DeMarco Raynor, who is incarcerated at Cummins Unit, a penitentiary in southeast Arkansas, had been approved for its most prestigious job: working at the governor’s mansion. Prison labor at the mansion is a “longstanding tradition, which kept down costs,” Hillary Clinton wrote, in a memoir. (She noted that “onetime murderers” proved to be the best employees.) Raynor saw the position, which was unpaid, as a chance to meet people with the power to grant him clemency. But, shortly before he was to begin, an officer said that he had violated prison rules by wearing slippers that he had made...…DeMarco Raynor, who is incarcerated at Cummins Unit, a penitentiary in southeast Arkansas, had been approved for its most prestigious job: working at the governor’s mansion. Prison labor at the mansion is a “longstanding tradition, which kept down costs,” Hillary Clinton wrote, in a memoir. (She noted that “onetime murderers” proved to be the best employees.) Raynor saw the position, which was unpaid, as a chance to meet people with the power to grant him clemency. But, shortly before he was to begin, an officer said that he had violated prison rules by wearing slippers that he had made...WW…

By Illustrations by Adam Maida / Courtesy Beatrice Police DepartmentWhen Ada JoAnn Taylor is tense, she thinks she can feel the fabric of a throw pillow in the pads of her fingers. Taylor has suffered from tactile flashbacks for three decades. She imagines herself in a small apartment in Beatrice, Nebraska. She is gripping the edges of a pillow, more tightly than she means to, and suffocating a sixty-eight-year-old widow. “I feel for her,” Taylor told me recently. “She was my grandmother’s age.”Taylor confessed to the woman’s murder in 1989 and for two decades believed that she was guilty....…By Illustrations by Adam Maida / Courtesy Beatrice Police DepartmentWhen Ada JoAnn Taylor is tense, she thinks she can feel the fabric of a throw pillow in the pads of her fingers. Taylor has suffered from tactile flashbacks for three decades. She imagines herself in a small apartment in Beatrice, Nebraska. She is gripping the edges of a pillow, more tightly than she means to, and suffocating a sixty-eight-year-old widow. “I feel for her,” Taylor told me recently. “She was my grandmother’s age.”Taylor confessed to the woman’s murder in 1989 and for two decades believed that she was guilty....WW…