Blog Posts

The so-called Proud Boys trial has finally started. A jury of twelve and three alternatives heard a half day of evidence last week. This week, the Government will present as many as a dozen more witnesses. In the weeks to come, a jury will hear evidence about the extent to which, if at all, the...

On the ninth day of jury selection in the case of United States of America v. Joseph Biggs, et al, otherwise known as the Proud Boys insurrection case, my law license was suspended for six months by the same Connecticut judge who presided over the judicial train wreck involving Alex Jones and Sandy...

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...

I keep running into the following in books and articles I read about current affairs. An author writes about critics of a current social policy or tendency, and he characterizes the criticism as "white supremacist." There's something dishonest about the move that I can't quite put my finger...

The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s decision to vacate the conviction of Bill Cosby and discharge him is a stunning rebuke of the prosecution. Not only is his conviction reversed; the Commonwealth cannot try him again for the sexual assault of Andrea...

Many years ago, a colleague of mine started a gruesome game, he called it death bingo. At the beginning of each year, he’d invite folks to submit names into a pool. At year’s end, the person who forecast the most deaths won.
I never played the game. It struck...

Among the world’s mysteries is the transformation of naked power into authority. Yes, from time immemorial, there have been those with the means to impose their will on others. But we say, or at least we used to say, that when the state acts, its agents possess not mere power, but...

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.
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John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government has little to say about slavery, but what is said is said early. Chapter Four, entitled simply enough, Of Slavery, is but a couple of pages long. Bear in mind that the Second Treatise was published in 1690; England did not formally...

I submitted the following testimony to the Connecticut General Assembly in opposition to the so-called "Prosecutorial Accountability" act. The legislation is a solution to a problem that does not exist.
My name is Norman Pattis. I have represented people accused of...