| | | | Six months ago, I received an e-mail about the poor quality of public defense in the Southern District of Georgia, an area roughly the size of West Virginia, a few hours south of Atlanta, where I live. It was from a concerned employee at the federally funded defenders’ office in Atlanta. Defenders’ offices provide high-quality legal representation to anyone charged with federal crimes, and such organizations exist all over the country. This person had been researching a confounding question: Why is the Southern District of Georgia one of just three federal judicial districts in the country—out of ninety-four—without such a program? That wasn’t all. For decades, anyone charged with a federal crime in Georgia’s Southern District could be appointed any lawyer licensed to practice by the local bar. “I’m in contact with a man who is currently serving a lengthy federal three-strikes-law sentence but was represented by a local elder-law attorney who had never before practiced criminal law,” the employee noted. There was a tax attorney who’d been thrust into the same position. As I learned, these were not anomalies in the district, where, on the other side of these cases, career prosecutors work out of a well-resourced U.S. Attorney’s office. “The defense is defenseless,” the e-mail said, “and they like it that way.” “They,” I discovered, were, ultimately, the district’s judges, who could change this system if they desired. In the meantime, defendants in the district face some of the harshest sentences in the nation. Among the many who have been convicted there is a man I call Albert, recently released from prison, whose experience with an appointed lawyer—long since disbarred—shows the human toll of the problem. —Charles Bethea Read “Is This the Worst Place to Be Poor and Charged with a Federal Crime?” | | | | From the News Desk | Our Columnists A Strong Jobs Report Gives Biden and the Democrats a Reason to HopePolling suggests that concerns about the economy helped Republicans in this week’s elections. By John Cassidy | | Daily Comment How Colin Powell Saw His Role—and That of Another Famous Non-QuitterThe former Secretary of State, who is being honored at the National Cathedral, had a clear notion of “what serving this nation was all about.” By Peter Slevin | | Letter from Biden’s Washington Biden and Trump Both Lost This WeekReading the portents of the off-year elections. By Susan B. Glasser | | | | | Annals of Technology |  Infinite Scroll We Already Live in Facebook’s Metaverse Who among us wants to inhabit an even more virtual world of Mark Zuckerberg’s creation? By Kyle Chayka |  Daily Comment What We’ve Learned from the Facebook Papers Documents uncovered by Frances Haugen reveal how Facebook employees talk when they think that no one is listening. By Andrew Marantz | | | | | Culture Dept. | |  Illustration by Darya Shnykina - Anthony Lane reviews the new film “Spencer,” about Princess Diana, starring Kristen Stewart. “For all its follies, I would rather watch it again than sit through further episodes of ‘The Crown.’ ”
- “What I love is that roses can just be themselves, or they can have all the burden of meaning packed onto them.” Rebecca Solnit talks about her new book, “Orwell’s Roses,” and about the beauty of flowers as a natural resource and their darker side as a commodity.
- “A Cop Movie,” by the director Alonso Ruizpalacios, out today on Netflix, tells the story of policing in Mexico through a mix of documentary and dramatic reënactment. Richard Brody writes that this “elaborate form provides access . . . to deep-rooted social conditions that would otherwise be hard to depict.”
| | | | In Case You Missed It | This week’s best reads, hand-picked for you. | | | | BooksEarly Civilizations Had It All Figured OutA contrarian account of our prehistory argues that cities once flourished without rulers and rules—and still could. By Gideon Lewis-Kraus | | Photo BoothJocelyn Lee’s Older Women in the NudeIs nakedness invisibility’s opposite? Maybe not, but, if it’s unapologetically displayed, it can be a kind of antidote to erasure. By Margaret Talbot | | Life and LettersThe Most Ambitious Diary in HistoryClaude Fredericks, a Bennington classics professor, knew Anaïs Nin and James Merrill, and taught Donna Tartt. He kept a journal for eight decades, and persuaded many in his orbit that he was writing a titanic masterpiece. Did he? By Benjamin Anastas | | | | | Fun & Games Dept. | Name Drop Play Today’s QuizThe fewer clues you need, the more points you receive. By Liz Maynes-Aminzade | | Daily Shouts Fun Ways to Get Spiders on You This Fall!Go on a romantic, autumnal hike. Or perhaps just clean out your closet. By Kathryn Kvas | | Daily Cartoon Friday, November 5th By Sarah Kempa | | | | | | ⏰ P.S. In the wee hours of Sunday morning, the clocks will be turned back an hour, marking the annual end of daylight-saving time. A few years ago, Alan Burdick investigated the surprisingly complicated history of “springing forward” and “falling back,” and explained why the practice, despite its many detractors and dubious utility, has been so hard to eliminate. | | | | Today’s newsletter was written by Ian Crouch. | | | | | | | |
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