Blog Posts

It is difficult to fathom why federal prosecutors waited four years to bring charges against Douglass Mackey, a.k.a. Ricky Vaughn, and it is inconceivable that they did so by dispensing with the requirements of a grand jury. The only explanation is that this is a political prosecution....

The panel of judges was uncomfortable. One judge wondered whether the United States government had brought the very issues it was complaining about upon itself by charging the defendant with crimes carrying crippling mandatory minimum prison sentences. Another judge was quick to defend the...

It turns out that I am not the only person to notice the recent increase in Facebook censorship. Just yesterday I learned that a lawyer in California who posted something about his willingness to defend people's right to bear arms had his post removed because it violated Facebook's opaque...

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Regular readers of this column – all three of you, but I exaggerate – have no doubt intuited the manner in which topics are selected each week. It goes something like this: "Oh, [expletive deleted], it’s Thursday. I better come up with something." I generally have no larger...

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News that 57 Connecticut state troopers and hundreds of Department of Corrections workers received lay-off notices this month compels the following question: Are we missing an opportunity? Rather than hand-wringing that the loss of these public safety employees will somehow make the streets less...

I will be switching to a new service for publication of this blog in the next couple of days. Among the questions on my mind as I make ready for the switch is whether the comments section to the blog serves any real purpose.
I am aware of the "engage" theory of blogging: encourage comments,...

The rape and murder of nine-year-old Jessisa Lunsford in 2005 was a terrible thing. The fact that her attacker was a violent sexual predator with a past reinforces our fear that the world is filled with dangerous sexual predators. But the fact remains that most people accused of sex offenses are...

The rape and murder of nine-year-old Jessisa Lunsford in 2005 was a terrible thing. The fact that her attacker was a violent sexual predator with a past reinforces our fear that the world is filled with dangerous sexual predators. But the fact remains that most people accused of sex offenses are...