Blog Posts

Expert testimony, we are taught, is intended to assist juries in deciding difficult factual issues. We permit the opinion testimony of folks who know things the rest of us don’t because of their education, skill, training or experience, thus, a doctor on disease, or an electrician on...

Word of a new trial for Michael Skakel, a distant member of the Kennedy clan, spread quickly through the Connecticut bar. Some folks gloated over the fact that Mickey Sherman, his lawyer, had been so thoroughly laid to waste by Judge Thomas Bishop’s 136-page decision ordering the trial, a...

Those skeptical about the efficacy of habeas corpus petitions in the State of Connecticut will be watching the Michael Skakel case carefully. Judge Thomas Bishop just granted the writ, a rare enough event, finding that the trial performance of Skakel’s lawyer, Mickey Sherman, was deficient as...

Keep an eye on the case of State v. Lishan Wang, soon to be argued in the Connecticut Supreme Court. It has the potential to force significant and fundamental changes in the state’s criminal justice system.
Dr. Wang, 47, is charged with murdering Dr. Vanjinder Toor in 2010. The two men...

It’s hard to understand why some folks are outraged by the decision of the Connecticut Board of Pardon and Parole to grant clemency to Bonnie Jean Foreshaw. It’s not as though she was given a mere slap on the wrist after her conviction for the shooting death of a pregnant woman. Ms....

Who killed EugenioVega DeLeon? He was shot dead in his store on Grand Avenue in New Haven on July 4, 1993. One eyewitness claimed to have seen two men leave the store right after the shooting. She testified at a trial in 1995. Then she recanted her testimony at another trial in 2009. She then...

Should juries know about plea bargains rejected by those accused of crimes? We currently shield jurors from such knowledge. In most jurisdictions, jurors don’t even have a role in determining the sentence to be imposed if they find a person guilty. That’s the judge’s job, we say....

We call trials a search for the truth, but the fact remains that what juries see at trial is often only the tip of the iceberg. Just beneath the surface, a massive and sometimes ugly reality supports the public display of testimony presented in open court. This is especially so in criminal cases,...

Against my better judgment, I’ve once again wandered into the family courts in yet another post-judgment war about who gets to raise a broken couple’s children. Once again, I am dumbstruck as I watch experts opine about what is in the best interest of the children. The sheer...

First a note of warning: This is a column that will make you happy never to have attended law school, and it might very well make your head hurt, an irony, considering that what we’re about to discuss is how the law treats states of mind.
Two East Haven cops, David Cari and Dennis...