John Snyder is a kindly older man who lives in my small town. He’s what you’d consider a normal person — a married homeowner who teaches at the local university.

He’d been a public defender for almost 30 years when he took the opportunity to teach students about the legal system instead of defend them in it, feeling he was nearing burnout in a demanding profession.

I’ve come to know John pretty well over the years, not just because we live in the same town — my wife, Alexis, is his favorite bartender, and he likes going out for dinner with his wife or having a beer after work as much as the next guy.

But there was a marked theme to John’s happy-hour conversation in fall 2022: His teaching assistant in Washington State University’s Criminal Justice and Criminology Department was “an a–ho

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