Blog Posts

Those of you who spend time on Facebook and other social media sites know that the boundaries of free speech can be stretched to cover all sorts of uncivilly spoken smack. There is a limit on what can be said, however. One such limit is what the law calls “true threats.”
The First...

I cannot help but wonder whether the public trial rights of criminal defendants are routinely violated in Connecticut when judges conduct sensitive voir dire by means of the dreaded sidebar. Consider the implications of United States v. Gupta, a 2011 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...

I was at the Mohegan Sun casino the other day, during normal business hours. But I was not there for the purpose of gambling. I swear. I have a room full of police chiefs who are my witnesses.
For the second straight year, I was the guest of the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association, invited...

I’m always amazed when I read press accounts of cases I have either tried, or am in the midst of trying: the reporter’s gloss rarely reflects the complexity of the proceeding. Often, what’s reported is just plain wrong. But the public appetite for trial news appears to be...

Much has been made about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s demeanor during his recent trial. For 10 weeks he sat in a Boston courtroom. Observers report that he showed emotion only once, when an aunt testified in a vain effort to spare him the death penalty.
Just how should he have reacted? The case...

Among the enchantments of criminal law is its specialized vocabulary.
For example, a new potential client often feels the need to approach counsel with something less than a confession. Hence, the following locution: "I caught a case," used in much the same manner as a coughing office mate may...

Reliable information is hard to come by in the death of Baltimore’s Freddie Gray, but, from a distance, he looks to be a victim of a police practice known throughout the United States: Gray was no doubt administered an overdose of “van therapy.”
What’s that? Why,...

I missed Bruce Jenner's interview with Diane Sawyer the other night, and, try as I might, I just can't seem to muster the will to go back and watch it. That the former Olympian regards himself as a woman is, no doubt, a highly significant struggle for him. But I am tone-deaf to its social...

I wasn't under any illusions about what the sentence would be. My client was convicted of shooting a man in a drive-by shooting, killing him almost instantly. There were other charges pending, charges involving other shootings. The maximum sentence for murder was 60 years. We expected the full...

Would a different defense have spared Aaron Hernandez a life sentence? I suspect his lawyers are wondering, especially after jurors told the media they were shocked to hear the defense say in closing arguments that Hernandez was present at the scene of the murder of Odin Lloyd.
But the...