Judge Michael Nelson went rogue when he was fed up with pretrial inmates dying. Now he’s at the vanguard of a nationwide fight.

It was after the fifth inmate died at the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center when Judge Michael Nelson finally decided to break his silence.

Nelson already knew the jail’s 2,240 population was over capacity by about 500. Then, U.S. marshals would go on to release a report depicting the jail as a horror show: Inmates were routinely denied access to showers, toothbrushes and toilet paper when in “Red Zone” lockdown. Unused cafeteria food was stored in office areas that “reeked of dead vermin.” Pregnant women were sleeping on floor mattresses. Juveniles were thrown in with 11 others in cells made for two.

So Nelson, 70, became the first judge in the Cleveland area to simply stop setting high bonds for nonviolent arraignees who, unable to pay the $500 or so, would otherwise spend days, weeks or months sitting among convicted inmates.

It’s no Amsterdam, but the City of Light is catching up.

When Lone Andersen lived in Paris in the 1980s, she says she saw “almost no cyclists. I saw one once and I almost felt that I should take a picture.” Despite the fact that France’s most iconic athletic symbol is a bike race, its capital city has never been known as a biking mecca the way Amsterdam or Copenhagen are.

Today, through a mix of new infrastructure, bike sharing and public transit frustrations, that’s changing. In fact, the city’s deputy mayor for transportation, Christophe Najdovski, recently reported that Paris saw a 54 percent increase in cyclists between September 2018 and September 2019.

Mike Miller’s recent experience alongside the NBA’s biggest stars makes him invaluable to the Tigers’ potential breakout.