Blog Posts

I am sure that in the rarefied atmosphere federal judges call home, gargantuan restitution orders look fair, just and reasonable. After all, what can be more just than requiring a defendant to pay back what he has stolen? The problem is the law's unreasoning way of calculating loss...

Those of you of a certain age will well recall being admonished to eat your vegetables, to clean your dinner plate, by being told of the starving children in Africa. The moral was simple: You should be thankful to live amid influence; think of those who only wish they had what you take for...

During the past 30 days, an average of three people were shot to death by police officers each day in the United States. It was a particularly bloody month. For all of 2015, the average number of people shot to death by police officer was 2.7 per day.
As if that were not bad enough, as of the...

I’m all for civility at the bar, don’t get me wrong. Fighting with words doesn’t bring out the best in people. Lawyers ought to make a special effort to leave the conflicts on the record, where they matter. What goes on in the hallways is a different matter.
...

Every defendant has a mother, of this much I am certain. If there were justice, I am nearly as certain, many of these mothers, rather than the defendants themselves, would be behind bars.
Harsh words for mothers, you say?
Come. Take a walk on the wild side. Let me show you a thing or...

I'm not sure how much money was spent on the renovations to the Elm Street courthouse in New Haven, but it wasn't enough. Sure, the courthouse looks pretty, although there are those embarrassing holes drilled in the stairs approaching the front door where contractors miscalculated where to sink...

My first instinct was to shrug the call off, to regard it as unnecessary alarmism. But the caller was a lawyer I respect, and would turn to in a heartbeat if a family member were injured. I told him I would mull the matter overnight and then get back to him.
Were the pictures in his...

I’ve heard lawyers say that trials are won or lost during jury selection. To that end, the well-heeled spend tens of thousands of dollars on jury consultants, whose role it is to pick just the right person to sit in judgment over a case.
They are wasting their money.
I can teach...

I doubt there was much celebrating on Connecticut’s death row today, where 11 condemned men sat, some for decades, awaiting execution. Not one of them will ever be free again. The quick release of a relatively painless death by lethal ejection will be denied them. Now, they await the fate...

A good friend called the other day. I was unable to take her case due to a conflict. Who would I call if I needed help? she asked.
That is a tough question. The state is awash in lawyers, and a new crop is released on the public every year. Who would I choose?
Of course, the vast...