Twenty or so years ago, I wrote one of the most difficult legal briefs of my career: The task was to compare and contrast the nature of the crimes and the character of the defendants for all the capital cases — those involving a potential penalty of death — in the state of Connecticut, including all the men then actually on death row. It was a process known as “proportionality review,” a now discarded requirement.
One man killed his ex-wife and son when he believed they were about to depart Connecticut to live elsewhere. Another abducted, assaulted and then...
May 28, 2014
Here’s a thought experiment: Pretend for the moment that Elliot Rodger had not gone on a killing spree in California. Put it out of your mind, to the extent that you can. Then watch his last YouTube performance. It’s about seven minutes long.
Up until the point he started talking about storming a sorority house, the words “whiny punk” came to my mind. Really? Sitting there in his shiny BMW complaining that the popular kids wouldn’t play with him? That he was, gasp, a virgin at 22, as though casual sex was a natural right? And all those pretty girls who...
May 25, 2014
Did you catch the news that Eric Holder and the geniuses at Justice persuaded a grand jury to indict five members of the Chinese military? The superhackers are charged with computer crimes: they've been snooping in the electronic entrails of American corporations, by golly. That's a federal crime, the administration claims.
I guess it's only a crime when others hack us. When we do it to ourselves, we call it patriotism. What a stupid prosecution.
The administration will never prosecute Gen. Keith Alexander for his various crimes, including lying under oath to Congress and...
May 24, 2014
Here’s a tip: If you want to avoid jury service, simply tell the judge you have a pre-paid vacation planned. No one will seek to verify if what you are saying is the truth. Vacations are the get-out-of-jail card for potential jurors. It works every time.
Of course, the real question is why you would want to do such a thing. Jury service is one of the few times in an average person’s life where they can have real civic efficacy. The decisions jurors make change lives for good or for ill. Ducking out on jury service is sort of like burning the flag on the Fourth of...
May 22, 2014
May 19, 2014
"[T]he great emancipatory gains for human freedom have not been the result of orderly, institutional procedures but of disorderly, unpredictable,...
May 18, 2014
The Fifth Amendment provides that no one can be compelled to testify against himself. In other words, a person cannot be required to speak if his...
May 17, 2014
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...
May 7, 2014
“Congratulations,” the caller, another lawyer, said. “You hung ‘em up; I’d call that a...
May 4, 2014
Robert Ferguson's book on the American criminal justice system, Inferno: An Anatomy of American Punishment (Harvard University Press, 2014) ought to...
May 3, 2014
Perhaps the single most important moment in the debate about whether to approve the Green Haven condominium association project on Bethany’s...