“Worse than we thought.” For months after COVID vaccines became available in 2021, federal officials did not provide ailing prisoners in Massachusetts with shots. The Federal Medical Center Devers, which holds prisoners with complex medical illnesses, was among the last federal prisons to start inoculating incarcerated people. Eight men died of coronavirus-related complications while waiting for their shots. Prison officials say prisoners weren’t promptly vaccinated because available vaccines went to staff. Stat News TMP Context: How federal prisons became coronavirus death traps. The Marshall Project

Another week of sentences for Capitol rioters. Richard Barnett, the Arkansas man photographed with his feet propped up on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk during the Capitol riot, was sentenced on Wednesday to four-and-a-half years in federal prison. NBC News Robert Morss, an ex-Army Ranger, was sentenced to more than five years in prison for his role in the attack. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Another Capitol rioter, Christopher Grider, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for his role in the riot. Grider tried to shut off electricity at the Capitol during the attack, prosecutors say. The New York Times

Grieving the loss of a child in public. For Kimberly Garcia and Angel Garza, who lost their daughter Amerie in the Uvalde school shooting, the past year has been a mix of mourning, public appearances, and the fight to convince policymakers to change gun laws. The New York Times Meet the grieving, frustrated Uvalde moms fighting for modest legislation to keep firearms away from teenagers. Rolling Stone More: One young victim’s mother, a kindergarten teacher at another school in Uvalde, honors her daughter with determination to protect her own students should a gunman threaten them. The Associated Press

It’s easier than you think to create a fake sex scandal. It’s also easier than you think to get away with it. A new docuseries examines an infamous fake child sex scandal that unfolded two decades ago in Texas. Journalist Michael Hall reported on the false allegations by five children and wrongful convictions of seven adults associated with the “Minneola Swingers Club,” He says that the documentary “will make you question the competence of law enforcement, and it’ll make you wonder how one person could cause so much damage.” Texas Monthly TMP Context: When the misdiagnosis is sexual abuse. The Marshall Project

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tried to interfere with an FBI investigation into a friend’s political contributions, state investigators revealed this week. They also accused Paxton of committing other crimes in a dramatic hearing Wednesday in Austin that raised questions about whether Paxton can remain in office. The Associated Press Paxton refuted the allegations and called the Republican-dominated state house too liberal for “traditional values of conservative Texans.” The Wall Street Journal

Federal prosecutors in South Carolina have charged Alex Murdaugh and a friend for allegedly stealing millions from the family of a housekeeper who died on the disgraced lawyer’s property, among other financial crimes. The Washington Post Murdaugh already faces a life without parole sentence for murdering his wife and son. He was convicted and sentenced earlier this year. Charleston Post and Courier

Virginia corrections officials fired an employee earlier this month. Kelsey Haley says he is a whistleblower who was let go because “the department wants to retaliate against me for uncovering their misconduct.” VPM

An Ohio judge last week ordered a new trial for Lamont Hunter, a man who spent more than 15 years on the state’s death row for the 2006 rape and murder of a 3-year-old boy. A coroner now says the injuries to the victim came not from sexual assault but from an accident at a hospital. Hunter’s attorney hopes he’ll be freed before the end of the month. The Associated Press

Michigan has the most “juvenile lifers” in the nation. Some of the most passionate advocates pressing for pending legislation that would abolish life-without-parole sentences for youth are themselves former “lifers.” USA Today

Governors with regrets about capital punishment. “We both presided over executions while in office, but if we had known then what we know now about prosecutorial misconduct, we would have exercised our constitutional authority to commute death sentences to life.” The Washington Post

We allow our children to be slaughtered by guns but make them take bike safety tests. “It takes ingenuity to avoid blaming guns for gun deaths. Blame mental illness. Blame doorways. Blame teachers who won’t take a loaded weapon into the classroom.” The Atlantic

A bridge too far. Federal prosecutors are unlikely to get the “enhanced sentences” they are seeking for members of the far-right Oath Keepers group who were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges stemming from the Capitol riot. Lawfare Related: A timeline of former President Donald Trump’s descent into political extremism. The Washington Post

Why women were sent to prison, and kept there, over a century ago. “Who Would Believe a Prisoner?,” a book about the history of the incarceration of women in Indiana, “is a work of historical scholarship that operates like a telescope, extending into the past to get a closer look at how sex-segregated incarceration operated in its early days.” The New Yorker

A sister watches her brother’s execution by lethal injection. “What happens is so clinical, so sterile, so wrong, that there’s no words. It’s so weird and dark and surreal.” Slate TMP Context: Witnesses to the execution. The Marshall Project

Police killing at a pork processing plant in Oklahoma. Chiewelthap Mariar, a 26-year-old Sudanese refugee, was fatally shot in January by police responding to a call from his supervisors after firing him. A co-worker filmed part of the deadly encounter. Conditions inside the plant have gotten worse for employees following Trump-era deregulation. The New Republic

Naming names on the Chicago police department’s “do-not-call” lists. Hundreds of cops cannot be called to testify by Cook County prosecutors because they have histories of deceit or other misconduct that would preclude them from being reliable witnesses. The Triibe

More trouble for DEA chief Anne Milgram. The Drug Enforcement Administration did not stop one of the nation’s largest wholesale drug distributors from shipping opioid painkillers for nearly four years after a judge recommended the company be stripped of its license. The Associated Press

A rare glimpse of what grand jury work is like in New York. A former grand jury foreperson accuses court officers of telling jurors not to discuss cases during deliberations, despite judicial instructions to the contrary. Dozens of cases may be affected. The City

A fight over a shooter’s writings. Two months after a mass shooting at a Nashville school, there’s a legal dispute over whether to release the journals of the shooter, Audrey Hale. Reporters and others say the material should be released now. The parents of the victims say the writings should be kept sealed until the school year ends. The New York Times