What's The Harm In A Book Of Prayer?

I’m at a loss to explain to my client why she cannot have the book I sent her. But it is so. The warden will not permit her to accept a Daily Roman Missal sent to her from Amazon. Why? It is bound in leather, the reasoning goes. Really? Do prison officials expect her to fashion a weapon from the binding?
Beth Carpenter is a former lawyer, and a client of mine. She’s been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole after being convicted of conspiring to commit murder for hire. My office has been working with her for more than a decade trying to get her a new...
March 31, 2016

Hulk Hogan and St. Augustine's Pears

Erin Andrews and Hulk Hogan have me wondering about St. Augustine’s pears. Is something like a meaningful sense of sin taking root?
Andrews and Hogan, whose legal name is Terry G. Bollea, were awarded eye-popping verdicts in separate trials in recent weeks.
Andrews, a Fox sportscaster, won $55 million against defendants responsible for secretly videotaping her while nude in a hotel.
Hogan won a verdict of more than $140 million against Gawker, which published secretly recorded videos of the wrestler having sex with a friend’s wife.
The verdicts...
March 24, 2016

David Brooks, Donald Trump and the Magic Mirror

I’m thinking of sending David Brooks of The New York Times a scholarship. I’d like him to attend Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyer’s College this summer. Of course, Brooks is not a lawyer; he is a columnist. But, given what he’s written recently about Donald Trump, he needs to learn about the “magic mirror.” Maybe then he’d understand the appeal of Donald Trump to so many voters.
Trump rumbles across the political landscape like some horrific storm, a tornado blustering his way across the plains, a thunderclap of rage....
March 22, 2016

Criminal Defense Lawyers Need Not Apply -- Again

Merrick Garland, eh?
Throw that fish back. He’s just more of the same. We need a new kind of justice on the Supreme Court. We need someone with experience defending folk accused of a crime.
President Barack Obama surprised no one with his nomination of Garland to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court. The 63-year-old jurist has for years been on the president’s short list of potential nominees, and was passed over for the vacancies filled by Sonya Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Garland is qualified, mind you. Those close to him say he is brilliant,...
March 17, 2016

Would Atticus Finch Endorse Donald Trump?

March 3, 2016
Harper Lee died before the reckoning, but she saw it coming. I’m betting she even foresaw Donald Trump’s ascendancy. She was a realist...

Apple and the Thirteenth Amendment

February 28, 2016
Forgive me for being churlish, curmudgeonly, even, but Apple Inc. has thus far fired far wide of the mark in its dispute with the Federal Bureau of...

Apple, Involuntary Servitude, and the 13th Amendment

February 23, 2016
Framing the dispute between Apple Inc. and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the need to balance security and liberty tilts the...

Originalism and the Death of Antonin Scalia

February 14, 2016
Antonin Scalia’s death doesn’t just yield a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court; it provides an opportunity to...

Judge Wins Pissing Contest

February 3, 2016
The public at large rarely gets a glimpse behind the curtain of justice, and thus can’t appreciate the ugly reality of the criminal justice...

Jailers as Sinners

January 28, 2016
Odds are, you have never visited someone imprisoned for life, or for many decades. Prisoners are outcasts, beloved, if at all, only by their...

Visit His Websites

Pattis & Smith Law Firm
Norman Pattis
RSS Feed
Become a patron

Press Videos

Books

Taking Back the Courts
Norm Pattis Taking Back the Courts

The Wizard of Oz was one of my favorites movies as a kid. Little did I know judges were so much like the wizard, hiding behind empty trappings of power. This book tells you things you need to know about what really goes on in court. Read it, weep, and then demand that the courts do better.

In the Trenches
Norm Pattis In the Trenches

Plenty of lawyers write about the law, but few who write try cases. Judge for yourself whether I talk the talk and walk the walk in this collection of occasional essays about life in the law's trenches.

Juries and Justice
Norm Pattis Juries and Justice

How prepared are you to take seriously the notion that 'we the people' are, in fact, sovereign? Discover the secret, and unused, power of jurors. 'Ask why; then nullify.'

Norm Pattis

About Norm

Norm Pattis is a Connecticut based trial lawyer focused on high stakes criminal cases and civil right violations. He is a veteran of more than 150 jury trials, many resulting in acquittals for people charged with serious crimes, multi-million dollar civil rights and discrimination verdicts, and scores of cases favorably settled.

© Norm Pattis is represented by Elite Lawyer Management, managing agents for Exceptional American Lawyers
Media & Speaker booking [hidden email]