Much has been made about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s demeanor during his recent trial. For 10 weeks he sat in a Boston courtroom. Observers report that he showed emotion only once, when an aunt testified in a vain effort to spare him the death penalty.
Just how should he have reacted? The case avoided any meaningful explanation of why he killed. It was a drama without a real plot.
The prosecution and the defense of this case unfolded in a scripted, almost mechanical fashion.
Death penalty cases proceed on a two-step drill — two trials heard by the same jury. The first...
May 17, 2015
Among the enchantments of criminal law is its specialized vocabulary.
For example, a new potential client often feels the need to approach counsel with something less than a confession. Hence, the following locution: "I caught a case," used in much the same manner as a coughing office mate may report coming down with a cold.
Every so often, I can expect a call from an old client: "Yo, Pattis; I caught a case."
Of course, the presumption of innocence must be honored, so experienced lawyers never ask a potential client what they did to get arrested. The preferred convention is:...
May 8, 2015
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
April 23, 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...
April 22, 2015
Would a different defense have spared Aaron Hernandez a life sentence? I suspect his lawyers are wondering, especially after jurors told the media...
April 22, 2015
Richard Lapointe looked dazed, even confused, when he walked out of Superior Court in Hartford last week. It was the first time in 26 years his feet...
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...