The New York Times has a tragic piece about what it's like to be imprisoned for 15 years and then be exonerated based on DNA evidence. The article is unsurprisingly depressing, but it serves as an important reminder for us to think deeply about how we treat and prosecute citizens suspected or accused of committing heinous crimes.

I took particular note of these two paragraphs:

After repeated questioning over two months, Mr. Deskovic confessed during a seven-hour interrogation and polygraph test, telling the police he had hit Ms. Correa with a Gatorade bottle and grabbed her around the throat. In the lawsuit, Mr. Deskovic contends that detectives fed him these details, and promised that if he confessed he would not go to prison but would receive psychiatric treatment.

"I was tired, confused, scared, hungry — I wanted to get out of there," he recalled recently. "I told the police what they wanted to hear, but I never got to go home. They lied to me."