It was perhaps fitting that on the day the Danbury state’s attorney released his report on last year’s shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, New Haven was under siege. It’s a sign of the times, isn’t it? Random acts of violence, amorphous terror and, always, armed men on the move, peering around corners, banging on doors, rushing grimly through the streets?
Welcome to the 21st century.
I was in Bridgeport the day the report came out. My phone erupted with calls from friends in New Haven. There were helicopters in the sky, police everywhere,...
November 27, 2013
Anyone married for more than a few years has an intuitive grasp of the cognitive process known as framing: Once someone has decided to view you in a certain light, the facts just get in the way. Come home late to an angry spouse, and there is little you can say in your own defense, even if it is the truth. It is not that your spouse is being unfair, it is that the assumptions are powerful, they can cast a light on events, determining what is seen, and what is ignored.
I was framed the other day in trial by a judge. The result shocked me. It has me rethinking whether we ought to have...
November 21, 2013
News that the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a former client of mine was a delightful surprise. He was convicted of sexually abusing a young child. At trial, we won acquittals of the most serious charges, but the jury convicted on two counts, enough to yield a six-year sentence on judgment day.
At trial, I objected to everything save the sight of my own shadow. My adversary, Danbury’s sharmese Hodge, and I went toe-to-toe on the tender years exception to the hearsay rule, the scope of the constancy of accusation doctrine, the extent to which there is...
November 18, 2013
"The lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."
Oh, that it were true, that there were a shepherd to stand beside me in the well of this court, when I want so much, so often, and with such desperation. I have become the good shepherd to the man beside me. He has placed his entire trust in me, and I, I am left alone with nothing but my wits as the maelstrom descends.
"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters."
What green pasture? What still water? This courtroom is as still as death, and when it is not still, the waters roil, yielding...
November 17, 2013
November 14, 2013
How many innocent men and women are sitting in prison? No one knows, exactly, and few care. A person who’s been found guilty by a jury had...
November 7, 2013
It’s been awhile since I’ve written about my dogs, Odysseus and Penelope, but I swear they have been giving me tutorials in the law,...
November 6, 2013
St. Augustine reports the following conversation between Alexander the Great, who struggled to drive pirates from the Mediterranean Sea, and a...
November 1, 2013
Expert testimony, we are taught, is intended to assist juries in deciding difficult factual issues. We permit the opinion testimony of folks who...
November 1, 2013
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...
October 24, 2013
Those skeptical about the efficacy of habeas corpus petitions in the State of Connecticut will be watching the Michael Skakel case carefully. Judge...