NOTE: I WOULD NO LONGER GIVE THIS ADDRESS. RECENT EVENTS HAVE MADE BE WARY OF ISLAM. TERRORISM MAY NOT HAVE A RELIGION, BUT THERE ARE PLENTY OF TERRORISTS AMONG MEMBERS OF THIS FAITH. MY MESSAGE NOW WOULD BE: IF YOU WANT A WELCOME, POLICE YOUR OWN -- YOU HAVE LOST MY TRUST. NOVEMBER 14, 2015
Keynote address at the 9th annual Council on American-Islamic Relations Conference banquet:
I would like to thank MONGI DHAOUADI for inviting me to spend the evening with you. Of course, I was honored by the invitation. But I was also more than a little surprised. You see, I earn my living as...
December 22, 2013
Michael Connelly never practiced law a day in his life, but his fiction best approximates the gritty reality of the private practice of law. His Mickey Haller series continues to amaze me. I repeatedly find myself underlining sentences in the book that capture exactly the sense of creative chaos and desperation that defines a criminal defense lawyer’s life. Even so, he takes great liberties with the law, and, were Haller to actually practice, he’d soon find himself in hot war with bar ethics cops.
The Gods of Guilt opens with an ethical ruse involving a fake blood capsule...
December 21, 2013
Friends were surprised that I crossed the line to represent Jason Zullo, an East Haven cop accused of harassing Hispanics while on duty. And when he was sentenced to two years in prison by a federal judge, some of those same friends thought he wouldn’t be going to prison long enough.
But the decision to represent him was easy. Truth be told, I view him as a victim of our failure to have a sensible immigration policy.
Jason and three other East Haven cops were indicted and accused of being bullies with badges in East Haven, a town not exactly known for its racial and ethnic...
December 19, 2013
I am not sure there are any larger lessons to learn from the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. Mental illness isn’t the answer: Millions of Americans suffer from such maladies, few become shooters. The over-abundance of firearms isn’t the the answer: By that standard, we’d all be dead several times over, given the ubiquity of weapons in our gun-crazed culture. And reference to evil doesn’t do the trick; it’s a labeling exercise, adding nothing but a sense of closure to our understanding of the world.
...
December 15, 2013
December 12, 2013
Only once have I had to take the witness stand to plead the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
I was seeking permission to...
December 4, 2013
Former Bridgeport Mayor Joseph P. Ganim was convicted by a federal jury and served seven years in prison for his role in a racketeering conspiracy...
November 29, 2013
It's Thanksgiving week as I write this, and who wants to work? Better to pull some anecdotes from memory, and entertain.
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"Mr....
November 27, 2013
It was perhaps fitting that on the day the Danbury state’s attorney released his report on last year’s shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary...
November 21, 2013
Anyone married for more than a few years has an intuitive grasp of the cognitive process known as framing: Once someone has decided to view you in a...
November 18, 2013
News that the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a former client of mine was a delightful surprise. He was convicted of sexually abusing a...