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The petulance of power
Let’s lay it out there: who here doesn’t believe that anyone arrested for a crime is automatically guilty of it? Who here doesn’t believe that there is a very good reason someone’s been arrested: they...
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The Harmless Writ: whether you get due process depends on how guilty you are
In The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton argued that the Constitution should provide for the writ [of habeas corpus] “in the most ample manner” because it served as a bulwark against “arbitrary methods of...
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Don’t start nothing won’t be nothing
Connecticut has a very dubious and troubled relationship with our breach of peace statute. Its broad language gives license to turn perfectly legal acts into a crime. So whether you’re someone who is...
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Post-racial America: where we can all go to Grosse-Pointe and love the coloreds
They say America is in a post-racial state. What this means, apparently, is that we are past racism, because look at black people doing white people things and acting totally normal OMG. I mean, how...
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Electing death
In a death penalty case: Guided by neither rule nor standard, “free to select or reject as it [sees] fit,”a jury that must choose between life imprisonment and capital punishment can do little more—and...
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A registry of prosecutorial misconduct
The Center for Prosecutor Integrity (apparently there is such a thing) has just issued this press release, announcing the the receipt of a grant to establish a Registry of Prosecutorial Misconduct. In...
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Can the prosecution prevent you from giving discovery to a defendant?
In January 2010, new rules were enacted [PDF] in Connecticut ostensibly in an effort to do away with problematic “open file”1 policies of prosecutors and to ensure that all individuals charged with...
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Ban the Box but abandon the ex-felon: the Kennard Ray saga
We are a country whose favorite pastime is not football, but incarceration. In such a country, we take delight in locking up young, minority men from the age of 14 to the age of death. We...
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What the hell, man?
The video isn’t even the worst of it. Popehat explains in way that makes it all make sense.
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Has no public official in Connecticut heard of the First Amendment?
Why not? It seems, as with other parts of the Constitution, elected and appointment members of the executive branches in the Constitution State have but a passing familiarity with the First Amendment...
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A learning moment
This story teaches us two things: 1. Always poll the jury. 2. Always craft your own, precise jury instructions. Read them to a layperson before submitting. Make sure they make sense and are easy to...
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Who’s the people?
Did you hear the one about the woman who couldn’t fly to testify at a trial about the government’s “no-fly list” because the government put her on a “no-fly list”? No? It happened this past weekend,...
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Unmuting Gideon’s trumpet
Pictured: a trumpet It’s fitting that in this, the 50th anniversary year of Gideon v. Wainwright, a federal judge issues an opinion finally giving teeth to the noble ideal that the indigent must be...
View ArticleBreaking news: things cost money
In a sure to be groundbreaking series of articles, the Hartford Courant’s Jon Lender has discovered that the business of government – the every day practice of running a State – costs money. This...
View ArticleMartin, Zimmerman and the colors of injustice
This is not a Trayvon Martin post; this is not a George Zimmerman post. For that, go read these fine pieces with which I wholeheartedly agree. This isn’t even a post about race, although race certainly...
View ArticleHow to kill a man: I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you
Warren Lee Hill, mentally retarded and thus unqualified for execution, is scheduled to be executed on Saturday. That’s because in Georgia, they just don’t want to believe someone is mentally retarded...
View ArticleBilly Slagle and the tragedy of death
Billy Slagle, when all is said and done, will cut the most tragic figure. His story is ripe for a Shakespearean tragedy 1 or at the very least a documentary with a most somber soundtrack. Consider the...
View ArticleBlech-er: confronting the venomous
Odious people tend to up the ante the most when they’re schilling something: like NY Law Professor Robert Blecker1, who’s got a book out about the death penalty. So naturally he takes to the beatified...
View ArticleThe playing field is uneven
As written before, one of the greatest lies sold to the American public was Brady v. Maryland: that the prosecution has an affirmative burden to turn over exculpatory material. The problem, of course,...
View ArticleWhen I was your age, we had executions AT the fundraisers!
If there’s one thing Republicans love, it’s their executions. If there’s one thing they love more than executions, it’s money. If there’s one thing they love more than executions and money, it’s...
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