The Raft

We all get to be on the raft.My brother and I swum up with strong brown arms I hoist up and spin and theream sitting on the raft and him too we swish our legs in the water and duckshy cause everyone else is a grown up and they  smile and wave at us and……

The Judge As General: toward a scientific approach to therapeutic justice for military veteran in Veterans Treatment Courts

This essay examines an alternative to incarceration in the criminal justice system called “veteran’s treatment court” particularly in New York State. How did this type of treatment court arise and under what statutory authority does it exist? Elements of the Buffalo Veterans’ Treatment Court, along with a synopsis of a scaled-back version of veteran’s treatment court……

THE SOUND OF SILENCE after Berghuis v Thompkins:[1] silence as evidence now that the Fifth Amendment right to silence must be explicitly invoked.

OverviewA man is brought in to custody in a police station for questioning. He does not invoke his right to silence, but he remains quiet.  He is given Miranda warnings, and still, remains quiet.  He is accused of a crime by interrogating police. He fails to protest his innocence.  At that defendant’s trial, the prosecutor……

The Cigar Box

She has a red and getting-yellow cream print Garcia y Vega Tampa cigar box with photos inside it; Faces of lovers, singed with brownish popped edges from heat A lousy match decided on a day she shoved her hands in her pockets for nothing but white Cotton. This one girl looks like a man, maybe……

Immigration Law: How does one attorney convince another attorney to say, “No, I never advised my client of the deportation consequences of his plea agreement?”

Introduction Is it possible to enlist the support of a criminal defense attorney ostensibly against her own interests, convincing her to sign an affidavit which states that she did not tell her former client of the deportation consequences of the plea agreement the client signed? The attorney’s first words, should you ever reach her, may……

Honoring Article 12 of the Conventions on the Rights of the Child with Restorative Justice

Honoring Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child with Restorative Justice [1] By Amy D’Amico Introduction I. From November 2008 through June of 2009, I was trained by an organization called Partners in Restorative Initiatives in Rochester, NY, and took part in a diversion program to the adversarial criminal justice system……

The Snowcave

 What’ll comeIs not the same story, but as true as what was.In my marrow, I tell stories, this oneBegins with snowbank Christmas lightsWuffed out or winking under whiteRound houses of snow without windowsOr doors.  Here’s a thing: your happiness,Bound to you in signatures as in a book?Maybe five signatures for a small hand-Bound volume on……

This is the poem you wanted to read

The scrapyard poemThe dunkindonuts buzzthrough unisexDoor behind which you findAn eagle’s feather on the side ofThe faucet in which a bear’s headHas been painted, white and black.Read slowly, the poem where alien doesn’t mean death but ludi-Crous, luminousBeginning, where your daughter explains just soHer brother won’t hear there isn’tA santa but santa is God’s brotherTo……

Master Craftsman

You know the way the sidewalk’s built. Get rid of the leftover concrete with the pebbled windblown surface. That’s the hardest part. Use a pick axe and your back so it’ll break up in sections, as satisfying as slipping a puzzle piece in- to a section of cloud or fence- post where the soft cardboard……

taking a side

Defense work requires that one is not distracted by the formidable arguments on the other side of the courtroom.  It is easy to call it being cognizant of the other side and trying to strategize against every eventuality.   It doesn’t always pan out.  I wrote a memorandum once for a Mapp suppression hearing that included a……