Reliable information is hard to come by in the death of Baltimore’s Freddie Gray, but, from a distance, he looks to be a victim of a police practice known throughout the United States: Gray was no doubt administered an overdose of “van therapy.”
What’s that? Why, it’s a close cousin to “bullpen therapy.”
Still confusI am referring to passive violence typically administered in a deniable fashion to those who the police think protest too loudly.
Mr. Gray was taken into police custody April 12. Why? He fled when he spotted police. That...
May 7, 2015
I missed Bruce Jenner's interview with Diane Sawyer the other night, and, try as I might, I just can't seem to muster the will to go back and watch it. That the former Olympian regards himself as a woman is, no doubt, a highly significant struggle for him. But I am tone-deaf to its social significance.
It's not that I am unaware of the politics of gender, or of the fact that folks sometimes feel trapped in a body of the wrong type. I've represented transgender folks.
In one case, we made new law 15 or so years ago in Connecticut permitting folks with gender identity issues to...
April 29, 2015
I wasn't under any illusions about what the sentence would be. My client was convicted of shooting a man in a drive-by shooting, killing him almost instantly. There were other charges pending, charges involving other shootings. The maximum sentence for murder was 60 years. We expected the full monty.
The judge did not disappoint; even the prosecution performed on cue, calling my client a coward. The victim's mother urged the maximum, even more—100 years would not be enough, she said.
Sixty years it was, when all was said and done.
What a ridiculous farce.
I asked...
April 23, 2015
Would a different defense have spared Aaron Hernandez a life sentence? I suspect his lawyers are wondering, especially after jurors told the media they were shocked to hear the defense say in closing arguments that Hernandez was present at the scene of the murder of Odin Lloyd.
But the defense conceded in opening statements that Hernandez was present when Odin Lloyd’s was killed; it never made any secret of the fact that “mere presence” was the former football star’s defense. Defense efforts will now be directed at the appellate courts.
The former New...
April 22, 2015
April 11, 2015
The Supreme Court's decision to overturn Richard Lapointe's 1992 murder conviction has me rethinking the Stations of the Cross. I'm not referring...
April 10, 2015
Criminal defense lawyers console themselves about the self-destructive course some clients take by saying such things as: “You can lead a...
April 9, 2015
Now that the show trial is over, the real trial begins.
Now the United States of America will seek to convince a jury of 12 that Dzhokhar...
April 1, 2015
Do black lives matter? Do cops’s lives matter? The answer to both questions is obvious: yes. That’s what makes the arrest of a fifteen...
March 31, 2015
Looking for a realistic portrayal of the practice of law in a small firm? Then you had better call Saul, as in Saul Goodman, the fictional creation...
March 26, 2015
I just lost a tough case and, as in any loss, I am bitter about it. My client faces 60 years for the shooting of a rival gang member in...