Blog Posts

George Zimmerman was acquitted of both the crimes of murder and manslaughter in Florida last week. Today, plenty of folks are angry about that. They believe he got away with murder. There are calls for federal prosecution of Zimmerman.





What...

Six women -- five white, and one Hispanic -- acquitted George Zimmerman Saturday night for the killing of Trayvon Martin. The jurors rejected both a charge of murder, which, under Florida law, required showing of hatred or animus, and manslaughter, which required a lesser showing of a lack of...

Forgive me if I think of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as little more than an obscene joke. But what else are we to think of a court that permits only the government to appear to plead its case? That works in secret? That has never had a decision of its reviewed in any meaningful...

History, it is often observed, is written by the winners. Losers die, are marginalized, are forgotten. History, then, is often a partial truth. It is the thief ignoring the cries of the dispossessed, and finding solace in various themes of necessity, such as Manifest Destiny, the White Man’s...

Lawyers and judges mean well, at least most of the time. At least I think we do. But although courtrooms are theaters at which life-defining dramas are conducted, the law is blind to life's larger purposes. To explain things, we turn often to experts. To explain the twists and turns that lead some...

Each year, the Supreme Court ends its term with the crash and bang of major new decisions. By tradition, the court seems to save its most controversial rulings for last. This year, we waited until the very end to learn that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. Now the court...

“You are confusing me,” he said. “You’re telling me I should really consider the state’s offer, and that you are ready to go to trial. Which is it?”
We were standing on the courthouse steps. Jury selection was set to begin in less than an hour. The client had...

“[T]he great emancipatory gains for human freedom have not been the result of orderly, institutional procedures but of disorderly, unpredictable, spontaneous action cracking open the social order from below.” Thus concludes James C. Scott’s brief celebration of the...

I’ve a serious case of cross-examination envy as I read about the trial of United States v. James “Whitey” Bulger, now pending in Boston. I mean, how often, if ever, do you get to go toe-to-toe with the likes of John Martorano in the well of an open court? Martorano scored...

No good deed goes unpunished. Ask Charla Nash. When she helped her friend and employer, Sandra Herold, try to recapture Herold’s pet, Travis, and get him back into Herold’s home, Travis turned surly. He attacked Nash, nearly killing her in a frenzy in which Nash was blinded, her face...