And Justice for Some

Jan. 28, 2015

The U.S. exonerated more prisoners in 2014 than ever before — simply because it started to look for them The University of Michigan's National Registry of Exonerations announced in a report released Tuesday that in 2014, a record 125 people across the United States were exonerated of crimes for which they were falsely convicted, beating 2013's 91 exonerees. + This is a positive trend, according to the NRE: "Judging from known exonerations in 2014, the legal system is increasingly willing to act on innocence claims that have often been ignored." + Why is this happening? "[T]he number of people exonerated increases the more the government actually makes an effort to look for them," explains Mic's Tom McKay. "Aggressive law enforcement and prosecutorial tactics appear to play a role too: Forty-seven of the 125 exonerees had pled guilty to the crimes they were accused of, while about 46% had been sentenced for crimes that had never been committed in the first place." + Related: Read Mic's Zeeshan Aleem on what the U.S. can learn from Sweden's remarkable prison system. Kurdish fighters, U.S. air strikes just struck a major blow against the Islamic State After a brutal four-month battle against the Islamic State group, jubilant Kurdish fighters ousted IS militants from the key Syrian border town of Kobani this week — a significant victory for both the Kurds and the U.S.-led coalition. + "The Kurds raised their flag on a hill that once flew the Islamic State group's black banner," the Associated Press reports. "On Kobani's war-ravaged streets, gunmen fired in the air in celebration, male and female fighters embraced and troops danced in their baggy uniforms." + The U.S. certainly stepped up to deprive the Islamic State of the foothold: Kobani has been the target of about a half-dozen daily coalition airstrikes on average, and more than 80% of all coalition airstrikes in Syria have been in or around the town. + Why does this small town matter? "The Kurdish recapture of Kobani in northern Syria appears to have provided a blueprint for defeating the Islamic State, bringing together U.S. air power with an effective ground force and protected routes for the movement of fighters and weaponry," the AP explains.

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Photo of the Day Auschwitz death camp survivor Barbara Doniecka, 80, who was registered with camp number 86341, holds up wartime photo of herself, as she poses for a photograph in Warsaw on Jan. 12, 2015. Tuesday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the passage of 70 years since the Jan. 27, 1945, liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet soldiers.

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