In the end, the choice of whether to take a criminal case to trial or to enter into a plea agreement with the government belongs to the client, and to the client alone. There are times in which a client rejects his lawyer’s advice, goes to trial, and is badly hurt. Then there are times in which a client decides to avoid the risk of trying a case his lawyer thinks he should have tried, and could have won. Counseling a client on whether to enter a plea is bitter work, call it the devil’s work. I do the devil’s work.
A client of mine entered a guilty plea in federal court...
October 24, 2012
What’s it going to take to correct an injustice committed 400 years ago? Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy says he is powerless to act. The Queen of England, whose government actually had jurisdiction over the scene of the atrocities, says she needs more information. It is dithering such as this that yields contempt for government.
Connecticut executed 11 people in the early 1600s for being witches. Those prepared today to defend these executions as justified assertions of public authority are few and far between. Times have changed. We still believe that evil stalks the...
October 19, 2012
Several years ago, I was approached about the prospect of becoming a federal judge. I confess, it appealed to me, at least for a couple of months. But then I realized that one consequence of appointment to this lifetime position would be the requirement that I behave like a judge. That’s more of a sacrifice than I want to make, even for the sake of job security. Hell-raising is fun.
We demand a lot of judges. We expect them not just to be fair and impartial, but even to avoid the mere appearance of impropriety. I’ve had friends become judges. At once, they...
October 18, 2012
Offer to pay a man cold hard cash to kill someone and you’ve struck a deal. But is it a contract? Suppose you pay your killer but he never performs. Do you get your money back?
The answer is a simple “no.” Although the agreement looks like a contract, it’s objective, the unlawful killing of another, is repugnant to the law. The agreement is, as lawyers like to say, against public policy. Hence it is unenforceable.
A contract, then, is simply a promise the law will enforce. The law chooses not to enforce contractual terms for illegal acts.
Now...
October 13, 2012
October 12, 2012
Oh, me. Oh, my. Heads are spinning in Kennebunk, Maine. Townspeople are sniggering about just who is on the list of clients snagged when police...
October 11, 2012
One editorialist at least had the courage to put it bluntly: Jerry Sandusky deserves 400 years in prison. The writer was outraged that the...
October 11, 2012
“That’s just hearsay.”
You hear that remark all the time. It conveys a sense of unreliability. The statement, so dismissed,...
October 9, 2012
Richard LaPointe is one very lucky man. It might strike you as odd to say that of a fellow serving what amounts to a life term for the rape and...
October 4, 2012
The news did not surprise me, neither did it devastate me. It simply left me hollow, spent and empty. You see, Mark Kravitz died since this paper...
October 4, 2012
Do you believe in the presumption of innocence? I doubt it. But don’t feel bad. Lawmakers don’t believe in it either. The sad fact is...