Legal

The justice system is designed to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The idea that the system might punish the wrong person is a great concern.  One of the great quotes in English law is the so-called Blackstone ratio –...

On March 8, 2019, the Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, issued a 4-3 decision reinstating the murder conviction of Adnan Syed. Previously a trial judge and the intermediate appellate court had ruled Mr. Syed was entitled to a new trial because...

Late last month a panel in California recommended parole for a 69-year-old convicted murderer who had spent more than forty-five years in prison. In and of itself, that information is probably not too shocking. Forty-five years is a long time in prison. Presumably the...

November was a busy month for legal and political news. It is nearly impossible to stay on top of everything happening. So what if I told you I wanted to focus on a state-wide election in Florida? Something happened in this election which may be a very big deal in the...

Welcome back to This Month in the Law, my attempt to update you on a regular basis about interesting things happening in the legal world. The first two months I looked at First Amendment issues. Even though I am always fascinated by those topics, I thought it might be...

Welcome back to This Month in the Law! This marks our two month anniversary, which is a fancy way of saying I actually wrote something before July ended. I am pretty proud of this because it means This Month in The Law remains a valid title for at least another month!...

“This Month in the Law” Begins Publication Growing up, I loved This Week in Baseball (TWIB). Every Saturday I could tune in to get a snapshot of everything happening around major league baseball. This was the era before ESPN, so there were no nightly highlight shows...

Several months ago my sister recommended a TED Talk to me. The Talk was given by Megan Phelps-Roper, formerly of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka. In her TED Talk, Ms. Phelps-Roper explains how she was encouraged to change her worldview as a result of several...

I have been exploring a four-step process for difficult conversations. The idea behind the process is that there is a way to discuss even the most difficult of subjects and, potentially, find consensus. Megan Phelps-Roper presented this method in a TED Talk.  She is a...

In my last article, I discussed a four-step process for having better conversations on difficult matters. Megan Phelps-Roper, a granddaughter of Fred Phelps and former member of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, suggested this process in a TED Talk. The four...