Blog Posts

The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s decision to vacate the conviction of Bill Cosby and discharge him is a stunning rebuke of the prosecution. Not only is his conviction reversed; the Commonwealth cannot try him again for the sexual assault of Andrea...

Among the world’s mysteries is the transformation of naked power into authority. Yes, from time immemorial, there have been those with the means to impose their will on others. But we say, or at least we used to say, that when the state acts, its agents possess not mere power, but...

I submitted the following testimony to the Connecticut General Assembly in opposition to the so-called "Prosecutorial Accountability" act. The legislation is a solution to a problem that does not exist.
My name is Norman Pattis. I have represented people accused of...

A year ago, I watched New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to try to catch my bearings as a pandemic struck. Donald Trump was the black beast of politics then. In the contrast media of the cable news cycle, Cuomo came out looking like a white knight. Hell, he wrote a book about it all. He was king...

My cell phone blew up mid-afternoon yesterday. Was I watching what was going on in Washington, D.C.? The Capit0l was being stormed! There was a coup taking place!
I never turned on the television, or did more than scan a few Internet accounts of the events. I even asked...

Suppose you were suddenly accused of sexual assault. Your accuser claims that one night, a dozen or more years ago, you crossed a line. You’re arrested, and now publicly accused of rape. In an instant, your reputation is destroyed.
Assume for the moment you...

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court appeared to ask a lot of the right questions in arguments this week on Bill Cosby’s appeal of his criminal conviction for sexual assault. What worries me are the answers the court is likely to give.
It took two trials for the...

I’ve a confession to make: I’ve not stepped into a courtroom since sometime in early March of this year, and I haven’t missed it one bit.
This is a confession because I am a trial- and appellate-lawyer. I make my living, or at least I used to make my...

The final words of Book Two of St. Augustine’s Confessions could easily be a epigraph for our times: “I turned myself into a famished land I had to live in.” I’ve all but given up watching the news on television: In a matter of months, our public life has been...

You’ve probably seen the picture of Naked Athena by now. She’s the lithe young woman who pranced nude through the streets of Portland, Oregon, the other night, wearing only a black face mask and a cap to confront law enforcement officers as they tried to quell protestors....