King County Executive Dow Constantine named 11 highly-regarded leaders in indigent defense and the protection of the rights of the accused to serve on the County’s first-ever Public Defense Advisory Board.
The U.S. Senate confirmed Sal Mendoza Jr. to become the first Latino federal judge in Eastern Washington on Tuesday morning with a vote of 92- 4. He is expected to be based in either Yakima or Richland.
Over the past decade, towns and counties across the United States have been locking up a growing number of people for failing to pay their debts. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Brennan Center for Justice documented the practice in 2010, and Human Rights Watch released the results of its own investigation earlier this year.
Critics have decried the return of the debtors prison, the reviled institution of Charles Dickens' day. Now, a short documentary, "To Prison for Poverty," sheds light on a particularly contentious aspect of the story.