I confess to being among those who regard the reach of the surveillance state with a tired sense of inevitability: I’ve long since grown accustomed to the notion that the government can, and does, record everything. It’s not that I do not value privacy; I just feel that worrying about government snooping is futile. Glenn Greenwald’s new book on Edward Snowden, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State, confirmed my fears, and moved me a notch or two off my sense of resignation.
I’ve watched Greenwald’s career with a puzzled...
May 17, 2014
“Congratulations,” the caller, another lawyer, said. “You hung ‘em up; I’d call that a win.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “But I am not so sure. We’ve got to try it all over again in October.”
My client stands accused by the United States government of possession and distribution of various quantities of crack cocaine and powder cocaine. He’s also accused of illegal possession of various guns and ammunition. Seven counts in all. Given his criminal history, he’ll spend more than 20 years in...
May 7, 2014
Robert Ferguson's book on the American criminal justice system, Inferno: An Anatomy of American Punishment (Harvard University Press, 2014) ought to be must reading for every legislator, judge and prosecutor in the United States. You will note that I did not include criminal defense lawyers in the list of people who need to read this book -- that is because they already know the truth Ferguson speaks: the criminal justice system is a wasteful failure.
Drawing from literature, moral and political philosophy, legal scholarship and reported cases, the book asks questions that are too often...
May 4, 2014
Perhaps the single most important moment in the debate about whether to approve the Green Haven condominium association project on Bethany’s Halter Farm property took place more than a year ago. That’s when Patsy Weiner, then a member of the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission, took the floor at a town meeting to explain the virtues of what proponent’s call co-housing plans.
“You can have co-housing associations for all sorts of purposes,” she said, in her dry, timorous sort of way. “There could be a group devoted to equestrian...
May 3, 2014
April 30, 2014
Death comes swiftly, with a crushing finality, leaving the living numb with grief and overcome with loss. Our comings and goings remain stunning...
April 27, 2014
One measure of our humanity is how we treat the least among us. The future will judge us harshly, I am afraid. This is especially so regarding our...
April 20, 2014
The process, criminal defense lawyers like to say, is the punishment. Nowhere is this so true as in the low-level criminal courts in Connecticut,...
April 14, 2014
Anarchism is given a bad rap by folks who rarely take the trouble to understand what they are criticizing. Alexander Berkman's classic text on...
April 12, 2014
April 16, 2024 – Connecticut lost a town last night, but it did not lose either territory or population. Two suburban entities...
April 11, 2014
I was in the chambers of a judge I respect a great deal trying to reach a plea bargain in a complex case the other day. Well before trial, he made...