue a career in modeling. "That was based on one tiny conversation expressing slight interest in maybe having a nice photo taken," Daniel said. The woman spent years in prison before the real perpetrator came forward.

 When Harper, the woman blamed after a serial killer murdered her son, was on trial, the prosecution portrayed her variously as thirsty for revenge on her ex-husband or, pointing out her pursuit of a postgraduate degree, career-obsessed with no time for a child. Her ex-husband testified that Harper considered an abortion when she first became pregnant (which Harper denied). "And that was used to show she was capable of murder," Royal said, noting that the trial—and jury selection—took place in a rural, heavily conservative county in Illinois.

 In the case of Kristine Bunch, the prosecutor said he didn't think the blaze burned Bunch badly enough. Wouldn't a mother walk through fire to save her child? He offered evidence that Bunch was a bad mother, telling the jury in his closing argument that she had asked a friend to take custody of Tony, even though the friend had denied this rumor in her testimony. Not to mention the judge's comments about Bunch's pregnancy.

 These sorts of narratives have "nothing to do with whether the evidence shows that a person did what they're being accused of," said Andrea Louise Lewis, an attorney who works for Royal and Daniel. "And these women get wrongfully convicted in these cases where nothing happened. Nothing criminal happened at all."

 After Kristine Bunch gave birth to her second son, correctional officers put her in an ankle chain just long enough for her to reach the toilet in her hospital room. It had been three months since she went to prison. Bunch held her baby for a fleeting moment before her parents took him home with them. Then she made it her single-minded mission to find someone to help reopen her case.

 "I realized, I'm going to have to fight," Bunch recalled. She sent out hundreds of letters and received hundreds of rejections.

 Daniel and Royal have come to believe that in many cases sexist stereotypes had been used to conjure up a motive.

 While Bunch despaired in prison, new research emerged showing that the signatures of an accidental fire are easy to confuse with signs of arson; as a result, many old arson cases have been called into question. In a similar vein, child abuse investigators once took it as gospel that a baby with brain swelling and certain forms of internal bleeding had been violently shaken within the past several hours. But a new body of evidence suggests that infections, infant strokes, and accidental falls can also cause the telltale symptoms of shaken-baby syndrome (SBS). Meanwhile, child abuse researchers now believe that a symptom like brain bleeding can take days—not hours—to cause serious problems. If a child has several caregivers—a babysitter, relatives, and immediate family members—it can be impossible to say with certainty who abused her.

 But it's prosecutors who decide whether to file charges or fight appeals, and not all of them buy the new science. When I sent questions about wrongly convicted women to the National District Attorneys Association, I was referred to Josh Marquis, an NDAA board member and Oregon district attorney who is a strident skeptic of the innocence community. Daniel and Royal noted that a disproportionate number of women are exonerated because new science cast doubt on their original conviction—or even moved medical experts who once testified against them to change their minds. But Marquis said that he and many of his fellow prosecutors don't trust the developing science. New doubts about SBS, he said, are shared by only "a very small group of doctors" whose voices have been amplified by the defense bar. As for developments in arson science, he said, "arson investigation is more of an art than a science."

 It was only when Bunch connected with an Indianapolis attorney named Hilary Bowe Ricks, and scraped together a modest fee using her $1.30-a-day prison earnings, that she learned that new arson science could cast her conviction into doubt. In 2006, Ricks convinced the Northwestern center to join the case, and the team, which by then included Daniel, soon found a bevy of problems with the conviction. Bunch's original defense attorney had argued that one of the trailer home's many electrical problems probably caused the fire. Any accelerant, he insisted, was likely from a kerosene heater the family sometimes ran in the living room. However, state investigators working on-site (using now-questionable science) observed burn patterns in Tony's bedroom that fire experts at the time saw as undisputed evidence of arson. And a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives chemist who examined 10 samples sent to his Washington, DC, lab testified at Bunch's original trial that the floor of both the living room and the bedroom tested positive for liquid accelerant.

 Bunch's new legal team obtained the raw data that the ATF chemist had analyzed. According to lawsuits her attorneys have since filed against the investigators for withholding evidence, someone had altered the result for the sample in Tony's bedroom, which was negative for accelerant, making Bunch seem guilty. It appeared to Ricks as though investigators hadn't found accelerant anywhere in the trailer home, except in the living room, where the heater stood.

 The fire that had taken Tony's life now looked like an accident. (The state investigators have denied any wrongdoing, and an ATF spokeswoman declined to comment.)

 Bunch's legal team brought this undisclosed evidence to the Indiana Court of Appeals. On March 21, 2012, a three-judge panel reversed Bunch's conviction. The state Supreme Court affirmed the ruling in August, and she walked out of prison, a free woman for the first time in more than 16 years. By Christmas, prosecutors quietly declined to retry her.

 "When you walk out, you're exonerated, and you're free and clear. But that hurt, that humiliation, that shame—it doesn't go away."

 A few months after Bunch was released, Daniel and Royal launched Northwestern's Women's Project, an exoneration effort focused exclusively on freeing wrongly convicted women. They have already agreed to represent six women—cases that will involve child head trauma and arson science—and in December, they asked the Illinois Supreme Court to grant their first appeal. Meanwhile, their team is poring over files from dozens of suspicious convictions around the country and amassing court transcripts for an in-depth study of wrongful convictions of women accused of killing their children.

 Daniel and Royal's tiny project may wind up in the vanguard of work to exonerate both men and women. More wrongful convictions are overturned each year, but fewer and fewer of them involve DNA: Paul Cates, a spokesman for the Innocence Project, told me that investigators have now cleared many "easy" DNA cases—such as convictions that can be overturned by testing a single previously untested rape kit. Instead, more cases now involve complex DNA evidence, or none at all, and many more of those cases are ultimately found to involve an accident. Last year, a record 125 people were exonerated across the country; in 58 of those cases, courts found no crime was committed at all.

 Today, Kristine Bunch volunteers for the Women's Project, sorting through inmates' letters. She reads each one carefully, remembering the decade she spent writing pleas just like theirs. "You live with this freaky numbness," she said. "It's almost like you're underwater and everything is in slow motion. And you can't seem to pull yourself up out of it."

 She is thrilled that there is now an outfit giving convictions like hers its full attention, run by attorneys who understand that everything about a woman—her career, her ambitions, how much she cries—is ripe for judgment. In her off-hours, she is trying to get to know her 19-year-old son. Even though she saw him nearly every weekend in prison, she missed out on raising him, and building a strong relationship has proved difficult.

 So has the healing process. Many men who were wrongfully convicted didn't know their supposed victims. But with Bunch, the accident she was blamed for not only took 17 years of her life—it took her child.

 "You're accused of this horrible, horrible crime, you're put away, you have newspapers saying horrible, horrible things about you," she said. "When you walk out, you're exonerated, and you're free and clear. But that hurt, that humiliation, that shame—it doesn't go away because you've been exonerated. It's hard to step back out and act like you're normal and part of the world." |||||

– Exonerating women who are wrongfully convicted of violent crimes is no easy task—just ask Kristine Bunch. She got 60 years for supposedly setting the fire that killed her 3-year-old son in 1995, and struggled to find anyone who could help, Mother Jones reports. Finally, lawyers at the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University's law school exposed a glaring hole (and possibly corruption) in the arson investigators' case. That evidence got Bunch released in 2012 after 16 years in prison, USA Today reported at the time. Then two lawyers from the Center, Karen Daniel and Judy Royal, began helping wrongfully convicted women based on a shocking statistic: Women constitute roughly 11% of violent-crime convictions but only 6% of overturned cases. But why are women's cases harder to overturn? Daniel and Royal give their reasons: Women are usually convicted of violent crimes against people close to them (like a husband or son) so DNA evidence won't help; the suspect's DNA is already spread around the crime scene. By contrast, men usually assault or kill strangers. An incredible 63% of women's exoneration cases turn out to be accidents or suicides rather than crimes. So instead of finding a "real culprit," Daniel and Royal may have to laboriously dismantle the prosecutors' case, perhaps with new science on arson or shaken-baby syndrome that not everyone accepts. Sexist stereotypes are used against women in court. In the case of a woman wrongfully convicted of murdering her son, the prosecutor implied she did it to pursue a modeling career. "That was based on one tiny conversation expressing slight interest in maybe having a nice photo taken," says Daniel. "Almost every case has something like this." Click for Mother Jones' full article.


News article:

Have you seen this music video for Canadian band the Arcade Fire's single "We Used to Wait"? Well, actually, it's not quite a music video—it's a website. But it does some pretty amazing stuff.

 So, the Arcade Fire. You probably have an opinion about them, and their new album. (Mine is: "Kids these days! Really, kids from all the days!") But even if you hate them, and their music, you should head over to thewildernessdowntown.com, which describes itself as "an interactive film." And, well, it is! But it's a lot more than that.

 If you navigate over to the site, you're encouraged to "enter the address of the home where you grew up." (I got this message when I typed my parents' home address: "Your address doesn't contain enough Street-View and/or Google Maps data to 100% enjoy this experience," but I'd say I was still able to 90% enjoy the experience.)

 Once you hit "enter," the "film" starts, and your browser begins to open windows—a video of a kid running in a suburb pops up, and then a window with some odd vector animations of birds. One window has a satellite shot of a suburban neighborhood—I assume if my address contained enough Street-View data that's what I would've gotten—and at some point, you're asked to write a postcard to your younger self (I know, I know. Barf). The whole time, the Arcade Fire's "We Used to Wait" is playing.

 Say what you will about the indie-goth aesthetics and the irritating, aggrandizing treatment of histrionic middle-class teen angst (both Arcade Fire trademarks!), "The Wilderness Downtown" works amazingly well as an internet "piece"—part video, part interactive project, part regular old website, part irritating bauble, coded with HTML 5 and billed as a collaboration with Google. And as music videos appeared to have moved off your television permanently, with the exception of various esoteric MTV channels, it's not too hard to see a future where "interactive films" like this (but maybe better!) replace the standard clip.

 Chris Milk, the director of the project (it was produced by Radical Media), is a veteran music video guy, so it's not like it's a whole new industry springing up—just eyeing the possibility of moving from one set of screens to another—and taking advantage of all the things the web can offer. And that could end up being pretty cool! I mean, it could also end up being awful. But I'm hoping for "cool."

 Update/Note: The site is optimized for Chrome; it also works in Safari, though not quite as well; other browsers seem to be hit-or-miss.

 [The Wilderness Downtown; Radical Media] ||||| As if I wasn’t already obsessed enough with the new Arcade Fire album, The Suburbs, it just got better. You can visit this website to create a personalized, interactive music video for the song “We Used to Wait.” Just enter your own suburban childhood address and the magic of Google images will have you flying over your old street. I got kind of choked up when I saw San Rosendo Dr. and the cul-de-sac where I used to ride my bike, the place where my brother and I built forts, and even my swimming pool. It took me all the way to the window outside of my old bedroom! Hello, nostalgia, I love you. [Stereogum] |||||
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– The Arcade Fire’s music video-slash-website is a harbinger of things to come. The Wilderness Downtown is an interactive experience that combines video of a kid running through a suburb, animated birds, satellite views of the neighborhood where you grew up (you provide the address), and an invitation to write a postcard to yourself as a child, all as the band’s “We Used to Wait” plays. “Say what you will about the indie-goth aesthetics and the irritating, aggrandizing treatment of histrionic middle-class teen angst, The Wilderness Downtown works amazingly well as an Internet ‘piece’—part video, part interactive project, part regular old website,” writes Max Read on Gawker. “And as music videos appeared to have moved off your television permanently, with the exception of various esoteric MTV channels, it's not too hard to see a future where ‘interactive films’ like this replace the standard clip.” Click here for an even more positive reaction at The Frisky.


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 Will there be any Republican theatrics tonight during President Obama's State of the Union address? The question is buzzing around Capitol Hill.

 TPMDC asked House Minority Whip Eric Cantor if he has given Republican members any direction about how they should behave tonight given Rep. Joe Wilson's shout of "You lie" during President Obama's last address to Congress in September. He said he hoped there would be no outbursts.

 (Though Cantor (R-VA) told me last time around that Republicans would be "attentive." As we all know, that didn't happen.)

 For his part, Wilson (R-SC) says he will be a "gentleman" tonight.

 Instead, Wilson will give a "live" response on Facebook following the address, he told supporters today on Twitter.

 The DCCC has already challenged Wilson (R-SC) on whether he'll pull another stunt. Rep. Todd Tiahart (R-KS) joked that it was a fundraising boost for Wilson, according to the Wichita Eagle.

 Republicans weren't shy about criticizing the president before his speech, however.

 "Any time a president comes to Capitol Hill it is an historic occasion," Cantor said, adding a caveat that he hopes Obama has "listened and learned" that his agenda is not supported by the American people.

 Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) said he agrees with "80 percent of what [Obama] says and disagrees with 80 percent of what he does."

 He also said the president's spending freeze proposal has "a whole lot more to do with headlines than deficit lines."

 Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform offered a mocking State of the Union "Bingo" which includes a "government subsidized free space" and Obama favorite "let me be clear" as spaces on the board. ||||| Notice

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– House Republican Whip Eric Cantor has attempted to preempt any members of his party tempted to pull a "Joe Wilson" during the president's State of the Union address. "I hope there are no outbursts tonight" Cantor said, but added that he hopes Obama has "listened and learned" that the American people do not agree with his agenda. As for Wilson himself, the South Carolina congressman said he would be "a gentleman" during the speech and refrain from anything along the lines of "You Lie!" again, reports Talking Points Memo. He also promised to offer his response in full afterward on his Facebook page.


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Amanda Knox and prison life

 A primetime television interview and a new book have put Amanda Knox's experience of prison life in Italy back under the spotlight. But do these accounts tally with what she said at the time?

 In the weeks leading up to publication of Amanda Knox's memoir, Waiting to be Heard, descriptions of her four years in a Perugia women's prison as a "trauma in an Italian hellhole of sex and debauchery" - as the National Enquirer put it - have become increasingly lurid.

 Knox's memoir is a vivid personal account of the difficulties of prison life in Italy, complete with claims about inappropriate behaviour by staff. But Knox herself once painted a different picture.

 Other documents - including writings Knox penned in her own hand while incarcerated, case files and state department records - conjure up quite another impression of a very different Knox, one who was more sanguine about her experience.

 "The prison staff are really nice," wrote Knox in her personal prison diary, which was eventually published in Italy under the title Amanda and the Others.

 Continue reading the main story Kercher murder: Timeline 1 November 2007 : Kercher is killed at her apartment in Perugia. Police find her a day later.

 : Kercher is killed at her apartment in Perugia. Police find her a day later. 6 November 2007 : Kercher's US housemate Knox is arrested, along with Sollecito and Congolese national Patrick Diya Lumumba.

 : Kercher's US housemate Knox is arrested, along with Sollecito and Congolese national Patrick Diya Lumumba. 20 November 2007 : Rudy Guede detained in Germany and extradited to Italy. Mr Lumumba released without charge

 : Rudy Guede detained in Germany and extradited to Italy. Mr Lumumba released without charge 28 October 2008: Guede sentenced to 16 years. A judge rules Sollecito and Knox will face a murder trial

 Guede sentenced to 16 years. A judge rules Sollecito and Knox will face a murder trial 4 December 2009: Knox and Sollecito found guilty of murder and sexual violence, and jailed for 26 and 25 years

 Knox and Sollecito found guilty of murder and sexual violence, and jailed for 26 and 25 years 3 October 2011: Knox and Sollecito acquitted

 Knox and Sollecito acquitted 26 March 2013: Re-run of appeals ordered. Acquittals overturned

 "They check in to make sure I'm okay very often and are very gentle with me. I don't like the police as much, though they were nice to me in the end, but only because I had named someone for them, when I was very scared and confused."

 She described Italian prisons as "pretty swell", with a library, a television in her room, a bathroom and a reading lamp. No-one had beaten her up, she wrote, and one guard gave her a pep talk when she was crying in her cell.

 Unlike the heavily-edited memoir, these are phrases she handwrote herself, complete with strike-outs, flowery doodles, peace signs and Beatles lyrics.

 The prison diary and Waiting to be Heard match up to an extent, and she cites some passages of her own diary.

 Knox recounts in her diary early on that a male prison guard winked at her when she got letters from men, often brought up her sexuality and gave her the impression he was making a pass at her.

 Both accounts also refer to the devastating but erroneous news from the prison doctor that she had tested positive for HIV, although her diary presents a more relaxed person at this point. "First of all, the guy told me not to worry, it could be a mistake, they're going to take a second test next week."

 But there are discrepancies between her memoir and her own descriptions early on in the case of why she made certain written declarations to police.

 In the memoir, Knox describes getting emotional as she watched the footage of the man she initially blamed for the murder, Patrick Lumumba, walking out of prison as a free man and standing with his wife and baby after he was cleared.

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 She writes that she had a flashback to the interrogation, when she felt coerced into a false accusation. "I was weak and terrified that the police would carry out their threats to put me in prison for 30 years, so I broke down and spoke the words they convinced me to say. I said: 'Patrick - it was Patrick.'"

 In her memoir, she describes in detail the morning that she put that accusation in writing, and says the prison guard told her to write it down fast. Yet in a letter to her lawyers she gives no hint of being rushed or pressured. "I tried writing what I could remember for the police, because I've always been better at thinking when I was writing. They gave me time to do this. In this message I wrote about my doubts, my questions and what I knew to be true."

 There is a similar contradiction a few paragraphs later, when she describes in harrowing terms the trauma of an examination at the police station.

 "After my arrest, I was taken downstairs to a room where, in front of a male doctor, female nurse, and a few female police officers, I was told to strip naked and spread my legs. I was embarrassed because of my nudity, my period - I felt frustrated and helpless."

 The doctor inspected, measured and photographed her private parts, she writes - "the most dehumanising, degrading experience I had ever been through".

 But in the 9 November letter to her lawyers, she described a far more routine experience.

 "During this time I was checked out by medics. I had my picture taken as well as more copies of my fingerprints. They took my shoes and my phone. I wanted to go home but they told me to wait. And that eventually I was to be arrested. Then I was taken here, to the prison, in the last car of three that carried Patrick, then Raffaele, then me to prison."

 She says she was often suicidal, but recollections of prison staff and other inmates differ. Flores Innocenzia de Jesus, a woman incarcerated with Amanda in 2010 described Knox as sunny and popular among the children who were in Capanne with their mothers, and recalled her avid participation in music and theatrical events. She also held a sought-after job taking orders and delivering goods to inmates from the prison dispensary.

 "Most of the time when we spoke during our exercise break, the kids would call her and she would go and play with them," de Jesus told me.

 Knox describes frequent prison tensions. According to de Jesus, there was resentment because she was seen as "a detainee with special status" due to frequent visits from influential Italian politician Rocco Girlanda, who brought her books, computers and other prized items.

 "She knew she was envied, but because she was very intelligent, she was able to have a rapport with the detainees, especially those who envied her, in a very spontaneous way," says de Jesus.

 State department cables, released through the Freedom of Information Act, show that between 2007 and 2009, three different high-level diplomats from Rome (Ambassador Ronald Spogli, Deputy Chief Elizabeth Dibble and Ambassador David Thorne) were among those reviewing Knox's case.

 Embassy officials visited regularly. Records show one consular official visited Knox on 12 November, soon after her arrest.

 A few weeks later she wrote in her diary how the visits of embassy officials improved her experience.

 "I am reading a romance novel that the consulate brought me, and I'm actually enjoying it. Soaking it up. How sad is that? So it's come to this. I could definitely see myself interested in Oprah's book club, but cheesy romance novels? I must be really REALLY bored."

 In 2008 and 2009, she was visited by two embassy officials at a time, six times. Ambassador David Thorne, whose name appears at the bottom of cables in August, November and December of 2009, is the brother- in-law of US Secretary of State John Kerry (at that time chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee).

 If the diplomats knew anything of the "harrowing prison hell" Knox was going through (as one paper put it), they are keeping those reports under wraps. Neither Kerry nor any other prominent US politician has made any public complaints. Even today, her Italian lawyers maintain she was not mistreated.

 With a new trial set in Florence in the coming year, a few key passages of "Waiting to be Heard" will most likely be heard once again, in an Italian courtroom.

 Follow the Magazine on Facebook or Twitter. ||||| In her soon-to-be released memoir, Amanda Knox will reportedly claim that she was sexually harassed by prison guards during her four years at Italy's Capanne prison.

 In the book, Knox according to the Daily Mail, writes that prison guard Raffaele Argiro would summon her for "chitchats" alone in his office at night. Knox reportedly expands on letters she wrote to friends obtained by British tabloids, saying the guard was fixated on the topic of sex, asking about her partners and if she would have sex with him.

 "I was so surprised and scandalized," Knox was quoted writing in the memoir, according to the Daily Mail.

 Her memoir, "Waiting to Be Heard," published by HarperCollins, will be released April 30.

 Argiro has since retired and denies the allegations.

 FULL COVERAGE: The Amanda Knox Trial

 "Obviously to hit on a prisoner who has no power when you're a man who is a prison official with enormous power, is very, very scary for a young woman," Vanity Fair contributing editor Judy Bachrach said.

 Knox was imprisoned at the Capanne prison in Perugia since she was arrested in 2007 for the murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher. In 2009, Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison while ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years.

 Knox was released from prison in 2011 after the appeals court threw out her conviction and scolded the prosecution's handling of evidence and the case. Sollecito was also released.

 Knox reportedly writes about a female inmate who wanted to start a lesbian affair. Knox alleges that she was falsely told by officials that she was HIV positive.

 RELATED: Amanda Knox 'Shocked' By Court Ruling That She Will Be Tried Again for Murder

 "Within the Italian people there is still that feeling that she's a spoiled rich kid who decided to kill her roommate for kicks. This is ludicrous. So there is a possibility she will be found guilty again," Bachrach said.

 Just last month Knox learned that the Italian Supreme Court ordered a new trial, meaning her marathon legal battle would continue for her and Sollecito.

 Knox said the court's decision was "painful" and "completely unfounded and unfair."

 The new trial is expected to start sometime next year, according to Knox's lawyer.

 Since her release from prison, Knox has resumed her life in Seattle, taking classes and spending time with her family and boyfriend, James Terrano.

 Knox's first interview since she was freed will air during a primetime special on Tuesday, April 30 at 10 p.m., ET on the ABC Television Network. |||||

– Amanda Knox's new book describes a traumatic, harrowing ordeal as she was imprisoned for four years for a murder she says she didn't commit—but in some cases, the memoir is at odds with earlier accounts she gave, such as letters she wrote and even her own diary, the BBC reports: Though her memoir reportedly describes sexual harassment at the hands of prison guards, she described the staff as "really nice" in the diary, which was published in Italy. "They check in to make sure I'm OK very often and are very gentle with me." As for the prison itself, she called it "pretty swell." In her memoir, she writes that she was "weak and terrified" and coerced into falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba of Meredith Kercher's murder; she says a prison guard told her to write down the accusation quickly. But in a letter she sent lawyers after making the written declaration to police, she says nothing about being rushed, writing simply, "I tried writing what I could remember for the police, because I've always been better at thinking when I was writing. They gave me time to do this." Her memoir also describes a medical examination at the police station, during which she was stripped naked and told to spread her legs. She calls it "the most dehumanizing, degrading experience I had ever been through." But in the aforementioned letter to lawyers, she made it sound routine and simply said she was "checked out by medics." Click for the full report.


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– For 132 years, Coca-Cola has stuck to non-alcoholic beverages. No more. On Monday, the company introduced three fizzy lemon drinks in 3%, 5%, and 7% alcohol on the Japanese island of Kyushu, home to 13 million people. Coca-Cola's Lemon-Do falls into Japan's popular "chuhai" category, drinks that typically combine grain-based alcohol with flavored carbonated water, reports the Wall Street Journal. The canned beverage—in lemon, salty lemon, and honey and lemon flavors—will be slightly cheaper than the average chuhai, however, with a $1.50 price tag including tax. "We've started to experiment because, in the end, we are trying to follow the consumer. And, in the case of Japan, this is a relatively well-developed segment of low alcohol," Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey says, per the Journal. The brand hopes to appeal to female drinkers especially. Early testers seem impressed, comparing the drink to those made in bars. "I'm a bit surprised that this is a Coca-Cola brand," says a 59-year-old tester. "It's nice, but I would add a splash of grapefruit or more lemon to it." There are no plans to make Lemon-Do available outside of Japan, reports the BBC.

Image copyright www.cocacola.co.jp

 Coca-Cola has launched its first alcoholic drink, a lemon flavoured alcopop, in Japan in a bid to tap new markets and consumers.

 In a global first for the US drinks giant, three fizzy lemon drinks went on sale on Monday.

 The product aims at a growing market of young drinkers - especially women.

 Described by Coca-Cola as "unique" in the company's 125-year history, the three drinks range from 3% to 8% alcohol.

 In keeping with the company's tradition, the recipe is closely guarded but the drinks are modelled on the country's popular Chu-Hi drinks, usually a mix of local spirit and a range of fruit flavours.

 Image copyright AFP Image caption The drinks hit the shelves on Monday

 Chu-Hi - an abbreviation for shochu highball - has been marketed as an alternative to beer, proving especially popular with female drinkers.

 Local companies like Suntory, Asahi and Kirin currently dominate the sector for canned Chu-Hi drinks.

 The most popular flavours are strong citrus ones such as grapefruit or lemon, the latter one being the taste Coca Cola now wants a share of.

 Image copyright www.suntory.co.jp Image caption Chu-Hi drinks are often aimed at young women

 Coca-Cola says there are no plans to bring the new drinks range to markets outside Japan.

 Alcopop drinks boomed in Europe and the UK in the 1990s with the likes of Smirnoff Ice and Bacardi Breezer becoming hugely popular.

 They were controversial, with concerns they encouraged young people to drink more alcohol because of soft drink-like taste. ||||| FUKUOKA, Japan—A fizzy lemon-flavored alcoholic drink that went on sale in Japan on Monday marked Coca-Cola Co.’s first fling at selling alcohol in its 132-year history.

 At a sampling event in Fukuoka on Saturday, hundreds of people lined up for a taste, including some who didn’t expect to find the U.S. company experimenting with Japanese-style booze.

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