Justice For All

The midterm elections are here and voters are heading to the polls. But Sylvia Likens won’t be among them. When Sylvia was 16, her parents -- itinerant carnival workers -- left her and her younger sister Jenny (crippled by polio) in the care of Gertrude Baniszewski, a woman with seven children of her own to look after. For $20 a week, it must have seemed like a good idea at the time; as it turns out, it was one of the worst decisions any parents have ever made.

Sylvia and Jenny joined Baniszew...