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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

New CT blawg

Posted on December 25, 2008
Stumbled across a new (to me) CT blawg: CT Sports Law. Looks interesting. Here’s a recent post on whether Donald Brown should remain at UCONN. Enjoy.

When does police coercion make a confession involuntary?

Posted on December 25, 2008
Here’s the quick answer: almost never. If you’re still interested, read the rest of the post. Be warned, though. It is long. I realize this is a slightly heavy topic for Christmas Day, but such are the conversations I have over lunch. What precipitated this line of thought is this Kansas Supreme Court decision, up for [...

Another Beatty Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2008
It’s been nearly 14 years now since H. Beatty Chadwick was first acquainted with the inside of a prison cell. Chadwick, a rich lawyer in PA, was jailed back in the ’90s for that most serious of crimes: contempt of court. This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill contempt either, where he told a judge to stuff it...

Depositions, Texas style

Posted on December 24, 2008
I’m sure this has been around the ‘net, but one more time, in honor of Xmas:

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?Twas the night before Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2008
and Santa needs some cash: Via Balko

Two jurors sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Posted on December 22, 2008
Okay so it wasn’t so much a tree as it was a hotel room and they weren’t kissing but rather “doin’ it”. Apparently, during the trial of Roberto Dunn, two jurors were “deliberating each other” (euphemisms solely mine) and two deputies who were charged with guarding the jurors were also “taking sexual liberties” (that’s a [...

The Importance of Being Gideon (updated)

Posted on December 22, 2008
Congrats to Gideon for being named by the CT Law Tribune one of the dozen who made a difference in 2008!� The article (”An Anonymous Voice With An Attitude”) isn’t up on the Trib’s website yet, but I will link to it when it becomes available online...

Monday Evening Meltdown

Posted on December 22, 2008
I wish the snow would melt, but doesn’t look like it’s going to happen for another two days or so. That means Gideon is lethargic and when Gideon is lethargic, Gideon makes lists. Here, enjoy these fine posts from around the blogosphere: You know when your client insists he’s innocent so you should go ahead and get [...

What I want to know

Posted on December 20, 2008
Is what happened to the eyewitness ID blog? Anyone? Did they move and just not tell me?

When the lobby?s a-rockin?

Posted on December 19, 2008
The police come knockin’. All I have to say about this story is that they were in a hotel. Think about it. What does a hotel have a lot of? (Yes, there’s the interesting question of whether a liquor license makes a place “public” even if it is closed, but I don’t care enough to [...

The reasonable man goes to a public place

Posted on December 19, 2008
So in light of my previous post (and the police’s strange contention that a liquor license makes a closed bar a public place), I decided to look up the public indecency statute and figure out what a public place actually means. Here’s the answer: I don’t know what the hell the police are talking about...

DNA Exoneration FTW

Posted on December 19, 2008
Following up on the DNA exoneration story from two weeks ago, I can happily point you to this report that Miguel Roman has been granted a new trial and was released from custody today, in time for the holidays. Judge David P. Gold agreed after a brief hearing today to release Roman, 52, on a promise [...

Print and e-mail issues resolved

Posted on December 18, 2008
If anyone tried to print or e-mail something on the blog in the past week, you probably met with no success. Unbeknownst to me, the plugins handling those functions had been updated and I had to do some reconfiguring behind the scenes. They work now. Sorry...

The Great Right (with poll!)

Posted on December 18, 2008
We all have rights. You have rights, I have rights and most importantly, criminal defendants have rights. These latter rights are fundamental to the orderly administration of justice. They represent a check on the awesome power of the Government. But what if you had to live without all but one? Which one would you be unable [...

The forest for the trees, or: the purple heart for the prejudice

Posted on December 18, 2008
One standard jury selection question in criminal trials asks prospective jurors whether they’d give more weight to witnesses who hold some position of authority: most frequently police officers. The underlying theory is simple: testimony and evidence should be judged on its own and not accorded more weight simply because it comes out of the mouth [...

New CT bill limits suicidal thoughts to 6 months max

Posted on December 17, 2008
Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? That’s exactly the reaction I had when I read this article yesterday. Co-chair of the Judiciary Committee Mike Lawlor claims that the State has spent between $200,00 and $500,00o on “one on one” monitoring of Steven Hayes (one of the accused in the Cheshire murders) since last July...

A little pd Christmas ditty

Posted on December 17, 2008
Overheard in court and sent to me by a little canary. For your listening pleasure, set to the tune of…well, you know. THE 12 DAYS OF ARRAIGNMENTS On the ____ day of Arraignments, my client came to me with: 12 FTAs 11 Prior Convictions 10 Years Suspended 9 Dumb Excuses 8 Failed Programs 7 Cases Pending in 6 Jurisdictions 5 AKAs 4 VOPs 3 BCLs 2 DV cases And the [...

What happens if you dial 666; or, upending the criminal justice system

Posted on December 15, 2008
What happens when you dial 666, goes an old British childrens’ joke. Why, you get a policeman walking on his head! If this study is anything to be believed, then we’ll all be dialing 119 pretty soon, for its implications are likely to turn the criminal justice system on its head...

A few thoughts on the death penalty

Posted on December 12, 2008
Several occurances in the last week have got me thinking about the death penalty. Miguel Roman should be the new posterchild for abolishing the death penalty. Yes, he wasn’t on death row, but here is a man who spent 20 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit...

Maryland commission recommends abolition of death penalty

Posted on December 12, 2008
I seem to have a knack for these things. I post about something and the next day there’s some news on that subject (or it could just be coincidence - take your pick). After yesterday’s post on the death penalty, I was but a little surprised to see two interesting news items today...

A question - Off topic

Posted on December 12, 2008
This is a car accident/personal injury question. I’m sure some of you are well-versed in that area of the law. This is the setup: Two on ramps merge into one, leading to an interstate highway. One of those on-ramps has a yield sign. Assume that there are three cars going toward the highway on the [...

11. Be (intellectually) honest

Posted on December 11, 2008
Since the last post was mostly tongue-in-cheek, I couldn’t include #11: be honest, or intellectually honest. The legal profession, despite the number of students graduating from law school every year, is small and insular. The local bar is small...

10 things I didn?t learn in law school

Posted on December 10, 2008
Look, law school taught me a fair bit. I won’t lie. It taught me that even grown-ups can get drunk and get in fights at local bars. It taught me that my fellow lawyer isn’t much smarter than me and will one day become really famous. It taught me that you can fake your way [...

Might OJ Simpson have a Sanders claim?

Posted on December 08, 2008
One interesting piece of information in this OJ Simpson brouhaha is the revelation that he may have rejected a plea offer for a sentence as low as 3 years. The first word came from a friend of The Juice and it was later confirmed by his lawyer. Sanders, in the post title, refers to a CT [...

Marketplace wants to hear from you

Posted on December 08, 2008
Marketplace, a program of American Public Media (the second largest producer of public radio programming in the country, presumably behind NPR, and producer of A Prairie Home Companion) wants to hear from legal professionals about how the economy is impacting them...

Sunday Stupidity: Donuts make me dizzy edition

Posted on December 07, 2008
Click here to view the embedded video.

Close to another DNA exoneration

Posted on December 06, 2008
The Great State of Seacrest Connecticut might be close to its second DNA exoneration ever. (You know, it’s strange how these things play out. A few weeks ago I remarked to someone that I hadn’t heard anything about the Innocence Project lately and I wondered if they were working on anything...

Selection, naturally

Posted on December 06, 2008
What has always struck me as rather curious about the various jurisdictions in the US is their disparate ways of employing judges and state’s attorneys and public defenders. Some states elect their officials, some states select them. In Connectictut, I guess one could say that the state’s attorneys, public defenders and judges are akin to civil [...

Appellate Court freshens the air

Posted on December 04, 2008
Distraction? Rear view mirror ornaments seem to be a big problem in Windham County, CT. Three months ago I wrote about a Superior Court decision from last December, in which the court found that C.G.S. 14-99f(c) permitted cops to pull drivers over because, well, the cop thought that the air freshener was obstructing the driver’s view...

Still waiting for registry reform

Posted on December 04, 2008
13 months ago, almost to the very date, State Rep. and co-chair of the Judiciary Committee Mike Lawlor gave an interview in which he touted the need for sensible reforms to the sex offender registry. I was buoyed by it and a little hopeful. After all, who can not see the benefits of a tiered [...

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