Triggerlock

The jury returned an acquittal after a little more than two hours.
Kuhn, who now works at a Kendall gym and rides the bus to work, swears he's learned his lesson and gone straight. ATF supervisor DuCuennois is not so optimistic about the prospects of rehabilitation. "We never know what a jury is going to decide," he snaps. "In our view, when an acquittal comes down, the prison door's just revolved again."

Public defender Jim Gaylie takes the opposite view. While happy to tout his attorneys' sterling record on Triggerlock cases, the ex-prosecutor remains fearful that the federal government's sloppy legwork will eventually result in a wrongful conviction. "I understand the need to keep violent criminals off the streets," he says. "And I can see how a program like Triggerlock plays to the crowd: Get all the bogeymen off the street. But what it amounts to is handing out fifteen-year sentences to a bunch of kids - all poor, mostly black - without giving much thought to the investigation, let alone the implications. It's kind of scary how easily our society's willing to throw away the key on these guys."

Gaylie pauses. "But hey," he says, with mock levity. "If you're going to win a war on crime, you need prisoners, right?