No one wants children exposed to men and women who might do them harm. This instinct to protect the innocent is at the very core of the sex offender registration laws. But when those laws fail to draw elementrary distinctions between strangers who pose danger and those caught unawares in the law's libidinal traps, there is something wrong. Sex offender registries should not become virtual prisons that deprive increasingly broader segments of our society of life's basics.
Senator Charles Schumer of New York has prosposed sweeping new legislation that would make it virtually impossible...
December 20, 2010
Experienced criminal defense lawyers and even judges know a simple truth: Ask the wrong questions, and the truth will slip through your fingers. Sometimes it is all about plausible deniability, a truth parsed so finely that the difference between fact and fiction becomes indistinguishable. That's what happened in a Waterbury courtroom yesterday. And The Hartford Courant's Ed Mahoney swallowed the farce, hook, line and sinker. Score one for fantasyland.
The Courant reports this morning that Judge Richard Damiani rejected a bid by Michael Seifert, a 60-year-old man accused of multiple...
December 18, 2010
If I were a betting man, I'd wager a few dollars, but not the mortgage money, on the possibility of indictments arising from federal probe of the Waterbury state's attorney's office and a local defense lawyer as early as next week. Uncle Sam has been poking around in the Brass City for the better part of a year. My hunch is that they will soon decide whether to fish or cut bait.
Among the reasons I would wager on indictments soon:
1. A grand jury is sitting on December 21, 2010, and federal prosecutors have been scrambling to get witnesses interviewed and prepared. Federal...
December 16, 2010
Immigration-speak is a language I have yet to learn. It sounds strange. It doesn’t quite fit the world in which my clients and I live. When I was told that a client of mine had no "status" in the United States, I wondered what that meant. He’s been here since he was six years old. He was educated here. He pays taxes here. His home is here. His family is here. But he still faces deportation because he doesn’t have immigration status. He is an illegal alien. But for an accident of birth, he is in all respects identical to me.
Nothing breeds disrespect for the law quite...
December 16, 2010
December 15, 2010
Remind me not to move to Bedford, New Hampshire. Parents in town want the right to rate and approve all of the books that are taught in their...
December 14, 2010
Much though I applaud the reasoning supporting U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson’s decision to declare parts of the new health care law...
December 13, 2010
What can Howard Stern teach about legal fees? Not much, really. You see, Howard gets what Howard wants. The rest of us lead lives of quiet...
December 9, 2010
The next time members of the Connecticut General Assembly are asked to consider whether the prosecutors of this state should have routine access to...
December 7, 2010
Is Julian Assange the new Martin Luther?
The significance of the Protestant Reformation lies not so much in the proliferation of new, and...
December 6, 2010
There was a time in the northeastern United States when an innkeeper could expect a few curious customers to respond to signs reading: "George...