Never too late to join!

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Links to join the live meditation hangout can be found below, along with a link to get a free trial of the Waking Up app if you need it. It's been transformative for me, and it led to my Zen practice. Happy New Year! Hope to see you later.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you find something useful in my words.

I'm grateful for all of you who continue to follow my work, who are here for my stoicism, activism, and stand up comedy. Thank you for letting me be me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm grateful that my suffering and the injustice I've endured equipped me to be a voice for change.

I'm grateful for my children. When I was sentenced to 26 years I thought motherhood was stolen from me.

I'm grateful to be alive. You can do everything right, and tragedy may still find you. Rest in peace, Meredith.

I'm grateful for sushi and breakfast burritos and pumpkin curry and every meal shared with family. After prison, I never take for granted the joy of access to healthy and delicious food with people you love.

I'm grateful to all of you who have stopped me in airports or grocery stores to say, "I'm glad you're free," give me a hug, say, "I'm sorry I treated you as entertainment."

I'm grateful to all the strangers who sent me kind letters in prison, spoke up in my defense, saw me on the street and let me have a moment of anonymity.

I'm grateful for my family who put their lives on pause for years and sacrificed their own well-being to save me.

Read more (for free) here:

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And yet, our justice system’s method of error correction would be unthinkable in almost any other quality-control process.

I’ve heard many people, many lawyers, defend this system as the only sensible way a justice system could operate. If you maintain the presumption of innocence forever, the argument goes, the system grinds to a halt with endless appeals, and there’s no justice for anyone.

Every appeal they make, every post-conviction petition, and every claim of innocence must begin from the assumption that the system got it right.

It’s up to the convicted to show legal or procedural error, or they will remain convicted, regardless of their innocence.

Think Blackstone’s Maxim: “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” Cool.

But after a conviction, the burden of proof shifts entirely to the defendant, who is now the guilty party.