Blog Posts

One of the good guys died today, United States District Court Judge Dominic J. Squatrito. He was 82.

I don't know how many cases I tried before him. It was a lot. All were federal civil rights verdicts. Several of them were astounding. He presided as a common man, never putting on airs,...

Max Tegmark remains one of the most interesting scientists alive. His book, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (2017), is must reading for those wanting a quick and accessible survey of how artificial intelligence is changing, and will challenge, the way we...

My cell phone blew up mid-afternoon yesterday. Was I watching what was going on in Washington, D.C.? The Capit0l was being stormed! There was a coup taking place!
I never turned on the television, or did more than scan a few Internet accounts of the events. I even asked...

My wife and I exchange books on Christmas. I've finished the first, Lulu Miller's, Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life.
It's rare I wish a book were longer. But I wish that of this book. It is actually three books in one -- at twice the...

At the mid-point of the tenth month of the Covid-19 pandemic, one thing has become self-evidently clear: Our republic is not well-equipped to deal with a widespread public health emergency. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends in large part on your politics: the left calls for...

I am not sure why anyone with a choice in the matter would choose to serve as a police officer in the City of Hartford. It’s not that the city faces major financial and social difficulties – some folks call it Little Chicago for a reason, its streets run with the blood of...

Am I guilty of professional misconduct worthy of forfeiture of my law license if I publicly question whether we really need Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Day? Or if I post a photograph of a Budweiser beer bottle surrounded by Coors beer cans wearing hoods above the caption “Ku...

Suppose you were suddenly accused of sexual assault. Your accuser claims that one night, a dozen or more years ago, you crossed a line. You’re arrested, and now publicly accused of rape. In an instant, your reputation is destroyed.
Assume for the moment you...

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court appeared to ask a lot of the right questions in arguments this week on Bill Cosby’s appeal of his criminal conviction for sexual assault. What worries me are the answers the court is likely to give.
It took two trials for the...

The thing that most terrifies me about the Covid-19 pandemic is not the prospect of death or physical illness. No one gets out of here alive: I’m old enough to understand that less as the abstract application of a syllogism – all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore...