Blog Posts

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project reports that 18 percent of 800 youths aged 14-17 with cellphones reported receiving "sexually suggestive" nude or semi-nude images of someone they know. I suspect the number understates the extent of sexually charged horseplay on cell...

I was a little startled to read the remarks of Attorney General Eric Holder at the National Symposium on Indigent Defense last week in Washington. I mean, there's the nation's top prosecutor admitting what criminal justice insiders know: the system is broke and in serious need of repair.
I...

I was a little startled to read the remarks of Attorney General Eric Holder at the National Symposium on Indigent Defense last week in Washington. I mean, there's the nation's top prosecutor admitting what criminal justice insiders know: the system is broke and in serious need of repair.
I...

I'll bet a lot of folks charged with federal white collar crimes are feeling more than a little betrayed today. That's because the government has bared its teeth at claims of private wrongdoing while turning a blind eye to the suspected criminals in its midst.
John C. Yoo and Jay S. Bybee...

What happens when the reality of people's lives becomes detached from institutions attempting to govern? In isolated cases, we diagnose psychosis and call for medication. And we label some behavior deviant and prosecute it as criminal. But what happens when there is wholesale dissonance? When the...

Are we prepared, as a society, to pay more than lip service to the presumption of innocence? If we are, then it's time to we offered to pay for the legal defense of anyone accused of a crime. Anything less amounts to the most regressive tax of all, a tax which devastates the middle class while...

Are we prepared, as a society, to pay more than lip service to the presumption of innocence? If we are, then it's time to we offered to pay for the legal defense of anyone accused of a crime. Anything less amounts to the most regressive tax of all, a tax which devastates the middle class while...

If there is a lawyer alive in New York City surviving on $75 per hour in legal fees, he's probably selling pencils on the side and sleeping in the IRT subway. A ten hour day at such a rate yields $750; a five day week would produce $3,750 at such rates. You can't pay the rent, a secretary,...

If there is a lawyer alive in New York City surviving on $75 per hour in legal fees, he's probably selling pencils on the side and sleeping in the IRT subway. A ten hour day at such a rate yields $750; a five day week would produce $3,750 at such rates. You can't pay the rent, a secretary,...

While the United States Supreme Court has held that the indigent are entitled both to representation when charged with a crime and to the services of certain experts, those guarantees ring hollow to the middle and lower-middle classes.
Ake v. Oklahoma, 460 U.S. 68 (1985), held that when the...