NASA astronaut and Binghamton, New York, native Col. Douglas Wheelock has been to outer space, so his visit to Misericordia University in Dallas Twp. on Wednesday felt like a homecoming.
What was a vision about two years ago came to fruition on Friday with a ribbon cutting, a dedication ceremony, and tours of the largest building on campus.
This movement for change, a rare American cause around which many on the left and right unite, does not play out on paper, but in real human lives - the hearts, minds and captive bodies of defendants, and the prospects for their families and communities, which both crime and misguided justice policies harm. In a country governed by the rule of law and founded on the yet-unrealized promise of equal justice, it is not something we can afford to botch.
Take Carl Knight, who shares his story in an exclusive interview published by the Erie Times-News. This 49-year-old Erie man made headlines two decades ago when a high-profile federal prosecutor and an FBI task force identified him as the kingpin of a drug-dealing ring that smuggled into the region 458 pounds of crack cocaine worth $20.8 million. Other white drug kingpins were prosecuted in Erie for powder cocaine and marijuana, but none except Knight, and later, another Black defendant in a different crack cocaine case, drew mandatory l