I wonder what Isaiah Berlin would have had to say about artificial intelligence. This occurred to me as I sat listening to presentations on big data and the Fourth Amendment at a recent conference in New York City sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. It turns out we’re all blips on someone’s screen, and there doesn’t seem much we can do about it.
Lawyers in general do not read enough. Oh, we read plenty of case law, treatises, pleadings – all the flotsam and jetsam that make the law a semi-scholarly profession. But what we...
April 24, 2018
There are angels among us, some say, pillars of strength with common feet of clay. I’m not sure I believe that, but I do believe that there are people worthy of sainthood. People like Tommy Ullman.
Tommy died the other day. I’m told it was a hiking accident in the Adirondacks, a region he loved.
He was for decades a public defender in New Haven; he led the office for a quarter of century. When retired last year, at 67, many of us felt it was too soon. But he’d seen good friends grow sick and die. Life is short he knew. “I feel...
April 14, 2018
T.J. Miller has a temper, but we knew that. Fans of “Silicon Valley” heard the rumors. The 36-year-old comedian was not invited back after four seasons on the hit show. Entertainment reporters said he was erratic on set, often coming late to table reads, and then, well, sometimes appeared to work drunk and/or high.
But last month, Mr. Miller, who played the character Erlich Bachman, got into a squabble with a fellow passenger on an Amtrak train passing through Connecticut. He appeared to have had a few too many to drink; the woman was not amused by his...
April 11, 2018
The people of Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District deserved far more than they’re getting from Representative Elizabeth Esty, but not for the reasons you might think. In announcing her decision not to seek re-election in November, she knuckled under to pressure from a well-organized mob. It is hardly a profile in courage.
The new prudery sweeping the nation claimed Esty as its latest victim. Her crime? She didn’t act quickly and vigorously enough to condemn an aide accused of harassing a female colleague.
The allegations...
April 2, 2018
March 27, 2018
After today’s Senate debate on whether to confirm the nomination of Andrew McDonald as Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme...
March 27, 2018
Just why the Republican Party is intent on importing the same level of asinine partisan vitriol rampant in Washington, D.C., to Connecticut is a...
March 24, 2018
Practice law long enough and a certain weariness sets in. It’s more than a function of aging, although that is certainly a factor. But...
March 22, 2018
The resignation of Donald Trump’s chief personal lawyer, John Dowd, brings to mind an aphorism often discussed, but rarely publicly...
March 21, 2018
Burdens of proof matter in the criminal justice and the civil justice systems. In the criminal courts, the state must prove its...
March 11, 2018
How dare I ask questions about text messages, alcohol consumption and what an accuser wore on the night she claimed she was raped by an...