I don’t know why the government is prosecuting Barry Bonds. It seems like a waste of limited resources. Yes, I believe that the former big-league slugger took steroids. I also think it is likely he lied to a grand jury and to federal agents. But in the larger scheme of things, does this really matter? Our government lies all the time, routinely engaging in trickery and deception in the course of its investigations. Our courts condone these lies because strategic uses of deception serve legitimate law-enforcement interests; why does the government get to lie while we the people are held...
March 26, 2011
What do you do when a judge won’t sign a warrant? If you are a person accused, you breath a sigh of relief and thank the heavens for an independent judiciary. But what if you are a police officer, and the judge refuses to bless your handiwork? What happens then? In Connecticut, you threaten to arrest the judge for hindering prosecution.
Bantam Superior Court Judge Corinne Klatt is accused of coercion and "a violation of the criminal law" by a member of the Connecticut State Police because she refused to sign an arrest warrant prepared by the trooper. Police state anyone? Now...
March 25, 2011
In my next life, I want to be a prosecutor. I want to live in a fantasyland without consequences. I want to make mistakes, and never be held accountable for them. I want to stand tall for justice, and then do whatever I think is right. I want the right to demand that others be held accountable, without ever being accountable myself.
Consider: A man shoots to kill, but he is a bad aim. The man fails to accomplish his objective, but he is nonetheless charged with attempted murder. We say in the criminal law that failing does not excuse an act done with criminal intent. There...
March 24, 2011
Should Ophadell Williams have ever been let anywhere near the steering wheel of a tour bus? Somehow, this question is now being asked by those looking for answers about why the World Wide Travel bus he was driving earlier this month crashed on I-95 in New York, killing 15 folks on their way home from a casino trip. Several of the survivors suffered horrible injuries, including the loss of limbs.
Like all accidents, it never should have happened. That’s a truism.
The New York Post reports that the 40-year -old driver of the bus has a serious criminal record....
March 20, 2011
March 19, 2011
This current New York Review of Books features a savage review of All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age,...
March 19, 2011
Although I grew up in Chicago and Detroit, I became a New Englander the day I started to read Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Decades later, I...
March 18, 2011
Delay is often the best friend of a criminal defense lawyer: witnesses move away, their recollections fail, the state loses evidence. Things really...
March 16, 2011
I was in New Haven just as day broke. Much to my surprise, there were few media wagons in front of the courthouse on Church Street. Only one ghastly...
March 16, 2011
"There is no such thing as justice – in or out of court." The words are Clarence Darrow’s. The same Clarence Darrow who once...
March 15, 2011
One could be forgiven for believing that the walls wept in the West Hartford, Connecticut, home of former endocrinologist Dr. George Reardon. The...