Judges are rightfully outraged by counsel citing fictitious cases. We are officers of the court. We don’t cite non-existent cases; we twist real ones into non-existent meanings.
@DNAStory@tommy_bennett Despite what you might believe from the avalanche of obsession over fake AI citations, a typo in a citation is actually not the cardinal sin of a legal brief
Today the Supreme Court granted a remarkably well drafted pro se petition for certiorari. (It was so good, in fact, that his reply brief was written by Davis Polk's Masha Hansford.) Read the pro se brief here: https://t.co/rOQ8tzcc5q
Growing up in Connecticut, I always assumed the majority of Americans had Italian-Irish ancestry.
Pizza places on every block, Irish pubs, kids in your graduating class named Ryan Mancino/Maria Murphy, everyone is Catholic.
Once I left New England, I realized how unique it was.
Two correction officers used the cell-door controls at York CI to let my client out of her cell in the middle of the night and sexually assault her. One was criminally convicted. The other took her to a mop closet the DOC knew had no cameras — and never fixed.
This wasn’t a lapse. It happened against a documented, years-long pattern of correctional staff sexually abusing women at York. A pattern the State knew about, investigated, and failed to correct.
Connecticut had total control over Lashanda Gregory’s safety. The State’s job was to prevent this. It didn’t.
This lawsuit is about accountability — and about making sure the next woman in state custody is safer.
🔗 https://t.co/rnDYRdgECh
Let’s talk about the Governor’s race in Connecticut. The Governor’s seat is not at risk of flipping Republican. The status quo is the only thing at risk. We must support Josh Elliott.
The last time Connecticut voted Republican for president was 1988. In 2024, while Donald Trump was winning nationally, Connecticut went Democratic by about 14.5 points. In 2022, Ned Lamont beat Bob Stefanowski by nearly 13 points, and 45 municipalities that voted Republican in 2018 flipped Democratic by 2022. The affluent suburbs that used to be the GOP’s bench have moved sharply away from the national party during the Trump era.
This is not a swing state. It is not a purple state. It is a comfortably Democratic state where the structural fear of a Republican governor is, frankly, a bedtime story we tell ourselves to avoid having harder conversations.
So here’s the harder conversation.
In 2026, Connecticut lawmakers are describing DOC healthcare as being at “crisis level.” The Lamont administration pushed to remove a provision requiring public disclosure of an independent report on 25 DOC medical malpractice incidents tied to lawsuits or potential lawsuits. The Governor removed Carleton Giles from the Board of Pardons and Paroles after backlash to increased commutations — backlash, meaning, some people did not want incarcerated Connecticut residents to come home to their families.
When the legislature tried to authorize overdose prevention centers — a tool with established evidence for reducing deaths — the Governor threatened a veto and the provision came out. The stated concern was federal law. The lived concern, for the families burying people, is that we are choosing political caution over a working intervention. That’s why Senator Saud Anwar nominated Josh.
When the legislature passed HB 5002, a major housing bill responding to a documented shortage and to ProPublica and CT Mirror’s reporting on exclusionary zoning’s “invisible walls” in wealthy towns, the Governor vetoed it. The Governor lives in Greenwich. The argument is always “local control.” In practice, local control is the mechanism by which the wealthiest municipalities in the state block reform.
The ECS education funding foundation amount has not been raised since 2013. Connecticut has some of the largest educational wealth disparities in the country. The administration’s response in 2026 is another Blue Ribbon Commission instead of restructuring the formula.
Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-García died after severe abuse and starvation. DCF had prior reports connected to that household. The state went an extended period without a permanent Child Advocate.
State Police leadership retired amid investigations into fabricated traffic stop data that corrupted the racial profiling oversight system. No one was held accountable under Lamont.
This is the record being defended in the name of “electability.”
Josh Elliott — State Representative from Hamden, Deputy Speaker of the Connecticut House, a progressive voice in the legislature since 2016 — has cleared the delegate threshold at the Democratic convention. He has qualified for the 2026 primary. He is running openly to the Governor’s left: taxing wealth, labor protections, confronting Eversource, housing, prison reform, banning prolonged solitary, paid leave, the minimum wage.
Josh has delivered for us. Without him we would not have free prison phone calls. Oh, by the way, the governor’s last budget proposed getting rid of those.
You do not have to agree with every position to ask the next question. In a state where Republicans are structurally not winning, what is “electability” actually being used to protect? At some point the word stops describing math and starts describing a preference for the existing arrangement.
The Governor’s seat is not at risk of flipping. The status quo is the only thing at risk.
To understand why New Haven is facing tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of dollars of legal liability for police misconduct a generation ago, read this @ctexaminer@davealtimari piece then read Nicholas Dawidoff's magisterial book "The Other Side of Prospect"
A federal jury has awarded a 29-year-old man $522,000 after finding that two city police officers negligently inflicted “emotional distress” on him after cops tackled him and then detained him in handcuffs and ankle shackles in police lockup in 2018. https://t.co/Y9VCNImwUE
In 2020 I ran for State Senate against Martin Looney. After the election he took me out for lunch to discuss policy. In the last 6 years he championed even more progressive legislation. Congratulations to Sen Looney on a legendary career in public service! https://t.co/9TRLUXsb9y
HARTFORD — The state legislature’s Judiciary Committee voted Friday to award Dixwell/Newhallville/Prospect Hill Alder Troy Streater nearly $5.9 million as compensation for a wrongful conviction that cost him 23 years in prison.
The 30-10 vote followed a decision by state Claims Commissioner Robert Shea that found “substantial evidence of innocence” when reviewing Streater’s conviction for the 1990 murder of 19-year-old Terrence Gamble. https://t.co/BarAm5u3qY
Troy Streater was convicted of a murder he didn’t commit. He lost 23 years to Connecticut prisons. Today, lawmakers approved his compensation. The fight took far too long, but thank you to the legislators who did what’s right. Onward.
https://t.co/YTlVgICmZ9 via @nbcconnecticut
i’ve got news for you about local town and private university jurisdiction over Federal highways.
Our congressional representation considers this the new urban look. They’re still proud they delivered us an extra lane on the highway bridge.
How, in this day and age when every 2-bit city is tearing down or rerouting ill-conceived inner-city highways, does New Haven with its fancy Yale design school still have a 4-way highway interchange completely cutting the city off from its waterfront?
I don’t normally push my culture on ppl but this year I’m texting all my American friends to remind them that the Earth has just begun a new cycle around the sun and that Persians formalized this moment as Nowruz (beginning a new year at the spring equinox) over 2,500 years ago.