YES: Federal Prosecutors Are Punishing Actor Lori Loughlin for Exercising Her Right To Defend Herself: Plea deals aren’t about mercy these days. They’re about intimidating defendants into giving up the right to a trial. “The new charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and money laundering, filed Tuesday, came just a day after four other parents caught up in the “Varsity Blues” scandal accepted plea deals in Boston. This is not a coincidence. As USA Today’s reporting makes abundantly clear, the parents who pleaded guilty did so because prosecutors had threatened them with these additional charges. Loughlin and the other parents face harsher criminal punishment now entirely because they are insisting on their innocence.”

Related: Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything Is A Crime.