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Michael Frattini allegedly pistol-whipped a man outside a restaurant; he spent one night in jail. His friend Willie Beasley took the gun away and threw it in the street; he's going to prison for almost four years. Gabrielle Banks of the San Francisco Bay Guardian looks at Operation Triggerlock, a well-intentioned law that lets police go around a liberal D.A., federalize crimes and send young men to jail for "ridiculously long times."

California's Proposition 21, a result of the state's recent get-tough-on-crime kick, allows prosecutors unprecedented power to drag mentally retarded minors into the adult court system and demand the harshest penalties. Sacramento News & Review's Cosmo Garvin follows one such case: a 15-year-old autistic boy with an IQ of about 60 who is being tried in adult court for attempted premeditated murder.

He's committed no crime, owns a business, has kids and an American wife, and yet Corning, Calif., resident Ali Mubarak, a native of Pakistan, faces deportation because he once roomed with a man with Al-Qaeda ties. "I don't have anything back there. Everything, my family, is all here," Mubarak tells Josh Indar of the Chico News & Review. "I've been here so long. I just want to run my business and take care of my kids."