truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

Thomas Wimberly, 74, was arrested in July 2006 for stealing two hot dogs (value: $2.11, including tax) from a Quik Trip convenience store in Wichita, Kan. (though he said he had merely forgotten to pay). Because it was Wimberly's third misdemeanor theft charge, Kansas law required that the count be upgraded to a felony. Wimberly could not immediately make bail, and in fact was incarcerated for 71 days before his trial (once being subject to a bond of $100,000), but prosecutors insisted on a trial. In April 2007, a jury of 12 people (reportedly angry at having been called to such an insignificant case) found Wimberly not guilty. (The penalty, according to state law, if he had been convicted, was 12 months' probation.)

Thomas Wimberly, 74, was arrested in July 2006 for stealing two hot dogs (value: $2.11, including tax) from a Quik Trip convenience store in Wichita, Kan. (though he said he had merely forgotten to pay). Because it was Wimberly's third misdemeanor theft charge, Kansas law required that the count be upgraded to a felony. Wimberly could not immediately make bail, and in fact was incarcerated for 71 days before his trial (once being subject to a bond of $100,000), but prosecutors insisted on a trial. In April 2007, a jury of 12 people (reportedly angry at having been called to such an insignificant case) found Wimberly not guilty. (The penalty, according to state law, if he had been convicted, was 12 months' probation.)

In March three homeless men were awarded $10,000 each in a settlement with the city of Las Vegas because they were arrested in November for violating a since-repealed ordinance. The men had been cited for "illegally" sleeping within 500 feet of public urine or feces (a restriction the city thought would drive the homeless to isolated parts of town to relieve themselves and/or to sleep.)

In breathtaking attention to detail reminiscent of the movie "The Great Escape," some inmates at Michigan's Kinross Correctional Facility chipped through 8 inches of concrete, then continued tunneling until they had cleared the facility's two external walls by an extra 25 feet, but then a guard spotted an irregularity near a cell wall and discovered the operation. When stopped in March, the inmates were only 6 feet away (straight up) from freedom. (As in the movie, their greatest accomplishment was figuring out how to dispose of all that dug-out dirt without being noticed.)

In breathtaking attention to detail reminiscent of the movie "The Great Escape," some inmates at Michigan's Kinross Correctional Facility chipped through eight inches of concrete, then continued tunneling until they had cleared the facility's two external walls by an extra 25 feet, but then a guard spotted an irregularity near a cell wall and discovered the operation. When stopped in March, the inmates were only six feet away (straight up) from freedom. (As in the movie, their greatest accomplishment was figuring out how to dispose of all that dug-out dirt without being noticed.)

Are We Safe? The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general revealed in March that, even though 52 teams are at work tracking down foreigners who remain in the country even after being ordered out, the agency has a backlog of 620,000 of these fugitive aliens. (However, the inspector general implied that the backlog has a benefit, for there are not enough cells to detain that many fugitives.)