A future historian might one day write the following of our time:
“Despite a generally permissive culture in which sexually suggestive photographs were used to advertise products ranging from toothpaste to cars, 21st century Americans nonetheless harbored draconian and puritanical laws involving sexual misconduct. It is almost as though they were afraid of the very desire they relied upon to entertain and to titillate themselves.”
We’re a little goofy about sex offenses, in my view, a sign of a state of mind I call “sexophrenia.” Here are several...
September 25, 2014
There’s a cold logic in refusing to pay ransom to terrorists: Holding a firm line may well serve as a deterrent to further acts of terror. Destroy the pecuniary incentive for terrorists to kidnap folks, and, the theory goes, there will be fewer kidnappings. I wonder about that logic when it comes to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, (ISIS).
But when that logic results in the public beheading of a hostage, there’s good reason to rethink such a hardline. But for this policy, James Foley, Steven Sotloff and David Cawthorne Haines might be alive today, and we might not be...
September 19, 2014
Editor's Note: John Rowland was convicted today after scarcely any deliberations at all.
Why don’t jurors get a pause button, or some other instrument, so that they can stop the government mid-sentence when a prosecutor says something so craven, so stupid, so misguided and even disingenuous as to warrant scorn? If such a device existed, it would have broken on Thursday, when the government gave its closing argument in the case of United States of America v. John G. Rowland.
Prosecutor Christopher Mattei was preaching to a packed house in the New Haven courtroom where Rowland...
September 19, 2014
During the past year, I've been surprised by the number of times jurors have requested read backs of testimony they just heard only a few days earlier in criminal cases. In some instances, it seems to take almost as long to listen to the testimony again as it did to try the case in the first instance.
I suspect that is because, in state criminal courts, we do not permit opening statements. As a result, jurors have no idea what is important once the evidence begins.
A better, more efficient, criminal justice system would permit opening statements. What would be the harm in letting...
September 18, 2014
September 13, 2014
Folks are sometimes surprised to see a black anarchist’s flag hanging in the corner of my law office. “Aren’t you a lawyer?,”...
September 9, 2014
I have a confession to make: I enjoy watching college and professional football. It’s the only thing I watch on television with any...
August 29, 2014
I will miss United States Magistrate Judge Holly Fitzsimmons. She’s retiring effective April 2015, reportedly to spend more time writing the...
August 27, 2014
Odds are you never heard about the killing of 20-year-old Dillon Taylor. He was shot to death in in Salt Lake City, Utah, just the other day. The man...
August 20, 2014
I couldn’t stop thinking about the allegory of the metals in Plato’s Republic as I read the op-ed piece in The Washington Post written...
August 19, 2014
Perhaps you missed the piece in today's Washington Post by Sunil Dutta, a member of the Los Angeles Police Department, and junior college instructor....