Gov. Dannel Malloy will soon be given an opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to the Second Chance Society to which he committed more than one year ago. His stated goal is to reduce the number of people who go to prison unnecessarily. He can demonstrate the commitment by refusing to sign papers permitting Robert Stackowitz, 71, of Sherman, Connecticut, to be extradited to Georgia.
Mr. Stackowitz, I should disclose, is a client. He made national news last week when he was arrested some 48 years after walking away from a Georgia prison. The good people of Georgia say they...
May 17, 2016
The Federal Reserve Board holds the key to why Donald Trump could easily become the next president of the United States, and it has nothing to do with monetary policy. This key is something street lawyers have been talking about for the past few years: People are broke, frightened, and therefore angry.
As reported in this month’s Atlantic, the board’s most recent survey about the financial and economic status of American consumers reflects a shocking truth: Almost half of Americans could not — no, strike that — cannot come up with $400 to meet a sudden emergency....
May 4, 2016
If your child suffers a serious unexplained injury, the state just might seek to terminate your parental rights. It will do so in a closed courtroom, where the public never gets the right to know what passes for justice.
Termination of parental rights is the moral equivalent of the death penalty. A court can transform you into a stranger to your child, having no more right to raise her, or even see her, than you do a child one thousand miles away whose name you’ll never hear. Your children will be given to strangers to raise.
These cases are uniquely heartbreaking.
In...
April 29, 2016
Donald Trump walked away from the so-called "Acela primaries" in the Northeast a complete winner, sweeping the Republican contests in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island in convincing fashion. All eyes are now focused on Indiana, where Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has declared war: If Trump can defeat Cruz at the Hoosier Alamo, will Cruz yield?
That's about as likely as Bernie Sanders' folding his tent, despite the near impossibility of his securing the Democrat nomination: Hillary Clinton has it all but locked up. Yet there's little joy over the prospect of another...
April 29, 2016
April 22, 2016
On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza, a troubled young man, walked into an elementary school and killed or seriously wounded more than two-dozen people,...
April 15, 2016
State and federal law enforcement agencies make millions of dollars each year manipulating asset forfeiture laws. Generally, these laws...
April 15, 2016
We’ve reached the breaking point. We’ve each become gods in our own idiosyncratic religions, idols served by congregations of one. The...
April 7, 2016
I was in court the other day when I erupted in a tone loud enough to be overheard by others: "You know, Aristotle once said that it is hard to be...
April 7, 2016
“Angel came down from heaven yesterday; she stayed with me just long enough to rescue me.” The words are Jimi Hendrix’s. I’ve...
March 31, 2016
I’m at a loss to explain to my client why she cannot have the book I sent her. But it is so. The warden will not permit her to accept a Daily...