I’m not hopping on the bandwagon circling the Santa Clara County, California, courthouse. Don’t add my name to the million-plus names of those calling for the scalp of Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky. Far from a goat, Judge Persky is a hero.
Would that there were more judges like him.
Judge Persky presided over the sexual assault trial of a Stanford college student, Brock Turner, accused, and then convicted by a jury, of raping a fellow student. Mr. Turner and his victim attended a frat party. The victim was intoxicated, passed out; the defendant, too was...
June 16, 2016
What should the law require in the wake of the shooting of Harambe, the 17-year-old gorilla shot to death by zoo officials last weekend at the Cincinnati Zoo?
Some basic facts don’t seem to be in dispute.
On Saturday, a 3-year-old boy on a visit to the zoo with his mother managed to get over a fence and into a moat where Harambe, a 450-pound silverback gorilla, was kept. Harambe took an interest in the boy, and, in videos suddenly gone viral, is seen to be engaged with the boy in a way that is intermittently endearing and alarming.
Zookeepers, concerned to prevent harm...
June 5, 2016
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
April 29, 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,...
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,...
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...