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Public Defense

A Public Defender

Criminal law news from Connecticut and around the country.
By Gideon

Post Frequency: 10.1/day

Last Entry: March 31, 2011 at 12:17:35

It?s 5 p.m. Do you know where your bills are?

Posted on March 29, 2010
Today, at 5:00pm, the Judiciary Committee of the state legislature closed for business, just like any other day. But today is important for two reasons: 1) It was the last day on which the committee could vote on bills; 2) This marked the first year that the eyewitness identification reform bill passed and will now [...

Bad ad-Weis: spitting on Barker

Posted on March 28, 2010
To, Jamie Ryan Weis Soon to be on death row Georgia, USA It is your fault. It is your fault that your lawyers didn’t get paid. It is your fault that there wasn’t any money to hire investigators and mitigation experts. It is your fault that the two lawyers with whom you’d built up a relationship had to be [...

One small step for Gideon?

Posted on March 24, 2010
see, you made Gideon cry Today, New York’s highest court (confoundingly named the Court of Appeals , fuhhgeddaboudit), heard oral argument in a NYCLU lawsuit which seeks to enforce Gideon’s mandate (my previous post here). The case, and lead plaintiff, were profiled in this NYT article from Friday...

Judge for a day ? IV

Posted on March 24, 2010
“Tring tring” “Hello, how may I help you today?” “One robbery, please.” “For here or to go?” “To go, please.” “Okay, your total is one smack on the head, plus tax.” Fine, so that’s not exactly how the conversation went when two would-be robbers called a local bank and informed the person on the phone that they would be stopping by [...

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A few stray thoughts

Posted on March 23, 2010
the metaphor, stupid Monday was a marathon day at the state legislature, with several criminal justice bills being considered. Two of the most important, in my view, were the bills to eviscerate The Great Writ (see prior post here) and Connecticut’s first attempt at residency restrictions (see previous post here)...

It sucks getting old

Posted on March 18, 2010
Pardon the short missive, but i would be remiss if I didn’t remark on this, the 47th year of my existence. I have a number of posts bubbling under, but we should all take a minute today to reflect on Gideon’s legacy and the absolute mess public defender systems are in around the country...

Sex-y times at the state lege

Posted on March 18, 2010
It’s the middle of the legislative season and just like all of us, the state legislature has sex on their minds. Sex related bills, I mean. No, wait, not dollars bills that you – nevermind. This is a family-friendly blog. During public hearings to be conducted tomorrow and on Monday, the judiciary committee will consider a [...

The Limp Writ

Posted on March 18, 2010
Since the time of the Magna Carta, prisoners have been able to challenge the legality of their incarceration by petitioning for a writ of habeas corpus, long known as the Great Writ. We inherited ?this powerful tool for . . . protect[ing] . . . individuals? constitutional and statutory rights ...

Right of passage

Posted on March 11, 2010
I’m channeling my buddy Ryan McKeen here, but, the other day on the local listserve someone mentioned that a client had been given a ticket for “passing on the right“. It’s one of those things that we all do (you can admit it here, we’re all friends), like “following too closely” and don’t ever expect [...

Wishful Wednesday

Posted on March 09, 2010
In what has by now become a ritual dance, every year the state legislature toys with bills meant to enact some real reform in the criminal justice system. Every year, like the sucker I am, I get seduced, dancing the dance, enjoying the promise of a moonlit sonata...

In loco mass media

Posted on March 08, 2010
Normally, I’m not one to advocate speaking to the press about anything related to a specific case. I’ve normally attributed the following reasons to this belief: 1. It’s not necessary 2. Most lawyers aren’t good at it, so why take a chance 3...

Individual Skill-ing

Posted on March 01, 2010
Just when I was on the precipice of not writing any further on the individual voir dire “debate“, I got sucked back in. So here is this half-baked post with some references to studies that you may consider the written equivalent of diarrhea and a few other thoughts that are slightly more well-formed...

Further thoughts on ISVD

Posted on February 23, 2010
I don’t have time for a pithy title, so pardon me. I just wanted to add a few more thoughts to my post from last night on Norm Pattis’ call for the elimination of ISVD (by the way, Norm responds to my post here). Here are a few things that still bother me, and this is [...

You can?t make me

Posted on February 23, 2010
A tremendous post from the exciting new kid on the PD block, PD Revolution, about refusing excessive caseloads and fighting back against a judge who forces you to trial when you’re not ready.

Cumbersome bloviating misrepresents

Posted on February 22, 2010
Consider my gears ground. I’ve been resisting jumping in to counter the incessant stream of anti-individual voir dire noise emanating from Norm Pattis over the past month or so. I first saw a post on his blog, which was then reproduced in his column in the Connecticut Law Tribune and finally copied and pasted into [...

12 really angry men

Posted on February 16, 2010
Imagine you’re sitting at counsel’s table, ready to start trial. The jury walks in and is seated in the jury box. The judge shuffles his papers, looks over at them and opens his mouth his start instructing the jury. Suddenly, one of the jurors leans forward and says: “He’s brave enough to go out and get [...

Equal justice for all

Posted on February 15, 2010
On a cold day in January, 1963, 9 men sat atop a perch and listened, for hours, to three other men argue for and against the means to dispense equal justice for all citizens of these United States. A short two months later, in March, Gideon v. Wainwright was born, mandating that States were required [...

An idle thought on the Boykin canvass

Posted on February 12, 2010
Much as been written and said about Boykin v. Alabama since Justice Douglas wrote the decision in 1969. At best, it is a necessary safeguard to ensure that guily pleas, the bulk of the resolutions in the criminal justice system, are made voluntarily. At worst, it is a prophylactic...

The Adam Walsh fearmongering and bleeding money Act

Posted on February 10, 2010
I have been in somewhat of a blog slumber. I haven’t posted in a while (and frankly, since Scott returned from his vacation, there’s no more opportunity for me to sneak in and steal his readers). But what better way to get the blood pumping and the vituperative juices returning than the news that our [...

Come with me?to jail for 20 years: an alien abduction

Posted on February 10, 2010
It seems that the Supreme Court of the good state of Connecticut (SCOC, which you may pronounce S-Coc if you so please) is having fits. Specifically fits with our kidnapping statutes. Almost from the day they, in a moment of rare weakness, decided to bring some sanity back to the overbroad application of the statute, [...

To have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence

Posted on February 02, 2010
Clarence Earl Gideon, we salute you. On the first go around, sans counsel: and after the landmark decision: HT: Tannebaum

Bysiewicz as AG: I hate to say it

Posted on February 02, 2010
but I told you so. Leaving aside the “does she have 10 years’ active practice” kerfuffle for a moment, I just want to give you all this moment to recognize that, well, I was right (or at the very least that the current AG agrees with me)...

The Constitution is a wet blanket

Posted on January 31, 2010
The Constitution was intended to be many things: a guide, a charter, founding principles and at the very least a set of instructions for those that sought to build a just and fair country from the ashes of rebellion. What it was never intended to be was a blanket, and a wet one at that...

State v. DNA profile

Posted on January 27, 2010
In these days of DNA, scientific and forensic evidence, it was bound to happen. As this very interesting (and lengthy) opinion from the California Supreme Court details, a “John Doe” warrant issued mere days before the statute of limitations was set to expire, identifying the defendant only by his DNA profile, satisfies the “particularity” requirement [...

Saving the next generation

Posted on January 26, 2010
Where We Live, NPR’s local daily radio show dedicated the entirety of today’s episode to the issue of children with incarcerated parents. Here’s a 2007 Sentencing Project report on children with incarcerated parents. These are the highlights: In 2007, 1...

Monday morning jumpstart

Posted on January 25, 2010
Another week, another jumpstart. Have at it. 16 simple rules of jury selection: read them, absorb them, become them. New prison law blog. Should virtual sex assault be a crime? A review of the book “who owns you” From NPR, does lying to others mean you’re lying to yourself? Sotomayor with blood on her hands...

Reconfiguring terms

Posted on January 24, 2010
It really grinds my gears when I hear lay people (read: tv and movie writers, newscasters, media, your mother, my mother) use the term technicality to describe a violation of some Constitutional right. As in: “The judge threw out the case because of a bad search or something”, “The guy kills a cop and he [...

On the intersection of morality, child sex and law

Posted on January 23, 2010
[THIS IS A BIG WARNING: The site I am about to link to is thought-provoking and unabashedly pornographic. Yes, I said pornographic. Be expected to be treated to pictures of naked women. Lots of them. And body parts. Lots of them. If you are under the age of 18, click here...

Is Bysiewicz eyeing the Gov?s race again?

Posted on January 21, 2010
The “does the AG have to be a lawyer” circus won’t end. SOTS Bysiewicz has followed through on her promise to seek a formal opinion from the current AG (and next Senator from CT) Blumenthal. I don’t understand this. No one has challenged her qualifications – legally – yet...

Does the client have a right to discovery?

Posted on January 19, 2010
A number of changes to the Practice Book went into effect on January 1, 2010 here in CT. Of particular importance to this blog and criminal defense practitioners in the State are the changes to the discovery rules. The regular discovery section was amended to add the following language: Without the prior approval of the prosecuting authority [...

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