Roundup: Corruption scandals at the DEA and Rhode Island State Police; astonishingly low recidivism among federal prisoners sent home during COVID; Adams' bail reform lies may cost Democrats the House

Here’s your roundup of criminal justice and civil liberties stories:

• Arizona tries to hide its execution methods and protocols from the press. The state has an execution scheduled for tomorrow.

• More on the career public defender who was just elected DA in Hennepin County, Minnesota (Minneapolis).

• Buffalo cop admits to, defends use of the n-word and other racist and degrading language when interacting with minorities. He says it’s common.

• Former Rhode Island state trooper alleges systemic corruption, abuse, and coverup at the agency, including at least one coverup of an in-custody death.

• A.P. investigation: Overseas DEA agents colluded with drug cartels and skimmed millions of dollars from money laundering investigations “to fund a decade’s worth of luxury overseas travel, fine dining, top seats at sporting events and frat house-style debauchery.”

• The DOJ released 11,000 prisoners to home confinement during the COVID pandemic. Just 17 of them went on to commit new crimes. Not 17 percent. Just 17. Only one of those crimes was violent. That’s a recidivism rate of 0.15 percent.

• NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ lies about bail reform may cost Democrats control of the House.

• Three former Pennsylvania cops plead guilty to reckless endangerment after mistakenly shooting and killing an eight-year-old girl at a high school football game.

• According to exit polls, among voters who named crime as their most important issue, John Fetterman actually beat Mehmet Oz.

• Chinese students at U.S. colleges are being threatened and bullied by other Chinese students and groups aligned with the Chinese government. And some U.S. colleges are playing along.

• The NY Post promised at least two crime victims that they’d be put on the cover of the tabloid if “they’d say they were Democrats voting for Zeldin because the city is pretty much a hellhole now.”

• Why Biden should grant clemency to drone whistleblower Daniel Hale.

• Albuquerque police chief waits until after midterms to claim that, actually, crime is down in the city.

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• Alabama brothers exonerated after 20 years in prison. Police failed to turn over a report and blood from the crime scene that conclusively established the brothers’ innocence.

• North Carolina sheriff who resigned after making racist comments about black police officers runs again . . . and wins.

• The Institute for Justice files a lawsuit challenging absolute immunity for judges. In the case at hand, a family law judge in a divorce case “abruptly halted a court hearing, ordered everyone present to go to [the husband’s] house, searched through his belongings without a warrant, and threatened to arrest him when he began recording the encounter.” The judge also apparently “made herself at home” in the house, “walking barefoot through the house and lounging in [a] rocking chair.”

• Twitter thread of the day:

Keri Blakinger @keribla

This year, John Ramirez was executed bc the judge said he didn't have authority to grant the DA's request to call off the execution Today @moodyforelpaso filed a bill that ensuring this doesn't happen again, by making a law that judges HAVE to cancel an execution if the DA asks

This week in dog history:

The Soviet Union announced on November 15th 1957, that the name “Laika” will be inscribed on a plaque and placed on a memorial to other heroic dogs.

Two weeks earlier Laika, a husky-terrier mix, became the first living being to orbit the Earth. The three-year-old, approximately 15-pound dog had been plucked from the streets of Moscow where she was a stray and enrolled in the U.S.S.R. space program. She was never expected to return to Earth. Her death sparked animal right protests around the world.

For decades, the Soviets claimed Laika was painlessly euthanized after several days in space, just prior to the depletion of her oxygen supply. But in 2002 Soviet space program workers from the era revealed that she likely died from overheating on her third or fourth orbit, just hours into the flight. Her remains were incinerated when the Sputnik 2 capsule carrying her burned up upon reentry in April 1958.

Laika has since been memorialized with a statue at the Monument to the Conquerers of Space in Moscow.

(U.P., November 15, 1957)

Laika, in her Sputnik II capsule. Photo by: Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Photo: Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong, December 2016