Hey, brother, can you spare a Bitcoin? We may not yet be at a point where panhandlers request cryptocurrency, but increasingly, Bitcoin and other alternative currencies,[1] are on the mind of regulators, investors, and merchants. Lawyers are free to accept Bitcoin as payment for legal fees, and some, including the author, do. But this shadowy world of electronic currency raises important questions about transparency, legitimacy of existing institutions, and, alas, money laundering.
Most lawyers aren’t paying attention to Bitcoin. It is a wave breaking all...
March 20, 2017
I can’t say I am surprised by Dylann Roof’s decision to conduct his own defense. What, really, has he to lose?
Mr. Roof is standing trial in a South Carolina federal court, accused of 33 crimes — ranging from murder to obstruction of religion to firearms charges and to hate crimes — all arising from his shooting spree in a Charleston African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015. Mr. Roof, 22, is white; the nine people he shot to death were black. He hoped his shootings would start a race war.
If convicted, after a trial by jury, he faces the death...
December 9, 2016
Just why anyone would want to be a police officer in this day and age is beyond me. And why any current officer would want to lead a police department is an even greater mystery.
Consider the case of Assistant Chief Luiz Casanova, who was the target of a snarky press release this week by the New Haven Police Department. Casanova, it turns out, was given a two-day paid leave while the department investigates a “verbal interaction.’
First, some context.
The police chief’s position is currently vacant, after...
December 7, 2016
By the time you read this, you will most likely have done all the shopping and planning you need to do to celebrate Thanksgiving. Comes now the assembling of family and friends around a table to share the holiday meal. Today is a day we come together to give thanks.
For what?, you ask, in this most bruising of electoral seasons.
All votes have yet to be counted nationwide, but this much seems obvious: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote; Donald Trump won the electoral vote. Next month, electors will assemble to cast their ballot. Donald Trump is all but certain to become the next...
November 23, 2016
November 18, 2016
Here’s the good news: President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Steve Bannon as chief strategist and senior counselor might...
November 10, 2016
The website for information on how to migrate to Canada crashed Tuesday night; it was apparently overwhelmed by the amount of traffic. I suspect that...
October 27, 2016
Baseball and I have a tortured history. I found something like redemption and hope in the game as a child. Then time eroded the childlike perception...
October 23, 2016
Trial lawyers know a thing or two about the art of persuasion. We make our living, after all, pitching stories to strangers. In that regard, we...
October 20, 2016
“No man is a hero to his valet,” an old proverb has it. I think of it often when making a difficult recommendation to a client. Folks...
October 19, 2016
Judges, despite their robes and the trappings of majesty — who else enters their workplace to the sound of a uniformed lawman commanding...