A debate that matters

 Rumpole has a pretty moving post about the Lady Jaguars here, about a group of girls sent from juvenile court to play basketball together.  

Here's another emotional story about a debate between D.C. jail inmates and JMU students about whether life without parole should be abolished:

Harold Cunningham was locked up more than three decades ago and told he would never see the outside of a prison after committing a string of armed robberies and murders.

On Friday, he stood in a courtroom again. But this wasn’t for a trial, or a sentencing, or a motion, or any of the countless reasons he had previously appeared in court.

Cunningham and a dozen other D.C. jail inmates had gathered to do something unusual: debate in a federal courtroom against four students from James Madison University.

Cunningham, who had returned to the correctional facility to await a posttrial motion, stood in a blue polo shirt and khaki pants and argued for the abolishment of life sentences without parole.

“You are looking at the representation of everything that this debate is about,” Cunningham said as people in the overflowing courtroom cried. “All Americans should stand for rehabilitation, not retribution.”

Read the whole article to see who won!