UPDATE: Sentencing Has Been Postponed Until November 5
Mickey Sherman heads to court today. There is nothing unusual about that. He is one of Connecticut's best known criminal defense lawyers. But when he goes to court today, he will going to face his own sentencing. I'm betting on a jail sentence for Sherman.
Sherman plead guilty earlier this year to two misdemeanor counts of failure to pay federal taxes. It seems that Mr. Sherman did not pay federal taxes in 2001 and 2002, despite earning more than a million dollars in income during that period. The 63-year-old Greenwich lawyer...
September 27, 2010
"Only one-third of all Americans can name the three branches of government (two-thirds can name a television judge on American Idol); only one-third of eighth graders can describe the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence; and three-quarters of our population does not understand the difference between a judge and a legislator." This statement comes at the very end of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's new book, Making Our Deomcracy Work: A Judge's View. It explains why he wrote this simple and elegant work: He wants people to understand what the courts do.
I picked...
September 26, 2010
When I heard that Jeremiah Donovan stood on the courthouse steps yesterday and held a press conference regarding press reports about his ciient, Joshua Komisarjevsky, I was stunned. There is a gag order in place barring any of the lawyers in the case from speaking publicly. What possessed Jeremiah to flout the order?
The purpose of the press conference was to rebut reports in the press that Mr. Komisarjevsky had anally raped an 11-year-old girl during a brutal home invasion in Cheshire in 2007. The girl, her mother and her sister were assaulted and murdered by Mr. Komisarjevsky and his...
September 25, 2010
I won't pretend to be neutral about the death penalty. The state ought not to have the power to kill its citizens. Period. It is too awesome and final a power, and it has historically been used too many times for reasons having nothing to do with justice. The death penalty should be abolished in the United States, as it has been in Europe.
But we still kill, apparently with relish. Texas has put 463 people to death since 1976; Virginia has put 106 to death. No, wait. Make that 107 for Virginia. Last night the state killed a retarded woman, shooting 41-year-old Teresa Lewis full of...
September 24, 2010
September 23, 2010
Herewith a debate of sorts on the morality of the death penalty and the rule of law in the Connecticut case of State v. Steven Hayes. Is killing the...
September 23, 2010
More than once I have heard a prosecutor in trial urge a judge to admit contested evidence: "The state cannot prove its case without this evidence,...
September 23, 2010
I note the irony for what it is worth: On this, the 666th post on this blog site, I am announcing a change to a new blog site:...
September 23, 2010
More than once I have heard a prosecutor in trial urge a judge to admit contested evidence: "The state cannot prove its case without this evidence,...
September 20, 2010
My new blog site will up and running tomorrow. I am electing to cease taking public comments. I've also decided to avoid the use of statistical...
September 20, 2010
Superior Court Judge John C. Blue called in sick today, causing another delay in the case of State v. Hayes, the triple murder that has captured the...