Tablet Magazine

The accused arrived separately from home detention, a few minutes after their court-appointed lawyers, their judge, and their prosecutor and 15 minutes before their friends and fellow travelers, who filled two-and-a-half rows of hard wooden pews. Across the street the blank eyes of a stone eagle peered into the seventh-floor courtroom. It was November 6, 2024, the day after Election Day. Mohamad Hamad, 23-years-old, got to the courtroom first. He wore a white button-up shirt that hung loosely around his thin body and had a close-cropped haircut that curved over high-arching eyebrows. He looked dazed to the point of total blankness. His co-defendant, Talya Lubit, age 24, wore a light vintage blazer, dark blue with bright white stripes. Stress-swollen cheeks cracked through layers of makeup. Her hair was a resigned chaos of thinning tangles and zig-zags....

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