It was a scene right out of a thriller. A man diagnosed with an infectious disease walks out of a hospital and is suddenly at large in the community. He is homeless. There is no telling where he went. Officers search for hours, fearing that he is infecting others as he lurches from one location to another.
The man is found, and he is taken into custody.
But it wasn’t fiction. The man in question is a 50-year-old homeless person. He walked out of Yale-New Haven Hospital Sunday night after being diagnosed as infected by COVID-19....
March 25, 2020
Things are getting a little crazy, and, I suspect, they will get crazier by the day until we either get control of the viral infection causing the global pandemic, or, until – gasp – the virus declares victory and extinguishes the last man or woman standing.
But between now and the apocalypse there are lots of intermediate, cost-benefit, decisions to make.
In this past Monday’s New York Times, two physicians and a law professor published a piece entitled, “Doctors May Face Impossible Decisions.” The thesis was...
March 18, 2020
It’s hard not to be anxious just now. A new virus sweeps the globe, killing some, and making many more ill. Never in most of our lifetimes has there been a threat like this. Sure, it’s like 9/11, in some respects, but when terrorists struck we mobilized and united behind fear of another.
Now fear is untethered to time and place. Each day’s news seems to grow darker. Businesses are closed, public institutions shuttered, the news, always given to alarmism, is on overtime, offering both doom and silly tips about how to cope with anxiety. What are we to...
March 17, 2020
Forgive me if I am not prepared to sacrifice the right to speak freely to the sensibilities of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and to comedian Sacha Baran Cohen. But I repeat what I’ve said any number of times: There is no mob quite so terrifying as a self-righteous mob.
Cohen appeared last week at an ADL convention in New York to do what he claims never to have done before – show his true colors. The low-brow comic transfixed the crowd of attendees by telling them exactly what they wanted to hear: Hate speech is bad. Social media is to blame as it panders to our basest...
November 25, 2019
October 20, 2019
Mark Zuckerberg can afford to be as irrational as he wants to be. The billions he’s made gives him what the magnificently rich call...
August 8, 2019
Suppose money were no object: Would you declare in your will that, upon your death, every effort should be made to preserve your body,...
June 28, 2019
How do you represent those people?
The question is common enough for criminal defense lawyers. In the past few weeks,...
November 13, 2019
UNITED STATED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
CAMERON L. ATKINSON, Plaintiff, :
v.
FACEBOOK, INC., : MARK...
October 10, 2019
I understand and accept the syllogism, I really do:
"All men are mortal.
"Mr. X is a man.
"Therefore Mr. X is...
February 20, 2019
Gov. Ned Lamont lives in a bubble, and that bubble is impenetrable. I know this because he was once a potential juror on a criminal case...