Someone in the backroom of Dannel P. Malloy’s press shop has great ambition for the governor. They think he’s got the potential to go all the way. Come 2016, the Democrats will be looking for a new hero. Who better than a man who overcame a learning disability, teasing, with roots in a small state? A man who looked the unions in the eye and told them to "get real"? Why look at our hero: He bleeds red, white and blue for the middle class. Dannel for President. Yoo hoo!
I am not sure what else to make of the mind-numbing series about him – 15-parts and no apparent end...
December 18, 2011
I am a sucker for the presumption of innocence. I believe in it. I earn my living standing behind it. For reasons all my own I am drawn to those in need of it. Show me a person accused of a crime, and I have new friend.
So I was prepared to write a piece about the raw deal Jerry Sandusky is getting. I was going to write a piece defending Sandusky’s lawyer, Joseph Amendola. But the more I watch the unfolding defense of the Penn State football coach, the more distracted I get. A powerful train is bearing down on Sandusky. It looks to me as though his lawyers are doing the best...
December 17, 2011
There was much relief, and a dark, morbid sort of celebration, in New Haven the other day among those craving the death of Stephen Haves and Joshua Komisrajevsky, the villains in what will forever be known as "the Cheshire case." Both men were tried and convicted. Mr. Hayes has been sentenced to death; Mr. Komisrajevsky will soon be. But was justice done?
Connecticut, the Texas of New England, retains its death penalty. In the Northeastern United States, only New Hampshire also still has this archaic tool of blood lust still on the books. We were set to abolish the death penalty,...
December 15, 2011
I want to know more about Glenn Greenwald. I’ve been reading his columns for awhile online. He writes for Salon, and his left-of-center take on the pathologies of power in the United States seems dead right to me. He is the kind of guy I can imagine on my side in a fight.
But then I wonder: What happened to him?
Greenwald is a forty-something writer with four books under his belt. His latest book, With Liberty and Justice for Some, published by Henry Holt and Company, is a polemic about what he calls a "culture of impunity." The rule of law is on the endangered species...
December 11, 2011
December 8, 2011
UPDATE: Death it is for Joshua Komisarjevsky. The jury completed its work and reported its verdict at about 3:15 p.m. today. Let the world marvel at...
December 8, 2011
Given the great length of time it took for the United States Senate to schedule the unanimous vote approving Christopher Droney for a seat on the...
December 6, 2011
As is often the case, I learned that something I wrote on these pages the other day failed to capture the entire truth. I questioned...
December 5, 2011
Before he left for Los Angeles and a Christmas party at the Ritz-Carlton, Gov. Dannel Malloy dropped a bomb: State workers applied for, and received,...
December 2, 2011
I will never forget a late afternoon chat I once had with now-Justice Sonya Sotomayor when she was sitting on the United States Court of Appeals for...
December 1, 2011
And so we come, finally, to what appears to be, and what everyone certainly hopes will be, the final chapter of the trials in what will forever be...