Blog Posts

I ought to be thankful that I learned long ago never to make sport of the efforts of security cops. I've been nearly strip searched by border patrol workers transferred North to Detroit from the Mexican border in the 1970s. They asked whether buddies and I had any citrus fruit to declare in the...

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, is worried that the Catholic Church is ill-equipped to deal with questions about how and when to attempt to cast out evil spirits. So he organized a conference on the topic for the nation's bishops. The holy men are meeting this weekend to discuss...

It is naive to think that a judicially imposed gag order does anything other than benefit the prosecution in a criminal case. So why do Connecticut criminal court judges swoon over them? First, Judge Roland D. Fasano imposed orders in the Cheshire home invasion cases. Now Judge Edward J. Mullarkey...

Can a good man be a good citizen? The debate is at least as old as Saint Augustine's City of God, written in the fifth century of the Common Era. For one North Haven, Connecticut, resident the debate has come home with a vengeance. Lenus Gibbs voted to kill Steven Hayes, even though he acknowledges...

I bring a unique perspective to the gubernatorial race in Connecticut as I voted neither for the declared winner, Dan Malloy, the Democrat, nor for the loser, Tom Foley, the Republican. Frankly, all the chatter back and forth among members of the two parties almost kept me from voting at all. When...

A rump jury of twelve Connecticut residents carefully screened to exclude any member who opposed the death penalty voted to kill Steven Hayes today. The state went a perfect six for six, winning each and every capital felony count. To those of us who oppose the death penalty, today was a sheer act...

There are 118 seats for spectators in the courtroom in which the case of State v. Hayes is being tried. Although court is not scheduled to open until 10 a.m. this morning, I am told there might already by a full house. On the fourth day of deliberations, a verdict is expected. Indeed, many folks...

After three full days of deliberations in New Haven, the jury is still out: There is no verdict on whether Steven Hayes shall live or be killed for his role in the 2007 home invasion in Cheshire that left a mother and her two children dead. Most observers thought the decision to kill would be easy....

The gulf between law and morals is on display in yet another forum: home mortgages. Some contend it is unethical to walk away from a mortgage. A debt arising from contract creates a moral oblgation to pay, they say. But who benefits from this sort of argument? Certainly not homeowners, who struggle...

Why is the Hayes jury deliberating over the weekend? Because the case is one heart-beat away from disaster. It has nothing to do with not wanting the jury to feel hurried, as Judge Jon C. Blue told jurors. That is transparent nonsense. Capital and non-capital cases routinely shut down, as does the...