Blog Posts

Another name circulating throughout the state for nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is Janet Hall's. She currently sits as a District Court judge in Bridgeport. Much though I would hate to lose her as a trial judge, I hope she gets the promotion.
I've...

The Litigation Section of the Connecticut Bar Association is considering creation of a task force to study the method of selecting juries in the state courts. The committee should form such a task force, and resolve to have a full report to the CBA in 2010.
I'm not a committee joining sort, so...

A representative of the ABA is making the telephone rounds of the state chatting people up about whether United States District Court Judge Robert Chatigny has a temperament suitable for a promotion to the United States Court of Appeals. The answer is obvious: Hell no.
I'll have more to say on...

We've got a pretty good thing going in the federal courts of this state, at least I think we do. It is a small bar. Almost all of the judges have roots in the state and still draw nourishment from relationships formed at the bar. We've not yet become a big state, replete with brash big-state norms....

Mike Cernovich called one day in 2005. Did I want to write for a blog page he created called Crime and Federalism? My response was simple: "What's a blog?"
Mike and I wrote for a couple of years and page had a modest popularity. He still writes under the banner, although his interests are now...

Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz is the front runner among candidates seeking the soon-to-be-vacated office of Attorney General. I am not at all surprised. She has been a responsive member of the state House of Representatives and Secretary of the State. Claims that she has not...

Wow. The police department in the Town of Redding, Connecticut, is very, very creative.
When police officers in the town are subpoenaed to attend a deposition as fact witnesses in connection with a civil action, they come armed with a bill for their time. The town justifies the practice of...

Ice is melting in a New Haven courtroom, and the world has turned out to watch. Will members of the Connecticut General Assembly pay any attention? Will they open their eyes and realize that individual sequestered voir dire wastes time and contributes little or nothing to the pursuit of...

Among the many inconsistencies in the law is the manner in which we distinguish death penalty cases from those cases in which the state seeks something less than the life of the defendant. The courts are content to ignore these inconsistencies because, as the Supreme Court put it, "death is...

Did Governor N. Jodi Rell deprive Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsy of fair trials for their roles in the 2007 home invasion in Cheshire?
One of the lawyers for Mr. Hayes thinks so, and he has filed a motion to bar imposition of the death penalty in the case in the likely event his client is...