Blog Posts

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...

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...

It was obvious to me one year ago that the pandemic would yield a time of extraordinary social tumult. Indeed, just over one year ago, I wrote in these pages about the general strike theory of the pandemic, how the viral contagion would be turned into an occasion to try to recast the...

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...

Evanston, Illinois is a university town, so I expect a certain amount of irresponsible silliness to emerge from its town hall. But using a sales tax on marijuana to fund reparations payments to black town residents is something even Kurt Vonnegut would have a hard time selling as fiction.
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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...

A year ago, I watched New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to try to catch my bearings as a pandemic struck. Donald Trump was the black beast of politics then. In the contrast media of the cable news cycle, Cuomo came out looking like a white knight. Hell, he wrote a book about it all. He was king...

Suppose you were suddenly accused of sexual assault. Your accuser claims that one night, a dozen or more years ago, you crossed a line. You’re arrested, and now publicly accused of rape. In an instant, your reputation is destroyed.
Assume for the moment you...

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court appeared to ask a lot of the right questions in arguments this week on Bill Cosby’s appeal of his criminal conviction for sexual assault. What worries me are the answers the court is likely to give.
It took two trials for the...

Intellectual historians sometimes refer to the “climate of opinion” as a means of marking one historical era from another. On a more granular level, folks speak of the so-called “Overton window” as the range of acceptable opinion at a given moment in time. (This...