Blog Posts

Matthew Boutilier was sentenced to 27 years in prison last week by a Hartford, Connecticut judge. He was sentenced for shooting a woman in the midst of a domestic dispute. She survived the shooting; he shot another woman in the course of the fracas. She died. A jury could not decide whether the...

Sit down. Put your feet up. Close the door, and put the calls on hold. I want a few minutes of your time. I want to talk to you about Philip Roth, the practice of law and, that most exciting topic of all, professional responsibility. The topic here is humility, as in the act of becoming humble. And...

DNA evidence has become the gold standard of a criminal prosecution: Find it, type it and match it and a suspect is either transformed into a guilty party or exonerated. We forget, however, that DNA evidence does not speak. It remains circumstantial evidence. At most, DNA evidence permits a fact...

I am receiving multiple emails a day from a person signing on as "Jim" or "RADIOFREEWYO." I don't read them any longer, but the writer is obsessed with me, with the Trial Lawyers College, with Gerry Spence, with Scott at Simple Justice, and with a bunch of miscellaneous chatter. I've suggested he...

I would not normally write about the voir dire of a prospective juror. I respect how difficult it is to answer questions in open court in the presence of strangers. But I am going to make an exception just this once. I am going to make an exception because the prospective juror is a public figure...

"The implied purpose of the sex offender registration act, public safety, is not served by requiring an otherwise law-abiding adult to be forever branded as a sex offender because of a juvenile transgression involving consensual sex during a Romeo and Juliet relationship."
Finally, some words...

I am a realist and I read the Supreme Court's opinions. Prosecutorial immunity is virtually impenentrable in cases arising under 42 U.S. Section 1983. But I am also a true believer in the rule of law, and this belief dies hard. How is it that the courts have declared off-limits virtually...

ABC News carried a terrifying story this weekend: Hackers have the ability to use an unsuspecting party's computer to store and transport child pornography. Reading the story was enough to make me wonder whether it made sense ever to go online. Check it out:...

Bar regulators show an increased willingness to police the upper limit of attorney's fees, declaring some to be too high. What about the flip side? When are fees too low?
Actually, the rules are silent on both the upper and lower limit. Rule 1.5 of the Connecticut Code simply advises: "A lawyer...

"The four highest achievements of human effort [faith, hope, love and insight] are so many gifts of grace, which are neither to be taught nor learned, neither given nor taken, neither withheld nor earned, since they come through experience, which is something given, and therefore beyond the reach...