Justice Aborted Is Justice Denied

I stood in a public place yesterday and watched two tearful parents say goodbye to an American hero. The young man was leaving for a year. Odds are, he will return safe and sound. But the world is a dangerous place. There are no guarantees. They were sending him into harm’s way.
His odds of survival are good. Although he is only 23-years-old, he is already a veteran of four years of service in the United States Navy. He served in Somalia and the Persian Gulf, and was highly decorated during those tours. He is quiet, but loving and eager to lend a hand. When his sister fell ill...
April 5, 2012

The White Devil In The Elm City

I saw the White Devil the other day, and it terrified and saddened me. He was reflected in the look of wariness and suspicion in a young man’s eye. The kid couldn’t have been more than fourteen. He had the lean and supple look of someone not yet bent by time. He was carrying a sign with a symbol on it and a phrase I did not recognize.
"What’s that mean?," I asked the young man.
He recoiled just a touch, a discernable flinch that was powerful, a sign I was crossing a line, and was, perhaps not welcome where I was seeking to go.
The young man told me it...
April 1, 2012

Playing Ping Pong With Trayvon Martin

The claims and counterclaims regarding the killing of Trayvon Martin are flying fast and furious. It’s well past time to get this case into a courtroom. Here is how it can get to court immediately.
But first, some preliminaries.
Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida on February 26, 2011, more than one month ago. Initial reports were that the young man was simply walking along the street when an armed white man shot him to death. The shooter, George Zimmerman, was described as a vigilante, an armed, self-appointed neighborhood watch captain who shot a young...
March 31, 2012

Colonial Ghosts Still Govern New Haven

I find it almost impossible to walk away from a fight, which explains, I suppose, my choice of vocation. Trying cases is one of the few places left in which a hired gun can take aim and fire. So I am still grumbling about Occupy New Haven and the Committee of Proprietors of Common and Undivided Lands in New Haven.
You see, colonial settlers "purchased" the land on which all of New Haven and several surrounding towns sit from local sachems in 1639 for an assortment of coats, axes, knives and other sundries. These settlers then formed a community, a theocracy of sorts. If the original...
March 29, 2012

Why Judges and Prosecutors Fear The Truth

March 28, 2012
"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," Jesus is reported to have said. Somehow, I don’t think he foresaw just how...

Why Florida v. Zimmerman Is Necessary

March 26, 2012
In the Roman Coliseum the crowd voted thumbs up, or thumbs down based on the performance they had just witnessed. Life or death depended on the fancy...

New Haven's First Official Act: A Severed Head On The Green

March 25, 2012
"The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation," wrote Albert Jay Nock in Our Enemy, The...

The Gods Win A Round

March 22, 2012
Regular readers of this column – all three of you, but I exaggerate – have no doubt intuited the manner in which topics are selected each...

A Theocracy is Born: The Miracle in Newman's Barn

March 19, 2012
How strangers acquire not just the power but the right to make rules others must obey is a central preoccupation of political philosophers. Grand...

The Ancient Title To The New Haven Green

March 18, 2012
By the time my parents arrived in North America, all the land was taken. There wasn’t any left to claim. The continent, from one end to the...

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Taking Back the Courts
Norm Pattis Taking Back the Courts

The Wizard of Oz was one of my favorites movies as a kid. Little did I know judges were so much like the wizard, hiding behind empty trappings of power. This book tells you things you need to know about what really goes on in court. Read it, weep, and then demand that the courts do better.

In the Trenches
Norm Pattis In the Trenches

Plenty of lawyers write about the law, but few who write try cases. Judge for yourself whether I talk the talk and walk the walk in this collection of occasional essays about life in the law's trenches.

Juries and Justice
Norm Pattis Juries and Justice

How prepared are you to take seriously the notion that 'we the people' are, in fact, sovereign? Discover the secret, and unused, power of jurors. 'Ask why; then nullify.'

Norm Pattis

About Norm

Norm Pattis is a Connecticut based trial lawyer focused on high stakes criminal cases and civil right violations. He is a veteran of more than 150 jury trials, many resulting in acquittals for people charged with serious crimes, multi-million dollar civil rights and discrimination verdicts, and scores of cases favorably settled.

© Norm Pattis is represented by Elite Lawyer Management, managing agents for Exceptional American Lawyers
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