“A failure of everything.” Sandra “Sandy” Hemme spent 43 years in prison in Missouri for a murder she did not commit. Her case was marked by dubious police practices, a questionable, coerced confession and claims of ineffective work by some of Hemme’s lawyers. Even after she was ordered released from prison last July, state attorneys fought to keep Hemme behind bars. The case highlights the particularly harsh procedural hurdles Missouri has set up in wrongful conviction cases that do not involve the death penalty. There is a bipartisan push in the state legislature to fix some of those rules — an effort criticized by the state’s attorney general. In collaboration with the Kansas City Star, TMP’s Katie Moore, from our St. Louis office, has our story. The Marshall Project

Quid pro quo. A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed with prejudice the Justice Department’s political corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. NBC News The plea deal which preceded the dismissal was marred by allegations that Adams pledged to implement the White House’s harsh immigration policies in return for the dismissal of the case against him. The New York Times “Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” the judge wrote. Politico Related: Read the opinion. U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York

Trump pardons and recidivism. Jonathan Braun, who received a pardon from President Donald Trump at the end of his first term, was arrested last weekend in New York on charges of punching a man in the face and injuring the man’s 3-year-old child. It’s the fourth time Braun has been arrested since receiving clemency from Trump. The New York Times More: New federal charges were filed this week against Taylor Taranto, a Jan. 6 defendant who was arrested last summer on gun-related charges after he showed up near former President Barack Obama’s home. Taranto also faces a civil lawsuit for his role in the Capitol riot. NBC News

Judging Trump. A federal judge in California this week “ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore legal aid to tens of thousands of migrant children who are in the United States without a parent or guardian.” The Associated Press Another federal judge, in New Jersey, ruled in favor of graduate student Mahmoud Khalil this week, declaring that Khalil’s challenge to his federal immigration detention should be heard in New Jersey, not Louisiana, where Khalil was taken after he was snatched by immigration agents last month. NBC News Related: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is using a little-known federal law to justify the cancellation of hundreds of student visas. Experts say that’s illegal. The New York Times

Oregon’s experiment with drug decriminalization is over, especially in Medford, near the California border, where police and prosecutors made more than 900 drug possession arrests between last September and March. That’s double the number of such arrests in Portland, which has a population seven times larger than Medford’s. The state’s retreat from Measure 110, the landmark decriminalization initiative that passed in November 2020, allows local officials discretion to recriminalize drug laws. Some have cracked down harder than others. The Guardian TMP Context: Racial disparities and drug legalization. The Marshall Project

Lawyers for a California man accused of trying to assassinate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022 told the judge and prosecutors on Wednesday that their client will plead guilty to federal charges in Maryland. The case against Nicholas Roske was scheduled to go to trial in June. The Associated Press

Georgia makes it particularly difficult for people who are intellectually disabled to be spared execution under U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Legislators there have signed a bill to fix that. It awaits Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature. Georgia Recorder TMP Context: “Justice poker” on death row. The Marshall Project

There’s been one arrest so far in an alleged hate crime last month against a transgender person in Seattle, Washington. The victim was attacked by four men, several of whom shouted “Semper fi” as they struck. King5/NBC

The Justice Department announced this week that federal prosecutors will seek a 20-year sentence for a man accused of throwing a flaming device at a Tesla dealership in Colorado earlier this month. No one was injured. Cooper Frederick also faces state charges. CNN

Nine death row prisoners in Tennessee have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s new execution protocols. Corrections officials have said they will now use only a single drug, pentobarbital, to kill condemned prisoners. The Associated Press TMP Context: When a drug shortage slowed down the death penalty treadmill. The Marshall Project

The U.S. has become a secret-police state. “People lose the ability to plan for the future, because they feel that they have no control over their lives, and they try to make themselves invisible. They move through the world without looking, for fear of seeing too much.” The New York Times More: Civilian flight attendants on deportation trips paid for by the government aren’t happy about being placed in the role of jailers, even if it is only for a few hours, and say they worry about the safety of their restrained passengers. ProPublica

A government where admitting fallibility is forbidden. “Who these men in El Salvador actually are and what they’ve actually done is irrelevant. All that matters is that to Trump, they look the part.” The Atlantic

Hollow talk of immigration reform. “It’s hard to take the GOP’s sudden embrace of ‘dignity’ for immigrants seriously while the administration guts asylum programs and ramps up immigrant detention. And if the political trade for this half-hearted ‘immigration reform’ is accepting this administration’s brutal idea of security, it would be a high price to pay.” The Boston Globe

“Ed Martin is a fundamentally unserious person on the cusp of confirmation to a very serious job.” The U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., has a special place within the Justice Department. It’s in poor hands now as Martin’s confirmation hearing looms. Lawfare More: Sen. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat, has placed an indefinite hold on Martin’s nomination in protest of Martin’s conduct since being named acting U.S. Attorney. CBS News

The “incarceration trap.” Sweeping parole and probation rules place thousands in endless punishment, undermining their chances of obtaining the jobs and other support they need to break free from cycles of incarceration. The Conversation TMP Context: Who pulls the levers of power in parole systems? The Marshall Project

Reading legal briefs. Lawyers for Venezuelan migrants asked the U.S. Supreme Court this week to keep in place an injunction blocking the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport more people to a Salvador prison. The New York Times More: Feds seek to justify the arrest and detention of Rümeysa Öztürk, the doctoral student at Tufts University who was snatched off a street last week in Somerville, Massachusetts. WGBH

A “blood bath.” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Elon Musk’s unelected “efficiency” agents moved this week to fire thousands of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees, including those working on data about injuries, including gun injuries, and preventing opioid overdoses and sexual violence. Mother Jones

Trump commutes the sentence of another person convicted of fraud. Jason Galanis, who was serving a 14-year federal prison sentence for defrauding investors out of millions, testified against Hunter Biden in the ill-fated Republican impeachment inquiry about then-President Joe Biden. Trump’s pardon also absolves Galanis of his financial obligations to his victims. Politico

Another myth shattered. “The chance of being murdered in a mass shooting committed by a native-born American was about 1 in 10.5 million per year, about 6.5 times higher than the chance of being killed by a foreign-born mass shooter.” Cato Institute TMP Context: The myth of the criminal immigrant. The Marshall Project

“The way the sheriff’s trusty program is, you’re his property.” More details about a “second chance” trustees program for people incarcerated in the Rankin County Detention Center in Mississippi. New evidence suggests that jailers wielded enormous power over those trustees, including the power to determine when they could be released from the jail. Mississippi Today