Blog Posts

The long knives were out this morning in Hartford. A source, believed to be from the office of Governor Ned Lamont, whispered to a friendly reporter: “Be sure to ask the governor what he would do if he had the authority to act regarding Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo. The...

The opening moves in John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government have dramatic and rhetorical appeal, even if they lack coherence. Strictly speaking, there was no “state of nature” in which fully capable and competent individuals struck bargains with one another. And...

Jumpin’ Jiminy, Holy Moly, and WTF: Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York have either lost their minds, or never had minds to being with. They are prosecuting a social media influencer for the snake oil he tweeted in the 2016 election.
It goes...

Viktor Frankenstein had a vision, a dream, really. Could he create life? He left his hometown of Geneva, Switzerland for a local university. The world learned of his exploits in 1818. Mary Shelley tells his tale in Frankenstein.
I reread the book every so often, and...

Connecticut lawmakers undoubtedly thought they did something significant the other day, when, after pulling an all-nighter, they rushed through an “emergency” piece of legislation on police accountability. When it comes to making it possible to sue police officers who engage...

I’m thinking we’re on the cusp of what I will call our “Concord Moment.” That’s when a shot fired in anger will be heard coast to coast, if not around the world, as were the shots fired in Concord, Massachusetts in 1775. The 1775 shots galvanized the...

“What happened to you?” a good friend wrote the other day. “I remember when you used to be liberal and progressive.”
Here’s the answer.
I got woke. I don’t think I’ve changed at all. The world has, however....

It wasn’t too long ago that I displayed an anarchist flag in my office, oblivious to the contradiction between the flag and my commitment, as a lawyer, to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States. It took representation of a group of folks walking on the wild side of...

It will take work to assure that Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, J. Alexander Keung and Thomas Lane receive fair trials. The four Minneapolis police officers are accused of crimes in the death of George Floyd. It will be a rare juror who has not formed an opinion of some sort before the...

I spent more than a decade suing poiice officers in federal courts under the tutelage of one of the nation’s best civil rights lawyers, John Williams of New Haven. I like to joke that I educated my children on the proceeds of those suits. Federal judges weren’t happy with all...