Aaron Rushing was a freshman then. He had dark skin and cottony dreads that mostly covered his eyes, and sometimes his mouth—although not enough to conceal his gentle and knowing smile. His eyes were puppy-doggish, steady. Later I would learn he was a virtuoso on the guitar and a rockstar on stage, but that afternoon I was waiting for him in the stairwell, collecting my thoughts, trying to figure out what to say to him about this poem, this worrisome poem, he had turned in.

Look at this little pink powderpuff of a child moving about the New York subway system with jubilance and glee. She knows naught of the F train condom; the horny nudists are but a blip on her developing radar. Watch as her childlike wonder reaches across the platform like a lasso, snaring onlookers in its sticky grasp until everyone's dancing in the grime like a rat-infested Matisse painting.

A Florida man convicted of murdering two people reportedly dared a judge to sentence him to death, claiming he doesn't believe that the Supreme Court would actually allow an innocent man to die.

Every child eventually experiences that crushing day when he or she realizes that Santa Claus, that totally implausible overweight gift-giver, is (SPOILER) not real. For those of us who thrive on cynicism, it's almost difficult to remember a time when we could be so joyfully naive—it took us a few years to realize that everything is horrible. Here, we've gathered our stories of the day our innocence died. Please share your own in the comments.

Yesterday, Michael Wayne Hash, who spent 12 years in a Virginia prison for murder, had all of the charges against him dismissed. A judge found him to be innocent. He's a free man. Not every innocent prisoner is so lucky.

On Wednesday, Texas is scheduled to execute Hank Skinner for the murders of three people. For years, his lawyers have sought DNA testing of unanalyzed evidence, the results of which could prove his innocence—but the courts have rejected their requests every time. The "ultimate justice" machine stops for no one!

One super funny thing about the classic "police lineup" is how likely it is to get an innocent person convicted of a crime. It's given us so many wacky crime dramas! Alas, a new study says that there is something better than the ol' Usual Suspects method.

Michael Pena, the off duty NYPD officer charged with raping a Manhattan woman last Friday night (not to be confused with the on-duty NYPD officers charged with raping a Manhattan woman) allegedly showed a gun, pulled the woman behind an apartment building, and raped her. Police arrived and found him still in the act, drunk, with his gun and badge next to him.

Kevin Glasheen is a lawyer in Texas. He is also a lobbyist. He successfully lobbied the state to pass a bill raising the amount of money that it pays to inmates who are exonerated and freed after being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned. For completing this fine deed, Glasheen expects to be paid handsomely—by the freed inmates themselves.

F. Lee Bailey—remember him? O.J. Simpson's defense attorney, yea! Well, big news: he says he has evidence that O.J. was innocent all along. He just didn't bring it out at the trial because it was too long.

A real double rainbow unfurled across the Los Angeles sky tonight! And, of course, Twitter freaked out, because of this year's biggest viral video—"Double Rainbow"—turning "double rainbow" into a worldwide trending topic