It has been open season on Joshua Komisarjevsky since the day he was arrested in July 2007, and for good reason: There is little doubt that he slaughtered a mother and her two daughters in their home. He also beat the man of the house, Dr. William Petit, Jr., senseless. It is no wonder that many want to kill the killer. It was a savage crime.
At least one book has been written about the case. Dr. Petit has opined at great length about the evil of it all, even appearing for a national audience on the Oprah Winfrey show. And when lawmakers in Connecticut sought to repeal the death...
July 31, 2011
He sat across the courtroom from me, next to a phalanx of new lawyers. I was on the witness stand, answering questions about a case I had handled almost ten years ago. When the proceedings began, I did not notice him. But our eyes met. I nodded ever so slightly. He nodded back. I still find it incomprehensible that the state intends to kill this man.
I was called as a witness in a habeas corpus proceeding in a case involving Robert Breton. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his ex-wife and son in 1987. Years before, he had also killed his father. The...
July 29, 2011
Each year, as predictable as the change of seasons, a few clients charged with crimes fire me: they believe I am doing nothing for them. They are replaced by new clients who have fired their lawyers: they believe the prior lawyers were doing nothing too. The cause of all this is the snail’s pace at which cases move in Connecticut. We have no commitment to speedy trials. Clients don’t believe it, so they change lawyers, anything to create the illusion that their cases are not being ignored.
But the sad fact is that nine-tenths of what goes on in the criminal courts of this...
July 28, 2011
When you lose a job and fall behind on your mortgage payment you get a foreclosure notice. It might not matter that the bank seeking to take your house cannot prove it actually owns the home, the courts will find a way to protect big money. Little people get hammered and the government protects itself and the big money boys and girls paying for the political campaigns.
Government and bankers are too big to fail, you see. You, on the other hand, are expendable.
So what to make of the debt-ceiling standoff in Washington? Our political leaders cannot...
July 27, 2011
July 23, 2011
“Oh, Dannel Boy, your lips they move so sweetly;
They sing soft lies,
The sort that kill.
Oh, Dannel Boy, your lips seduced...
July 21, 2011
Welcome to the new Connecticut, a land of haves, and have nots. The new class struggle is evident now even among the ranks of state employees. Older...
July 19, 2011
Clarence Darrow is the sort of icon whose status guarantees that new biographies will be produced about him from time to time. Although dead now...
July 16, 2011
It is, I suppose, the very best of times, and the very worst of times. Two worlds live in uneasy juxtaposition, great wealth side-by-side with...
July 16, 2011
“The authorities were corrupt, even the best of them. The power they held was often by default.... They had as much power as we gave them, and...
July 14, 2011
Does anyone really care whether major league baseball players use steroids? Isn’t that sort of like carping about breast implants at a strip...