Norm Pattis

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Tweeting Reporters Sent Message To Jury

Monday, December 6, 2010 | by Norm Pattis | The Connecticut Law Tribune

We missed a tremendous opportunity to conduct an experiment of great significance in our courts. That's because we didn't have a crystal ball. Who really would have thought that courtroom spectators would unwittingly try to transform the tranquil of a courtroom into the electronic version of a Roman coliseum, favoring we the mob with tidbits of the trial in short bursts of data sent almost compulsively from the proceedings?

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Tweeting Reporters Sent Message To Jury

Monday, December 6, 2010 | by Norm Pattis | The Connecticut Law Tribune

We missed a tremendous opportunity to conduct an experiment of great significance in our courts. That's because we didn't have a crystal ball. Who really would have thought that courtroom spectators would unwittingly try to transform the tranquil of a courtroom into the electronic version of a Roman coliseum, favoring we the mob with tidbits of the trial in short bursts of data sent almost compulsively from the proceedings?

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State, Federal Judges Should Get Together

Monday, November 22, 2010 | by Norm Pattis | The Connecticut Law Tribune

A year or so ago, I actually flirted with the idea of becoming a judge. I was encouraged by someone with more power than sense. My ego warmed to the topic, and I spent a couple of months working the telephone seeing what would be involved and whether I would have the support necessary to make the transition from hell-raiser to jurist.

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Pointless Gag Orders; Let Defenders Speak

Monday, November 15, 2010 | by Norm Pattis | The Connecticut Law Tribune

It is naive to think that a judicially imposed gag order does anything other than benefit the prosecution in a criminal case. So why do Connecticut criminal court judges swoon over them? First, Judge Roland D. Fasano imposed orders in the Cheshire home invasion cases.

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Too Much Silliness In Habeas Proceedings

Monday, November 8, 2010 | by Norm Pattis | The Connecticut Law Tribune

Habeas corpus is sort of like the Magna Carta: it's the smattering of Latin that all lawyers know. Recite these words in public, and even non-lawyers know something important is at stake. In essence, a habeas corpus petition asserts that a prisoner is being held illegally. The writ is an important tool in the arsenal of liberty.

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Invisible Leash Raises Questions In Capital Case

Monday, November 1, 2010 | by Norm Pattis | The Connecticut Law Tribune

I am sure Superior Court Judge Roland D. Fasano really didn't mean to begin laying the foundation for post-conviction relief as to Joshua Komisarjevsky. But the practical import of his decision to place attorney Jeremiah Donovan on what amounts to a form of existential probation could benefit Komisarjevsky in years to come. It would have been far simpler and more elegant for Fasano to decide the contempt issue before the court.

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Lies And Justice: A Jury Of Killers

Monday, October 25, 2010 | by Norm Pattis | The Connecticut Law Tribune

Death, we like to say in the law, is different. Hence, the evolution of differing standards for capital cases. But the application of these standards is steeped in the same hypocrisy affecting non-capital criminal cases. The criminal justice system remains what it has always been: a farce with sometimes lethal consequences.

• Criminal Law

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Why Use Junk Science To Administer Junk Justice?

Monday, September 27, 2010 | by Norm Pattis | The Connecticut Law Tribune

More than once I have heard a prosecutor in trial urge a judge to admit contested evidence: "The state cannot prove its case without this evidence, your honor," the argument goes. To which I typically respond: "So what?" The rules of evidence require reliable evidence. The trial deck is not supposed to be stacked in favor of conviction. But the deck is so stacked. And few judges seem prepared to do much about it.