The country's "toughest sheriff" has had his gold star revoked. A scathing U.S. Justice Department report released Thursday found that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office carried out a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos and held a "systematic disregard" for the Constitution amid a series of immigration crackdowns that have turned the lawman into a prominent national political figure.

In a small town in Texas, two young men knock on the door of a woman’s house as she's making cookies. They ask to use her phone. But as her back is turned, they kill her and then two other innocent bystanders all so they can enjoy a brief joyride in her car. In the end, one murderer is sentenced to life in prison. The other is given the death penalty.

After four years in prison, Amanda Knox walked free on Monday. The 24-year-old American woman, and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher in 2009. Sollecito's conviction was also overturned by an Italian appeals court in Perugia. The story of sex, drug-using, exchange students, and murder became a media sensation around the world. The prosecution's case against Knox was derided as based on circumstantial evidence doubted by independent experts.

Partisan politics, brinkmanship, periodic threats to shutdown the government over seemingly routine matters — it is easy to see why so many Americans have grown disillusioned with the political system. "If there's too much cynicism, then the Constitution won't work, it can't," Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer tells The Takeaway. A Clinton appointee, who has spent 15 years on the Supreme Court, Breyer warns that a jaded, disfranchised electorate is perilous to a functioning democracy in the U.S. under the Constitution.

Last month, six police officers in Fullerton, Calif., attacked 37-year-old Kelly Thomas, a homeless man with mental health problems. Witnesses say the police used excessive and brutal force in their attack, tasering Kelly at least five times. Thomas died later in hospital. Now, his father and Fullerton residents are demanding justice for his death, as evidence builds that police were overly forceful. Two videos uploaded to YouTube and Fullerton-based websites show witnesses’ reaction to the police action. In one video, the clicking sound of a Taser can be heard.

Nearly 800,000 Native Americans living on reservations must rely on federal prosecutors to go after major crimes, including sexual assault, murder and other felonies, because state law enforcement agencies lack the legal right to intervene in tribal affairs. The process involves a written plea to federal prosecutors to pick up these cases which the tribal courts are fiscally and legally unable to fully prosecute.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that California's overcrowded prison system violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The Court ordered California to transfer or release thirty thousand inmates over the next two years. But California isn’t the only state with a high rate of incarceration. The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Peter Moskos thinks that Americans are in denial about the brutality of our prison system. And he has a provocative idea about how to change it. He's the author of the new book "In Defense of Flogging" and an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo finally surrendered to a military assault by president-elect Alassane Ouattara yesterday. Ouattara won last November’s election with only 54 percent of the vote. While Human Rights Watch has accused Gbagbo and his militia of crimes against humanity, the organization has also accused pro-Ouattara forces of massacring over a hundred civilians in a pro-Gbagbo region. Ouattara has promised to put together a commission of truth and reconciliation to look at crimes from both sides. Can he unite this bitterly divided country? Rickard Dicker, Director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program talks about the legal issues faced by Ivory Coast.

For years, people have claimed a racial bias in our country’s death penalty system, based on the statistics of who winds up on death row. But, now, a law in North Carolina aims to do something to address such bias when it comes to capital prosecution.

The Obama administration has filed suit in federal court, challenging the constitutionality of Arizona’s tough, controversial new immigration law. SB1070 requires state and local police to question and possibly arrest those who exhibit reasonable suspicion of being in the country illegally. The justice department says that this is a federal job, which should not be handled by lcal law enforcement.

Rob Wildeboer covers federal courts for Chicago Public Radio and fills us in on an old case that's finally making its way to court; headlines.

Online vigilante justice has become commonplace in China, but it also occurs right here in the U.S. It's a phenomenon in which internet users hunt down and punish people who’ve attracted their wrath...oftentimes for unpunished acts that are considered reprehensible. Some feel this particular form using tech savvy to give people what they deserve is useful, but questions arise about whether online vigilantism is dangerous.

This morning the International Criminal court in the Hague is deciding whether to charge the current Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, with genocide. The ICC had already issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir in March 2009 for war crimes in Darfur, so what would these more serious charges mean?

• Media Takeout: Veteran media writer Johnnie L. Roberts explains how AOL is trying to reposition itself as a content creator, not on-ramp to the Internet, as it spins off from Time Warner.
  
• Finance Takeout: The New York Times' Louise Story joins us with the latest on the Securities and Exchange Commission's case against three executives from the New Century Financial Corporation.
• Sports Takeout: Our sports contributor, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, looks at last night's Packers/Ravens matchup and looks ahead to the NFL playoffs.

Kristen Lombardi, investigative reporter for the Center for Public Integrity, just completed an in-depth investigation on how college campuses have created judiciary systems to handle rape cases, and how those systems sometimes fail. She talks with us about what she learned while investigating her piece, and shares a first-person account from one woman who feels her rape case was mishandled by her college: former University of Virginia student Kathryn Russell.

We also hear a response from the University of Virginia about what's happened in the aftermath of Russell's case.

To read Lombardi's entire 3-part series on collegiate rape judiciary systems, visit the Center for Public Integrity.

One of the most frequent arguments against allowing the trials of self-professed 9/11 'mastermind' Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four of his accused associates to proceed in civilian court is that the trial will give the men a platform from which to spew anti-American propaganda. Ron Kuby, a criminal defense attorney with experience in terrorism cases, says Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will probably toe the al-Qaida party line – speaking out from the stand on whatever is the "issue du jour," be it Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan.

We also spoke with Ed MacMahon, the court-appointed attorney for Zacarias Moussaoui. MacMahon says no federal judge will allow Mohammed, or any of the accused, to act out of turn in court. But that's not the only terror-related news today. A federal judge unsealed charges against eight men who are accused of recruiting young Somali-Americans to join an Islamic insurgency in Somalia. It's a complicated story and to break it down we speak to Abdi Aynte, an editor with Voice of America. Aynte used to cover the Somali community in Minnesota.

Attorney General Eric Holder faced energetic questioning from senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday; our own Todd Zwillich was there, and joins us, along with Matthew Waxman, associate professor of national security law at Columbia Law School.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday defended his decision to try self-professed 9/11 'mastermind' Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court in New York City, rather than a military tribunal. In a heated exchange with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Holder speculated on whether this trial will set a precedent for how future terror suspects are treated. At one point, Graham asked whether the U.S. would have to read Osama Bin Laden his Miranda Rights if he was caught. James Cohen, a professor at Fordham Law School who is defending two Guantánamo Bay detainees says that Graham's question made the news, but that it's a moot point.

(click through for a transcript of Holder and Graham's exchange.)

The man who calls himself the 'mastermind' of the 9/11 terror attacks is heading to trial in U.S. federal court. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four of his alleged co-conspirators will be moved from Guantánamo Bay to face trial in lower Manhattan – just blocks away from the World Trade Center site. We speak to Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick about some of the challenges involved in such a trial. We also hear from attorney Jonathan Hafetz, co-editor of "The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law." Hafetz represents Mohamedou Slahi, a Guantánamo detainee who may also be headed to the same civilan court.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said earlier today.

Joining us to discuss the implications of this announcement on the president's promise to close Guantánamo Bay is Jonathan Mahler, contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and author of the book "The Challenge: How a Maverick Navy Officer and a Young Law Professor Risked Their Careers to Defend the Constitution — and Won."