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Outrage And Celebrity – the spirit of Truman Capote At The Fringe
Outrage And Celebrity – the spirit of Truman Capote At The Fringe

Edinburgh Reporter

time03-07-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Edinburgh Reporter

Outrage And Celebrity – the spirit of Truman Capote At The Fringe

Truman Capote revelled in outrage and celebrity – staging parties that would simultaneously delight and scandalise 1960s US high society. His guest lists featured Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo, the Bloomingdales, Peter Lawford and Patricia Kennedy, David Niven, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Hope Lange and many, many more. This year Fringe audiences are being offered the chance to don a mask and take part in the world premiere of Garden Party, Truman Capote's Black and White Celebration – an immersive theatrical experience. Two hosts stage their own garden party where rich and famous – movie stars and politicians or avantgarde artists – become dancers in the ballad of hypocrisy. They capture the spirit of Capote's own great social coup, his star-studded 1966 Black and White Ball masquerade at New York's Plaza Hotel, which embodied his immense talent, ambition and obsessive desire to be the centrepiece of high society. Presented by Paris-based Kulturscio'k Live Art Collective, Garden Party, Truman Capote's Black and White Celebration plunges audiences into a world of shimmering glamour, smeared by squalid secrets. Performers Sean O'Callaghan, Paul Spera, and Alessia Siniscalchi (with live sound by Didier Leglise) introduce them to a dangerous conflict where art and life are closely entwined. And the real guests of honour are not the multitude of famous names but hypocrisy, class power, destructive gossip and perhaps even murder. And not all the guests are equally welcome, indeed many have been invited simply for what they represent. The show is aimed at those who love mystery, original music and immersive writing. Director and performer, Alessia Siniscalchi, said: 'At a time when being gay or questioning gender norms was profoundly controversial, Capote embraced and championed the queer. This new, immersive production returns us to high society life in that era, its delights, darkness, scandals and the yearning to smash social hypocrisy.' Like this: Like Related

Fringe Galaxy expands: theSpaceUK unveils dazzling 2025 line-up
Fringe Galaxy expands: theSpaceUK unveils dazzling 2025 line-up

Scotsman

time12-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Scotsman

Fringe Galaxy expands: theSpaceUK unveils dazzling 2025 line-up

The stars have aligned for another bumper year at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as theSpaceUK launches its 2025 programme – and it's nothing short of a theatrical supernova. With over 400 shows spanning theatre, comedy, cabaret, music, dance and family performance, theSpaceUK continues its legacy as one of the Fringe's boldest and most eclectic venues. Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... From award-winning international acts to fiercely fresh new writing, the line-up promises stories that shock, stir, and sing – all housed across theSpaceUK's network of city-centre stages Stage Set for Stirring Theatre Leading the charge in this year's theatre programme is 1 King, 2 Princes and Shakespeare's Lie by Slade Wolfe Enterprises, a revisionist romp through Richard III's legacy. In a courtroom battle of ghosts and spin, the maligned monarch takes on centuries of Tudor propaganda. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Dance Dance Involution Fraternity turns feral in Frat by Namesake Theatre, while Saloon Girls transports audiences to a bawdy Wild West brothel, where six women fight for agency beneath the corsets and candlelight. Literary glamour meets existential rot in Garden Party – Truman Capote's Black and White Celebration, an immersive swirl through New York's glittering underbelly. There's powerful introspection too: Tell Me Where Home Is (I'm Starting to Forget) offers a darkly comic take on queer identity, while The Boy from Bantay weaves a heartfelt musical memoir of Filipino heritage and family dreams. Joann Condon's Little Boxes gently dissects the stages of womanhood, and Bipolar Badass is a raw tale of mental illness, stigma and strength. Asian Arts Season Breaks New Ground A highlight of the programme is the launch of a new Asian Arts Season – a platform for six acclaimed artists from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Among them are Ah-Ma, a tender elegy for a fading grandmother; Dance Dance Involution, a high-octane physical lament for Gen Z burnout; and Sàng Tsáu, which transforms Taoist ritual into theatrical revelation. Developed in partnership with Asia Base, the season underscores theSpaceUK's growing international reach and commitment to diverse voices. pAges Cabaret with a Twist (and a Mind Trick) From Leith to Las Vegas, Frankie Mack Showman returns with big-band swagger and plenty of sparkle. Equally glitzy but far more subversive is Atomic Cabaret, where physics, politics and showtunes collide in Lynda Williams's darkly funny takedown of nuclear policy. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mind-reader Mason King – The Mind Spy delves into CIA experiments and psychic espionage, while The Telepath and The Conjuror deliver magical family fare with old-school flair. For those craving late-night laughs with a side of innuendo, 18+ Magic: The Magic Show Your Mum Shouldn't See more than lives up to its billing. Music That Moves (and Mocks) Supermarket 86 The musical theatre slate is no less punchy. I Was a Teenage She-Devil is a riotous revenge rock opera, while I'm Autistic – A New Musical uses song to explore neurodivergence and connection. Sense offers a moving Belgian portrait of memory and dementia, and Dirty Money is a jailhouse musical full of grit and gusto. Comedy and song entwine in Webber!, a musical satire featuring a devilish Margaret Thatcher and a savage swipe at theatrical egos. Meanwhile, You're Fired! The Musical imagines a capitalist fever dream of boardrooms and Broadway. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Comedy Cracking at the Seams Comedy is delivered with bite, brilliance, and belly-laughs. PSA: Pelvic Service Announcement from NYC's Amy Veltman is a funny, frank exploration of female health, while Abby Denton: My Favorite Loser celebrates a forgotten Olympic misfit in hilarious style. Catholic guilt gets glitter-bombed in Saint Sydney, a church-school cabaret from Syd King, and Tall Tails takes us under the sea with five fish-women floundering in early-2000s nostalgia. Newcomer Diya Shah offers self-deprecating gold in Diya Shah? Diya Shahn't, a Footlight-infused coming-of-age tale from a performer fast on the rise. Family Fringe: Whimsy Meets Wonder Young audiences are well served too. Fantastic Mr Fox returns in a new twist on Dahl's classic, while The Caterpillar and the Blackbird offers a musical forest romp. Puppet magic meets myth in Here Comes Gudong, and Journey to the Moon gets children thinking about climate change through creative interactivity. There's also classic storytelling in Puss in Boots – A Cat's Adventure, and sleight-of-hand silliness in Family Magic from The Great Baldini. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Dance with Depth and Drama Dance fans are spoiled for choice. Bella's Ballerinas mix ballet with burlesque and sass, while Sole to Soul combines traditional Chinese opera with contemporary movement to reflect on womanhood and identity. Returning company Suitcase Dance Theatre presents pAges, a tap-and-ballet memory play, while Stitch in Time resurrects WWII knitting songs in a quirky cabaret format. And for something truly out there, I've Bodyswapped with Noel Gallagher blends Britpop, clowning, and metaphysical mayhem. With a programme as vibrant as the Royal Mile in August, theSpaceUK has once again staked its claim as a Fringe powerhouse. Tickets are now available at

European fry-up: Two Spanish taverns battle for title of world's oldest restaurant
European fry-up: Two Spanish taverns battle for title of world's oldest restaurant

Yahoo

time11-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Yahoo

European fry-up: Two Spanish taverns battle for title of world's oldest restaurant

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Spain, where we lay our scene... A bastardised Shakespeare opening that suits the ongoing 'rivalry' between two family-owned taverns, who both claim to be the world's oldest establishments. There's Madrid's Sobrino de Botín, which holds the coveted Guinness World Record as the world's oldest restaurant. Founded in 1725 and located a stone's throw from the famed Plaza Mayor, it is famed for its wood-fire oven and has attracted patrons like Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald and was immortalised by Ernest Hemingway in his book 'The Sun Also Rises' - in which the author described Botín as 'one of the best restaurants in the world." It was awarded the Guinness accolade in 1987 and celebrated its 300 years of continuous service earlier this year. Then there's Casa Pedro, located on the outskirts of Madrid. The rustic tavern has boldly claimed that they have a shot at the title. The establishment has hosted Spanish King Juan Carlos I and current Spanish monarch King Felipe VI, and the owners assert their establishment endured the War of Spanish Succession at the start of the 18th century - therefore making Casa Pedro older than Botín. 'It's really frustrating when you say, 'Yes, we've been around since 1702,' but... you can't prove it,' says manager and eighth-generation proprietor Irene Guiñales. 'If you look at the restaurant's logo, it says 'Casa Pedro, since 1702,' so we said, 'Damn it, let's try to prove it.'' Guiñales' family has hired a historian and has so far turned up documents dating the restaurant's operations to at least 1750. She continues to hunt for records proving that Casa Pedro dates back to 1702. The question remains: How can either restaurant claim the title? Guinness provides its specific guidelines only to applicants, according to spokesperson Kylie Galloway, who notes that it entails 'substantial evidence and documentation of the restaurant's operation over the years." Antonio González, a third-generation proprietor of Botín, states that Guinness required Botín show that it has continuously operated in the same location with the same name. The only time the restaurant closed was during the pandemic – much like Casa Pedro. That criteria would mean that restaurants that are even older, like Paris' Le Procope, which says it was founded in 1686, aren't eligible for the Guinness designation. To make matters dicier, an Italian trattoria located in Rome's historic center, may pip both Sobrino de Botín and Casa Pedro to the post and steal the cake. Nestled on Vicolo della Campana, La Campana claims 'a taste of authentic Roman cuisine with a side of history' and more than 500 years of operation, citing documents on its menu and a self-published history. Its owners have said they have compiled the requisite paperwork and plan to submit it to Guinness. The battle of tasty households continues... Let's hope that chef blood won't make chef hands unclean.

Two Spanish taverns battle for title of world's oldest restaurant
Two Spanish taverns battle for title of world's oldest restaurant

Euronews

time11-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Euronews

Two Spanish taverns battle for title of world's oldest restaurant

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Spain, where we lay our scene... A bastardised Shakespeare opening that suits the ongoing 'rivalry' between two family-owned taverns, who both claim to be the world's oldest establishments. There's Madrid's Sobrino de Botín, which holds the coveted Guinness World Record as the world's oldest restaurant. Founded in 1725 and located a stone's throw from the famed Plaza Mayor, it is famed for its wood-fire oven and has attracted patrons like Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald and was immortalised by Ernest Hemingway in his book 'The Sun Also Rises' - in which the author described Botín as 'one of the best restaurants in the world." It was awarded the Guinness accolade in 1987 and celebrated its 300 years of continuous service earlier this year. Then there's Casa Pedro, located on the outskirts of Madrid. The rustic tavern has boldly claimed that they have a shot at the title. The establishment has hosted Spanish King Juan Carlos I and current Spanish monarch King Felipe VI, and the owners assert their establishment endured the War of Spanish Succession at the start of the 18th century - therefore making Casa Pedro older than Botín. 'It's really frustrating when you say, 'Yes, we've been around since 1702,' but... you can't prove it,' says manager and eighth-generation proprietor Irene Guiñales. 'If you look at the restaurant's logo, it says 'Casa Pedro, since 1702,' so we said, 'Damn it, let's try to prove it.'' Guiñales' family has hired a historian and has so far turned up documents dating the restaurant's operations to at least 1750. She continues to hunt for records proving that Casa Pedro dates back to 1702. The question remains: How can either restaurant claim the title? Guinness provides its specific guidelines only to applicants, according to spokesperson Kylie Galloway, who notes that it entails 'substantial evidence and documentation of the restaurant's operation over the years." Antonio González, a third-generation proprietor of Botín, states that Guinness required Botín show that it has continuously operated in the same location with the same name. The only time the restaurant closed was during the pandemic – much like Casa Pedro. That criteria would mean that restaurants that are even older, like Paris' Le Procope, which says it was founded in 1686, aren't eligible for the Guinness designation. To make matters dicier, an Italian trattoria located in Rome's historic center, may pip both Sobrino de Botín and Casa Pedro to the post and steal the cake. Nestled on Vicolo della Campana, La Campana claims 'a taste of authentic Roman cuisine with a side of history' and more than 500 years of operation, citing documents on its menu and a self-published history. Its owners have said they have compiled the requisite paperwork and plan to submit it to Guinness. The battle of tasty households continues... Let's hope that chef blood won't make chef hands unclean. Khaby Lame, the world's most popular TikTok personality, has left the US after being detained by immigration agents in Las Vegas for allegedly overstaying his visa. The Senegalese-Italian influencer, whose legal name is Seringe Khabane Lame, was detained Friday at Harry Reid International Airport but was allowed to leave the US without a deportation order, a spokesperson for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed in a statement. Lame, 25, arrived in the US on 30 April and 'overstayed the terms of his visa,' the ICE spokesperson said. His detainment and voluntary departure - which allows those facing removal from the US to avoid a deportation order on their immigration record, which could prevent them from being allowed back into the US for up to a decade - from the US comes amid President Donald Trump's escalating crackdown on immigration. This includes raids in Los Angeles that have sparked days of protests against ICE, as the president tests the bounds of his executive authority. Many from the world of entertainment have reacted to Trump's deployment of the National Guard to LA, calling the actions as 'Un-American' and 'a fucking disgrace'. Governor Gavin Newsom also announced his plans to sue the federal government over the National Guard deployment, calling it 'an unconstitutional act.' "This is exactly what Donald Trump wanted. He flamed the fires and illegally acted to federalize the National Guard. The order he signed doesn't just apply to CA (California). It will allow him to go into ANY STATE and do the same thing. We're suing him." Khaby Lame was born in Senegal then moved to Italy as a young child and was raised in a poor area of the town of Chivasso, outside of Turin. When COVID hit, the then 22-year-old lost his job in a factory and was forced, like millions of Italians, to stay home. Lame took to social media to pass the time and quickly rose to international fame without ever saying a word in his videos, which would show him reacting to absurdly complicated 'life hacks." He has over 162 million followers on TikTok alone. His internet fame quickly evolved. He signed a multi-year partnership with designer brand Hugo Boss in 2022 – the same year he became an Italian citizen. In January, he was appointed as UNICEF goodwill ambassador. Last month, he attended the Met Gala in New York City, days after arriving in the US.

The first rule of ICE Club? Don't talk about ICE Club. And treat all migrants as criminals.
The first rule of ICE Club? Don't talk about ICE Club. And treat all migrants as criminals.

Yahoo

time25-05-2025

  • Politics
  • Yahoo

The first rule of ICE Club? Don't talk about ICE Club. And treat all migrants as criminals.

A bird sits on a security fence at the Chase County Detention Facility in 2021. (Max McCoy/Kansas Reflector) Jails are hard places made necessary by people like Ernest Hoefgen. Few are likely to remember Hoefgen now, but back in September 1943 the 31-year-old escaped from the city jail at Cottonwood Falls. He'd been picked up for assault, according to newspaper accounts, and was using an alias. In reality, Hoefgen was an escapee from the Texas state prison at Huntsville, where he had been serving a life sentence for murder. Stick with me, because this is not a story about a murder that took place eight decades ago, but about due process in America in 2025. I've been thinking a lot lately about the Constitutional guarantee of due process, which means everyone should have access to fair and adequate legal proceedings when the government threatens to deprive us of life, liberty or property. This is regardless of what Kristi Noem, director of Homeland Security, may say it and habeas corpus are. Our thinking about courts and jails and their role in American society has been shaped by Hoefgen and other criminals like him. The reason 'In Cold Blood' stays with us, apart from Truman Capote's writing, is that it's a story of a farm family in western Kansas who were murdered in a sensational way. It leaves us asking, why? Movies, books and television also tend to blur our thinking about who is a criminal and who is not. If you're in jail — or a detention center, as they're likely called now — you must be a criminal, right? Well, no. There are plenty of people being processed in our jails right now who have committed no crime but who have violated relatively minor civil codes, comparable to getting a ticket from the city for the height of your grass. But unlike policing lawn care, there's a gold rush related to immigration enforcement. There's a billion-dollar detention industry hungry to fill beds with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees, and civil liberties are being eroded in the process. ICE doesn't like to talk about how much it pays facilities, or to have any of its contractors talk about how much they make per day for each detainee. Apparently, the first rule of ICE club is don't talk about ICE club. But let's talk first about how jails are supposed to function. In 1938, Hoefgen killed carpenter George Richet with a hatchet from Richet's own toolbox. Hoefgen and a teenage girlfriend, Sylvia Phipps, were hitchhiking near Wichita Falls when the carpenter gave them a lift, according to the Associated Press. Hoefgen later told investigators he didn't know why he killed Richet, who still had $8 in cash when his body was found by railway workers. The case remained unsolved for two years. Both Hoefgen and Phipps were later picked up on forgery charges at Scottsbluff, Nebraska, found guilty, and sentenced to prison. In 1940, Phipps told the matron at the women's reformatory she wanted to talk to investigators because she had witnessed the killing of Richet in Texas. When questioned, Hoefgen confessed. We know all this about Hoefgen because of due process. The evidence against him was carefully detailed in court filings, he had advice from lawyers, and his court proceedings were open to the public and the press. Hoefgen was sent to Huntsville to serve his life sentence, but he escaped — twice. After the second escape, he ran back to his home state of Kansas, where he married a local girl named Pauline and got into trouble at Cottonwood Falls. After escaping from the city jail, he stole another car and picked up a hitchhiker, 18-year-old Kansas State University student Bruce Smoll. When Smoll became suspicious, according to a United Press story, Hoefgen shot him to death. Rabbit hunters found the body a month later in a cornfield near Peabody, about 40 miles southwest of Cottonwood Falls. Based on a hunch from Smoll's father that Hoefgen may have been involved in his son's death, and tips from Pauline's parents, investigators found Hoefgen living in Denver and returned him to Marion County, where he was charged with Smoll's murder. Hoefgen's story is full of odd details that, if you put them in a movie, would shatter the audience's suspension of disbelief. When he and Phipps were in the county jail at Gering, Nebraska, awaiting trial on the forgery charges, they allegedly hatched a ridiculous jailbreak plot by hiding notes to one another in bananas and tomatoes. My interest in Hoefgen is because his last murderous jail escape began in Cottonwood Falls. The Chase County Detention Center at Cottonwood Falls has received attention lately as being the last and largest ICE-contracted jail facility in Kansas. The 148-bed facility was built to turn a profit for this central Kansas county of 2,500, and it has been mostly full since the mass deportations began under the Trump administration. Back in 2021 and again earlier this month, I wrote about my discomfort with a picturesque Kansas county profiting from the misery of ICE detentions. Four years ago, the rate paid per day of inmate detention was $62. Curious about how much Chase County is now receiving to house detainees, I filed a Kansas Open Records Act request for the facility contract. I was told to take a hike. 'Due to being a federal contracted agency,' Sheriff Jacob Welsh wrote in an email, 'there are contract restrictions which I am not allowed to disclose any information about the contract.' Requests, he said, were to be sent directly to ICE. Welsh did not respond to a request to cite the KORA exemption he felt applied in the situation or to provide the language in the federal contract that forbade him from discussing the contract. I did contact ICE for the contract but received an automated out-of-office reply from spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe. The email said she would respond when she returned 'Monday, May 21.' As of Friday, I had not received a response from O'Keefe or any other ICE representative. Max Kautsch, a First Amendment lawyer at Lawrence, told me that Welsh's responses showed a lack of concern for open records and state law. 'The sheriff's response violates the Kansas Open Records Act,' Kautsch said, 'because he does not 'cite the specific provision of law' authorizing denial of the request,' which he must do under Kansas law. There are legitimate exemptions to KORA that allow the use of federal law to deny requests, such as how public universities can deny some requests for student information under Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. 'If the sheriff insists on denying the request based on guidance he's received from the federal government, he must come clear to the public and cite that authority, as KORA requires,' Kautsch said. 'He also would need to explain why he is unable to produce even a redacted version of the requested records.' Welsh's response raises concerns about open government. 'These circumstances suggest, at a minimum, that the sheriff is indifferent to open records laws, attention to detail, or both,' Kautsch said. 'That conclusion is bolstered by the fact that the inmate information portal on the sheriff's website says access to records held by the Chase County Jail is purportedly governed by the 'Kentucky Open Records Act.' Their office is in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. If the sheriff's office can't be bothered to properly identity its own state law on its own website, perhaps it is to be expected that it wouldn't know how to respond to a KORA request, either.' Why Kentucky? I don't know. Perhaps the template for the inmate portal was borrowed from the Muhlenberg County Detention Center. To get a better understanding of what ICE detainees at Chase County and elsewhere go through, I contacted Kansas City, Missouri, immigration attorney Michael Sharma-Crawford. For years, Sharma-Crawford told me, Chase County was the only immigration detention facility for most of Kansas and Missouri. There are now more counties being contracted, he said, especially in Missouri. In Kansas, for-profit CoreCivic is attempting to repurpose a shuttered prison in Leavenworth for ICE detention, but it has faced legal challenges and has not yet opened. The issue with the current wave of detainments, Sharma-Crawford said, is the speed at which deportations are being carried out and the difficulty in tracking cases through the system. Migrants are typically given a handful of documents upon their arrest containing the specifics against them. Without access to those papers, it's difficult for an immigration attorney to evaluate a case, he said, or to track a migrant's case online. In many instances, he said, jails meant to house criminal detainees are unprepared to deal with civil immigration cases. He commended Chase County on being willing to fax immigration documents to attorneys, while allowing the detainees to keep the originals, and to facilitate attorney-client phone calls. 'I'd take 12 Chase Counties compared to other facilities,' Sharma-Crawford said. Access to legal counsel is an important Sixth Amendment right, he said, and this is especially important when deportation may now occur three weeks or less from the time of arrest. 'If you're from Mexico, you have to move quickly,' he advised. 'If you don't know what your status is, you should talk to an immigration attorney.' He also suggested having important documents, like birth certificates, at the ready, and being prepared to seek a second legal opinion when necessary. Sharma-Crawford said the immigration system was broken and that things were building to a chaotic crescendo. The administration's goal, he said, is to artificially clog the system and then claim it is impractical to give every detainee a hearing. But as late Justice Antonin Scalia said, due process applies to everyone. It's something average Americans should take to heart, no matter where they were born. It's something that is being lost among the current rhetoric about crime and immigration. The vast majority of ICE detainees, he said, are held on civil charges. 'I don't defend people against criminal charges,' Sharma-Crawford said. If we don't protect the due process rights of migrants now, he said, we might be denying due process for everyday civil infractions tomorrow, such as allowing your grass to grow too high. 'At some point, this leads to abbreviated trials' and other erosions of due process, he said. The prospect of CoreCivic opening a thousand-bed facility at Leavenworth terrifies him. The previous prison operated by CoreCivic in Leavenworth was described as a 'hell hole' of abuse and mismanagement. The city of Leavenworth sued to stop the facility from being reopened as an ICE detention facility, but on Thursday a federal judge dismissed the case. While Chase County did not provide answers to my questions about how lucrative its ICE contract was, a 2024 report by the American Immigration Council provides some clues. It estimated the average daily rate for detention to be $237 per person, with single adults spending an average of 55 days in detention. The rate for Chase County, of course, might differ. But with nobody willing to talk, who knows? Communities such as Cottonwood Falls and Leavenworth must weigh the price of monetizing ICE detainment in the age of Trump against the fundamental American values of fairness and compassion. Leavenworth wouldn't directly share in the per-day rate as Chase County does, but there is the lure of jobs and economic development. It is a devil's bargain, a Faustian pact, the civic equivalent of 30 pieces of silver. Back in 1943, Hoefgen pleaded guilty in Marion County District Court to the murder of K-State student Smoll. He was sentenced to death. Hoefgen was hanged shortly after 1 a.m. Friday, March 10, 1944, on a newly constructed gallows in a warehouse at the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing. His last meal had been fried chicken. He declined requests to speak to reporters and showed little emotion as he was led up the 13 fated steps, an eyewitness from the Associated Press reported. Hoefgen was the first person to be executed by Kansas since 1870. The death penalty is currently legal in Kansas, but it hasn't been used since 1965. The most notorious murderers executed at the Lansing gallows were 'In Cold Blood' killers Dick Hickok and Perry Smith. While it's easy to see the story of Hoefgen as that of a criminal who got what he deserved, it's also a saga of Constitutional due process. He was repeatedly brought before the courts in the downward spiral of his life, afforded lawyers, treated humanely and even given fruit while in custody. Whether you agree with capital punishment or not, there was no abbreviation of justice. County jails were typically places where criminal defendants were sent to await their trials or where those convicted of misdemeanor crimes served sentences of a year or less. They were not places for defendants in civil cases. Criminal cases can result in punishment that includes jail time, while civil cases typically involve settling disputes. The migrants now being rushed through the deportation pipeline deserve the full protection of due process. If we deny them legal representation and access to courts by accelerating their cases through a broken system, we are betraying core American values. We risk turning justice into an unthinking machine run by idealogues and fueled by the monetization of detainment. It is either due process for all, or due process for none. Max McCoy is an award-winning author and journalist. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

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