Blog Posts

I will always be bothered by the case of State v. Gregg Madigosky. The former Southbury resident was convicted in 2006 of the 2003 murder his wife. A psychiatrist testified that he was out of his mind at the time he killed her. Jurors rejected the psychiatric testimony. He was sentenced to 50 years...

Remind me next time I get a little ticked off about something a judge has done not to send an email to would-be supporters describing how one might sit outside the jurist's home, concealed, and fire a shot into a bedroom.
It just might get me arrested for breach of the peace; it ought not get...

We have now entered the silly season of the emerging national debate about the use of force by police officers. We have Eric Casebolt to thank for that. He’s the officer who just resigned from the McKinney, Texas, police department after a video of him confronting some teenagers at a Texas...

Hard cases, the maxim goes, make bad law. So it is hardly surprising that the Connecticut General Assembly is poised to weigh in on the use of deadly force by police officers with a sloppy piece of legislation. I wonder, really, whether new laws are necessary. And if they are, I harbor doubts about...

Those of you who spend time on Facebook and other social media sites know that the boundaries of free speech can be stretched to cover all sorts of uncivilly spoken smack. There is a limit on what can be said, however. One such limit is what the law calls “true threats.”
The First...

I cannot help but wonder whether the public trial rights of criminal defendants are routinely violated in Connecticut when judges conduct sensitive voir dire by means of the dreaded sidebar. Consider the implications of United States v. Gupta, a 2011 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...

I was at the Mohegan Sun casino the other day, during normal business hours. But I was not there for the purpose of gambling. I swear. I have a room full of police chiefs who are my witnesses.
For the second straight year, I was the guest of the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association, invited...

I’m always amazed when I read press accounts of cases I have either tried, or am in the midst of trying: the reporter’s gloss rarely reflects the complexity of the proceeding. Often, what’s reported is just plain wrong. But the public appetite for trial news appears to be...

Much has been made about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s demeanor during his recent trial. For 10 weeks he sat in a Boston courtroom. Observers report that he showed emotion only once, when an aunt testified in a vain effort to spare him the death penalty.
Just how should he have reacted? The case...

Among the enchantments of criminal law is its specialized vocabulary.
For example, a new potential client often feels the need to approach counsel with something less than a confession. Hence, the following locution: "I caught a case," used in much the same manner as a coughing office mate may...