The Real Crime About Prison Masturbation

Lock a man up. Put him in a tiny cell. Require him to live with others not his choosing. Regulate when and what he can eat. Limit the times he may leave his cell to exercise in another pen. Restrict his access to family, reading material, and all the signals that might reach him from the external world. Do all this to the man and call him an inmate. Your control over the man is almost absolute. He is stripped of almost all the power he possesses.
The law-and-order crowd thinks this is a fitting response to the commission of a crime. We must punish, punish, punish a transgression of...
April 29, 2012

Ferdinand von Schirach, Take Two

I am having one of those burnt out kind of days in which the idea of writing a column about the practice of law seems about as appealing as spending another 12 hours in the office. Some days, lawyering is less intellectual feast than it is emotional marathon. Just how much can you take, counselor? Here’s another wallop. And another. And another.
The darkness of this life sometimes moves me to the verge of tears. We pretend that the world is composed of folks bargaining in the law’s shadows. Wrong. The shadows that are cast are often as not projected from within. Meet a...
April 26, 2012

Anna Gristina: The Nation's Most Powerful Woman?

Anna Gristina is, perhaps, the most powerful woman in the United States just now. And that explains why she is sitting in Rikers Island on a $2 million bond. It is almost as if the monied class, the folks who know how to manipulate the secret levers of power, are afraid of what she will do if she is set free.
Gristina is the so-called "Soccer Mom Madam." She was arrested earlier this year in Manhattan and charged with one count – one, mind you, of a Class D felony of promoting prostitution. The 44-year-old mother of four has no criminal record. The charge carries a maximum of two...
April 23, 2012

An Unflinching Look At Chaos

There is a moralistic tinge to the practice of criminal law that makes no sense. We shroud the misdeeds and allegations that land a person in criminal court in terms of choice, responsibility and just desserts. That seems to miss the point. There is a grim necessity to a good deal of what goes on in the criminal justice system. It is hard to face, so we pretend that things could be otherwise. Ferdinand von Schirach harbors no such illusions.
Schirach is a criminal defense lawyer in Germany. He is also an exceptional writer. His first book, Crime, was published in German in 2009; it was...
April 22, 2012

A Love Letter

April 19, 2012
I want to write a love letter, but every effort I make to do so seems wrong. My fingers hit keys and the keys fall flat. I can’t seem to find a...

Jefferson Wept

April 17, 2012
I usually enjoy arguing in appellate courts, and one of my favorites is the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The federal...

Occupying the Second Circuit

April 16, 2012
There is no way of knowing what will happen in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Tuesday, April 17, 2012, when the motion...

Joette Katz and Cogito Incognitus

April 15, 2012
I spent some of the unhappiest years of my life pretending to be something I was not: You see, I was a member of an editorial board. I earned my...

The Bozo at York's Prison Gate

April 12, 2012
“You’re a lawyer?” The man looked at me with disdain, his paunch creeping out from beneath his bulletproof vest. I had just pulled...

John DeStefano Wants You To Call

April 11, 2012
New Haven's Mayor John DeStefano will be on the Chaz and AJ show on WPLR 99.1 FM on Thursday at 7:30 a.m. His mission? To explain why he did not look...

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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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