Blog Posts


Some Questions About What Happened To Tyre Nichols?

You’ve seen the videos and you are shocked. Tyre Nichols was stopped by Memphis police officers, dragged from his car, and savagely beaten by police officers. When he fled, they chased him. He was hunted down, beaten some more as he screamed nightmarishly for his mother, and then...

Dean Strang's Sobering View of Clarence Darrow

Some books are so good, you can read them twice, each time with profit. I don't often reread non-fiction, but in the case of Dean Strang's wonderful book about the trial of a group of Milwaukee anarchists in 1917, I did so. Wow, I say. If you care about the law, read this book.
A bomb erupted...

Rushdie, Fatwas and Cancel Culture

This just may be what comes of the triumphant cry of the warrior who knows but one truth, and who is determined to destroy all those who stand in its way: Salman Rushdie, laying in a pool of blood on a stage at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. He was getting ready to speak to a group...

Let's Deconstruct Critical Race Theory

Rhetorical choices define our options in life. What you see conceptually is, in a sense, what you can aim at in terms of strategic behavioral choices. And so, in this era of so-called “Critical Race Theory,” I say we lay bare the choices the theorists are making. It’s...

Can It Be True? Baseball Is Back!

I’ve been strung out and ornery for the past eighteen months. It started with pandemic and a shutdown of the economy, and the shuttering of the courts. All at once, a thriving law practice and all the controversy a contrarian could want came to a grinding standstill.
...

Amend the Constitution to Bar Race-Based Transfer Payments

I wrote this almost a year ago. Friends thought I was howling at the moon. Now they think I was prophetic. Spread the word. We need to amend the federal Constitution to prevent race-based transfer payments and distribution of public goods. It was written as I watched the hullabaloo arising...

Locke's Radical Limits On Individual Rights

Libertarianism and individualism generally run hand-in-hand with a robust view of property rights. If the state is an artifice, then aren’t limitations on how much property individuals can acquire arbitrary and therefore suspect? Individualism and limited government are fast...

Playing With History: Neither A Jefferson Nor A Kinte Be

I have a confession to make: I never watched the television series “Roots,” nor have I read the Alex Hailey novel “Roots: The Saga of An American Family,” on which it was based. This despite the fact that the television series took the nation by storm in the late...

Some Sobering Lessons Learned In A Year Of Living Cautiously

Fifty-three weeks ago today, I got off of an airplane in Hartford, Connecticut, and headed home to face the pandemic. Since that time, I’ve been in my office with other people once. I’ve been physically within six or so feet of non-family members not at all. I’ve eaten...

The Brutal Cynicism of the George Floyd Settlement

The utter cynicism of the $27 million settlement of the George Floyd case is breathtaking. At the very least, there ought to be a public hearing to determine whether the criminal charges against Derek Chauvin should be dismissed.
Yes, Mr. Floyd died in police custody....

© Norm Pattis is represented by Elite Lawyer Management, managing agents for Exceptional American Lawyers
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