Blog Posts

I sat down to lunch the other day several tables removed from a gaggle of middle-age white guys in expensive suits. The folks I was meeting arrived late, so I had a chance to listen in on their conversation. Here is an annotated report.
"Have you been following the protest on Wall...

The security service for the one percent cleaned out Zuccotti Park while the rest of us slept last night. Dressed in riot gear, carrying batons and tossing tear gas cannisters, turning high-volume noise machines on people who had the nerve to gather together and rename a small sliver of Manhattan...

Here is my column in this morning's Hartford Courant.
Normally, the scandal at Pennsylvania State University would raise crippling questions about the integrity of Gov. Tom Corbett. But because this case involves allegations of child abuse, we have suspended judgment. We have also forsaken...

The tongue-clucking moralists on the Pennsylvania State University board of trustees who fired Joe Paterno in the dead of night ought to be tarred, feathered and then run out of Happy Valley. They used Joe Pa for all he was worth and then killed him once they had milked every conceivable dime they...

Pennsylvania lawyers are no doubt sitting by their phones, hoping that someone will call to report that they, too, were a victim of Jerry Sandusky’s lust. There’s great money to be made in claims of child sex abuse. Just ask the Catholic Church, which has paid claimants in a series of...

It comes as a surprise to many people to learn that the federal courts do not recognize a right to privacy as a matter of constitutional law. But it is true. In large part, that is because at the time the Constitution was drafted, few would have thought it necessary to include such a right in the...

Let me see if I understand this: Requiring Joshua Komisarjevsky’s daughter to testify in the death-penalty phase of his trial might harm her psychologically, but it is just fine and dandy for the state to kill her father?
Lawyers for Komisarjevsky plan to call their client’s...

Here’s a question I hope comes to a courtroom in Connecticut within the next 30 days: Will the United States Government be forced to reimburse North Haven businessman Frank Ruocco for his legal fees?


Mr. Ruocco was acquitted of 19 counts Friday afternoon by a federal jury...

You can sing Kumbaya until you are hoarse, and I’m betting the big money boys and girls on Wall Street, in the nation’s boardrooms, and those fat and sassy souls hovering behind the safety and security of their investment portfolios won’t hear a thing. They’ll just dial up...

I’ve never met Eric Robert of South Dakota, but what I’ve read about him makes me wonder whether he is a little too sane for the rest of us. The only safe thing to do is to kill him and claim that we are doing justice. At least that is the course the state of South Dakota is taking....