The other day, I shared a podium with state Senator Gary Winfield-Holder and several others at the Courtland-Wilson Library in New Haven. The topic was “Have You Ever Been Pulled Over for a Traffic Stop?” Panelists, including New Haven Assistant Police Chief Anthony Campbell, were each asked to address race relations in the context of policing.
Unbeknownst to me, the moderator planned to open the proceedings by reading a piece I wrote 15 or so years ago about how plea bargaining in criminal cases resembled slave auctions: mostly white men negotiating about numbers placed on...
July 29, 2015
I’m tempted to think that Harper Lee kept her silence all these years because she knew a deeper truth: Atticus Finch was a racist before he was a saint, and Scout never really came of age. Ms. Lee, it turns out, grew wealthy off the wages of this nation’s original sin, selling easy virtue to a nation of sinners.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” was published by J.B. Lippincott in 1960. It’s an iconic sort of work, a book you can hear late-middle-age folks describe as the reason they became a lawyer. It has sold millions of copies and is used in schools...
July 22, 2015
Only once have I had to take the witness stand to plead the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, and that was after I felt compelled to betray a client on death row. You see, I came into the possession of plans for a violent escape from the Northern Correctional Institution in Somers.
If the plan had worked, confederates of my client would have stormed the wooded perimeter of the facility, shot to death some guards and spirited my client away to freedom. I had unwittingly become part of the plan, a conduit for potentially deadly information.
I consulted a series...
June 25, 2015
I will always be bothered by the case of State v. Gregg Madigosky. The former Southbury resident was convicted in 2006 of the 2003 murder his wife. A psychiatrist testified that he was out of his mind at the time he killed her. Jurors rejected the psychiatric testimony. He was sentenced to 50 years behind bars.
The psychiatrist who examined Mr. Madigosky after the killing later testified that Mr. Madigosky represented a “perfect storm” of mental illness. His psychosis made it impossible for him to understand what he was doing.
Here is what is so troubling about the...
June 23, 2015
June 11, 2015
Remind me next time I get a little ticked off about something a judge has done not to send an email to would-be supporters describing how one might...
June 11, 2015
We have now entered the silly season of the emerging national debate about the use of force by police officers. We have Eric Casebolt to thank for...
June 4, 2015
Hard cases, the maxim goes, make bad law. So it is hardly surprising that the Connecticut General Assembly is poised to weigh in on the use of deadly...
June 4, 2015
Those of you who spend time on Facebook and other social media sites know that the boundaries of free speech can be stretched to cover all sorts of...
May 27, 2015
I cannot help but wonder whether the public trial rights of criminal defendants are routinely violated in Connecticut when judges conduct sensitive...
May 20, 2015
I was at the Mohegan Sun casino the other day, during normal business hours. But I was not there for the purpose of gambling. I swear. I have a room...