Blog Posts

New York Times is inching its way to the correct conclusion. In an editorial yesterday, the paper praised efforts by the Justice Department to assure that indigent lawyers have adequate counsel when facing criminal charges. The paper also noted a less remarked upon problem: the extent to which...

Dear President Obama:
When you took office you promised to give a voice to the voiceless. You spoke of the audacity of hope. You promised to include those often forgotten and despised. I am appealing to you honor those promises now.
This past weekend you appeared on a television show called...

Dear President Obama:
When you took office you promised to give a voice to the voiceless. You spoke of the audacity of hope. You promised to include those often forgotten and despised. I am appealing to you honor those promises now.
This past weekend you appeared on a television show called...

If you leave lawmakers alone and assign them the task of fixing a state's sex offender registry, odds are they will screw it up. So Maine Citizen's for Change decided to leave nothing to chance when the state's Supreme Court gave lawmakers until the end of this month to alter the state's sex...

The Government spoke from the well of a Connecticut court the other day. A spindly prosecutor stood up and told a jury that the accused had paid a local mayor tens of thousands of dollars in bribes. He had the proof. He was going to show the jury.
"James Botti bought public officials as often...

I have not yet read Dr. Richard Wright's Sex Offender Laws: Failed Policies, New Directions. But I ordered a copy yesterday. If I were a lawmaker in Virginia or a member of U.S. House Judiciary Committee, I would have a copy given to me gratis. A Virginia advocacy group has made its mission the...

Please tell me it's not true. Tell me President Obama did not appear on the 1000th edition of America's Most Wanted. Tell me he did not succumb to the fear-mongering hysteria that seeks to transform worst-cases scenarios into norms of public policy.
But it is true. The president sat for an...

Please tell me it's not true. Tell me President Obama did not appear on the 1000th edition of America's Most Wanted. Tell me he did not succumb to the fear-mongering hysteria that seeks to transform worst-cases scenarios into norms of public policy.
But it is true. The president sat for an...

Robert Wilson was charged with conspiring to commit mail fraud and aiding and abetting another to make false statements on a tax return. When he was arrested, he claimed he was broke. A public defender was appointed, and, after a six-week trial, Wilson was acquitted. Only it turns out that Wilson...

Robert Wilson was charged with conspiring to commit mail fraud and aiding and abetting another to make false statements on a tax return. When he was arrested, he claimed he was broke. A public defender was appointed, and, after a six-week trial, Wilson was acquitted. Only it turns out that Wilson...