March 17, 2017 (Fault Lines) — What do the stock market, sports betting, and criminal trials have in common? They are all forms of gambling. Billy Walters, the world’s most successful professional gambler, is hoping he...

March 14, 2017 (Fault Lines) — This is an important week. Starting tonight, millions of otherwise law-abiding people engage in criminal activity. The NCAA tournament is here and that means it’s bracket time. Typically, you fill...

March 10, 2017 (Fault Lines) – Attorney Lynne Stewart passed away this week after battling terminal cancer. She was 77 years old. Media reports refer to her a “leftist” lawyer and a “radical” lawyer. Maybe those...

March 8, 2017 (Fault Lines) – The United States Supreme Court ruled on a major federal sentencing guidelines case this week. For the last decade plus, since the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Booker, the guidelines...

March 3, 2017 (Fault Lines) — If you have ever bought anything from Amazon, you know the creepy follow-up. All of a sudden, anything related to the product you looked at on the Amazon site starts...

February 28, 2017 (Fault Lines) – There is one big truth in the American criminal justice system. Average Americans don’t care about justice because they aren’t criminals. You did the crime, you do the time. Wrongful...

February 24, 2017 (Fault Lines) – The Second Amendment brings out a uniquely hypocritical reaction in American citizens. The right-wingers love a fascist police state with a powerful law enforcement branch. Until it tries to take...

February 21, 2017 (Fault Lines) – The Government loves to fix problems. And if it can’t find any, it creates new ones. Tennessee resident Laurie Wheeler is getting a first-hand look at how the government can...

February 17, 2017 (Fault Lines) – Checks and balances are an important part of American government. If you end up with a crazy executive, you have Congress and the court system to watch your back. If...

February 14, 2017 (Fault Lines) – People probably aren’t surprised to hear witnesses regularly lie in criminal trials. But they might be surprised it’s not usually those slimy defense lawyers that put the liars on the...

February 10, 2017 (Fault Lines) – If you watch the news for longer than ten minutes, the idea of obstructing a government operation sounds more like a heroic act than a crime. But Nebraska takes issue...

February 7, 2017 (Fault Lines) – When Maria Ridulph was kidnapped in Sycamore, Illinois in 1957, no one knew the case would grow far beyond an abduction and murder. The nation’s oldest and coldest murder case...

February 3, 2017 (Fault Lines) – Prosecutors get beat up a lot for courtroom injustices. Some even suggest judges are to blame. Or gullible jurors. But what about defense lawyers? Defense lawyers shouldn’t play any part...

January 31, 2017 (Fault Lines) – Getting caught passing notes in class was high on the list of childhood embarrassments. Whatever your message that just couldn’t wait was, there was nothing worse than the risk of...

January 27, 2017 (Fault Lines) – It’s hard to believe that, all of a sudden, there is a rash of teacher-student sex romps. There are a lot more stories in the news these days about taking...

January 24, 2017 (Fault Lines) – Taxes are the scourge of our existence. They are so hated they are often mentioned in the same breath as death. Most people will do anything to avoid them. But...

January 20, 2017 (Fault Lines) – The criminal justice system will always have problems. Not because it is flawed, but because the people it relies on to run are flawed. The recent wave of crime lab...

January 17, 2017 (Fault Lines) – Deputy Adams Lin and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office are in the midst of a hard lesson on consequences and repercussions, by way of some U.S. Marshals cleaning out...

January 13, 2017 (Fault Lines) – Earlier this week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an opinion that results in a pretty scary rule for defendants in that circuit. Confronted with...

January 10, 2017 (Fault Lines) – The story is almost a cliché. Kentucky men Garr Keith Hardin and Jeffrey Dewayne Clark were convicted in 1995 for the murder of Rhonda Sue Warford. Highly suspect circumstantial evidence,...