Memorial Day 2017: RememberingWhy We Remember.

Our freedom and our lives were and are preserved by those that served our country in War and Peace as Soldiers Sailors Airmen and Marines.

Their efforts and their lives were spent in service of not just a nation, but an ideal. That all men are created equal, that rights of man are derived from a higher power, but protected by our brave military, that we are a nation of Laws not men, that we are united in the goal of being one nation, indivisible, with freedom and justice for all.

Now so many years later we need to not just remember those that died for those ideals, but we need to remember the ideals themselves.

As I watch my feed here and on Twitter or listen to the national debate, I wonder, is this an America worth dying for? Are these Americans worth defending? Sadly, more and more, the answer is no. 

America, indivisible, with freedom and justice for All. If you are not working toward that goal, then today is just a day at the beach. If you want an America that is strong and united, then what we have been doing the last 24 years is not .

It is time to ask yourself, would you risk the life of your child for the thing for which you are fighting.

Would you risk their life for your full SS Payment? For more benefits for the poor? Would you risk their lives to get bigger tax breaks for the top 1 or even Top 20%? Would you risk their lives for a death penalty? Next time you vote, ask yourself, would I be willing to risk my child's life for the programs, policies, AND character of the person for whom I am voting? If not, is that really the right vote for me? 

There are things, worth asking the men and women of our military to die for, everything else should be open to compromise. 

So celebrate the men and women who fought for our ideals, our safety and our nation, but do not forgetthem tomorrow. Tomorrow start asking yourself about what is so important that you would put your child's life at risk and conduct yourself accordingly.

A Little Good News For a Friday Before Christmas: Innocence Project Wins Again!!

I don't want this to be a blog that only criticizes. I think there are some good things happening in criminal law. One of those good things is The Innocence Project. Started by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, the defense attorney DNA Gurus these guys work with lawyers and students to undue injustice in the criminal justice system.
This week, Barry did it again. He won the freedom of  Gerard Richardson, a NJ man who was wrongfully convicted of Murder 20 years ago and has been rotting in jail doing time for a crime he did not commit.
Please consider a donation to the Innocence Project. Merry Christmas Mr. Richardson, and congratulations Barry. Thank you for keeping the dream alive.

Of Regan, Kennedy, and Rockwell: TIme To Reflect On Being An American Not a Republicat or Demorican

A very interesting exhibit opened at the Smithsonian Art Museum In Washington DC. this Fourth of July weekend. It is a retrospective of the works of Norman Rockwell, as seen through the eyes of two of America's greatest living movie directors Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Each has lent parts of their extensive Rockwell collections to the exhibit.

Rockwell is remembered as a artist who captured America and Americans at their best in worst times. Central to his work were the pieces that became known as the "Four Freedoms."

Rockwell told our story, the American story of the 1930's through the 1960's. His paintings captured the fear and strength of an emerging superpower. He captured our sense of wonder and our sense of determination. He was oft criticized for only capturing our "good times", but anyone who has ever really looked at his body of work, especially at "Southern Justice", and "The Problem We All Live With" knows that Rockwell understood both the American ability to do absolutely the right thing and the most horrible things. He just chose to most often show us, and remind us, of our best moments. His work reinforces that we proceed the farthest the fastest by working together.

In a like way, John F. Kennedy asked us to do the same thing. No one since Lincoln had been more divisive than the Boston Brahmin-like , Harvard educated yet Roman Catholic JFK. Our first WWII vet President and War Hero he was from an old line political machine yet like Theodore Roosevelt spoke like a populist.

He won a contested election. The nation was 50/50 for and against him, and yet Kennedy is revered by most Americans not only because he was killed by an assassin's bullet, but because he called on us to serve each other, to do not what was best or expedient for oneself but to do what was best for our nation. He ushered us in with a feeling that we could do ANYTHING. Land on the moon. Sure! Make the world safe for democracy. Absolutely! Equalize race relations. Without a doubt! We believed because he did. We believed because, our leaders, split as they were against each other, made it their job to do a job.

Ronald Regan. An Actor. A liberal labor leader turned Goldwater Republican. Was gonna lead us into war with the Soviets. Was going to destroy the poor and trample on the rights of everyone he didn't agree with.

Nope. He too saw the shining light on the hilltop as our nation. He engineered the fall of the Soviet Empire, and the rebirth of our nation as a superpower of import without firing a single shot. He stabilized our economy and made us proud of ourselves. Not by focusing on the things that kept us apart, but rather focusing on what brought us together. He fought with leaders of the left, and they with him, but the name calling we were now? The garbage that passes for political debate today? Non existent under his watch.

Regan Kennedy and Rockwell all understood the limits of America, but they called on us to remember not who we weren't but who we were and more importantly whom we could be.

To my Tea Party and Liberal friends, CUT IT OUT! Please don't send me another piece of E-mail that attacks President Obama or Senator McConnell. I don't care at this point where the hell Obama was born. I don't care that Michael Steele took some conservative yuppies to a burlesque show. Please never say "Rush Limbaugh" or "Rachel Maddow"to me, even in a joke.

I care that I want health care. I want my employees covered and I want to be covered. I know you want that too.

I want to be able to afford a vacation and still be able to retire some day. I know you want that too.

I want to give less money to the government and I want to make more money than I do. Who doesn't want this??

I want then poor to have shelter, and education. I want there to be no poverty in our nation. Republicans and Democrats want this too.

I want to live free. I don't want to have to be screened to get into my local library. Don't we all want this?

I want to save the environment and to know that our earth will feed my great great grandchildren someday. It isn't just my dream is it??

I would like you, as my elected officials to only tell me how you will do this. I do not want to hear your critique of the other guy's idea. (I am smart enough to do that critique myself, thank you.)

If I like your ideas better than the others that I hear, I will vote for you, donate to your campaigns and respect you.

If you shout down your opponent, call him or his ideas names mis-characterize his programs and act like a spoiled child if he wins the election, I will not vote for you, I will not support you and I WILL NOT RESPECT YOU!!

I ask, no I beg, the Sergeants at Arms of the United States House and Senate to post a print of Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech" at the door of each chamber. Maybe that will remind you those guys of what this is really all supposed to be about.

Hattip: NY Times

Happy Easter, The Lord Has Risen. Will You Help a Mom Of Two Find A Bone Marrow Donor?

Christ has risen. I am in a hopeful mood. Maybe it is the sudden turn in the weather, or maybe it is the good food mom serves on Easter Sunday. Either way, I am blogging again for better or worse. If you want to know where I've been, I have been trying cases left and right.

I tried a Rape case (statutory) in Queens and a Retaliation Employment Harassment case in the US District Court Eastern District of New York in the Central Islip NY (that is in Suffolk County for the uninitiated).

The results in the former case were mixed but not up to what I had hoped. In the latter case the case went well despite the pleadings which were filed "Pro Se" (by the client without the aid of an attorney.) These were my Third and Fourth Trial since December 17th 2009. I have two more scheduled in April, both of which will go to trial. Both are in Nassau County NY. May will bring Mother's day, Graduation of my eldest and in the latter part of the month a huge Prisoner's Rights, Civil Rights trial in Syracuse NY. June and early July is filled with two very interesting trials in Riverhead (Suffolk.) In between I was just a team leader for the week long,NYSBA Young Lawyer Trial Advocacy program at Cornell Law School. Wow I am tired, lol

I don't usually blog my cases until they are over, lest some juror read it "by accident." I think I will continue that habit, although I will be mentioning some of the issues I am running into if I think they are interesting enough.

In the meantime, I have a received a request to help find a Bone Marrow match for Thespina Pontisakos. She is a wife of an attorney and a mom of two sons. Thespina has Myelodysplastic Syndrome(MDS) and she will die if we don't find a donor match. Be the remedy. Join the registry. (Go to the link above and enter the Promo Code: helpthespina

You see, if the match is found, and Thespina gets the Bone Marrow transplant, Thespina lives, if not she dies. That seems easy enough. Try to help, it is almost painless to find out if you match. If you match, you will have the power to save a life. If you don't match Thespina, maybe you can save someone else. Either way, it appears to be an easy choice.

If you are going to be registering, or have registered already, and want to leave a thought or two here, I will publish them. Meanwhile, please, spread the word.
TLD

Merry Christmas: A Dad Fable

Every writer, blogger, priest and politician hopes to come up with something profound to write tonight. Something that will help people take the spirit of the birth of the Christ child into the new year, and make this spirit part of their daily lives.

The truth is, Christmas is special because it is hard to live this way everyday. Imagine however if we did.

Imagine if you can, a world where we see the other guys point of view, and he saw ours. Imagine a world, where we made it our business not to close our eyes at night until we made a positive difference in someones life that day. Imagine a life, were those that did the most for others, were the ones who attained the riches, where those that gave the most, not those that took the most,received the most.

My dad used to tell us a story about a poor man who walked onto a big estate. The Master's house had been empty for many years as the Master had been away fighting wars for the emperor, others rented from him their homes, but since the Master had been away, no one had collected the rents.

As the old man approached the first home on the estate, a terrible snowstorm whipped about him. The man was dressed as a rag man, he looked tired, old, and poor. He came to a house of a woman and he asked her for a loaf of bread. She looked at the bread in her home and said to herself, "I have a loaf, but if I give him my whole loaf I will go hungry." She returned with a two slices and said, "I have one loaf but if I give it all to you, I will have nothing." The traveler thanked her but refused her "hospitality".

At the next house he again came to the door. There was a party going on inside. He asked for a loaf of bread and again explained he had come far and had not eaten, but the hostess who had more than five loaves of bread brought only a few slices back and said, "I have five loaves of Bread, but I am having a party and I can't take a chance I will run out."

He again thanked her, and went on his way. He walked from home to home on the estate, and all he was ever offered was but a slice or two from the loaves that were available.

At the last house he came to, he notice that it was a clean home, but it was clear that the residents were of modest means. When he knocked on the door, the woman of the house opened the door and inside the home there was a house full of children and a Christmas tree inside. There were stockings by the fireplace. A tired man sat at the head of the table. The old man made his request of the woman. She asked him into the home. Then she took the only loaf of bread that she had, and gave it to the old man. She gave him the rest of the food in her cupboard, and at the end of the meal, the old man and the head of the household shared the last of the wine.

The old man stood, and as he was about to take his leave he asked of the woman and man, why they had been so generous. They had given him the last of all they had. The man said,

"You are wrong. We have plenty. We have 5 strong sons and 3 beautiful daughters. All of them, my wife and I are healthy. We have a generous landlord who while he has been away at war, has allowed us to remain on his estate rent free. Finally we have faith that tomorrow, when we are hungry, God will provide us with an opportunity to fill our stomachs. We do not have a lot of material things. But what we have, all of the money in the world cannot buy. We are the richest family on this estate."

The old man looked around and smiled. He thanked the man and woman for their hospitality, and patted each child, and took his leave.


The next day, the ells at the Master's house rang out. He had returned from the war and all who lived on the estate were to come to him. They all came wearing their best clothes and bringing food and gifts.

The Master looked out upon them. He was tall and regal. He was clean shaven and well dressed. He thanked them for their gifts and then said to the couple who had all the children "Where are your gifts?" The father spoke up, "Our gifts sire, are our children. We are here to till your fields and work in your home. we cannot afford presents."

The Master asked why they had not brought any food to the feast and the father told the Master about the visitor the night before. "I have not had the chance to get more food nor has my wife had a chance to bake more bread."

The Master then smiled. He looked at the residents of his estate and said

"This man and woman, fed me last night when I was hungry. They sheltered me from the storm. They gave me their last drop of wine. You all had more than they, you all have partaken of my hospitality, yet when I was hungry, you gave me crumbs from your table. These people, though they only had crumbs, shared them with me. They did not know when I would be coming, yet they treat everyone as if they were I."

The other residents gasped in the realization that the beggar man from the night before had been the Master of the Estate. "Master" they all said if we knew that it were you, we would have given you all we had too."

He roared out at them "You know not when the Master will come! You should treat all as if they were your Master.Then you will not have to worry that you did not recognize me!!"

The master continued:

"I am leaving to return to the lands that I have conquered for our emperor. I have been made Governor, and I will have an estate there twice as big as this one. I have decided to give this estate to one of you to collect the rents and to do what he will with the land and its bounty. I have chosen to give the land of my Estate, to the people who took in a stranger last night, and with the last bit of food and drink that they had, provided for him."

And with that the poor man and his wife became the owners of the estate, and never wanted for anything again.


Imagine if we constantly remembered that God is always around us, and that when we act charitably towards another in his flock , He sets a place at his table, and provides an estate for us in Heaven. Imagine what the world would be like if we all remembered my Dad's fable.

Merry Christmas to all of you, and a Happy and Healthy New Year too.

Tony"That Lawyer Dude" Colleluori and Family.

Scalia on 60 Minutes: The Rock Star Speaks

It was a great interview. Nino starred. His sense of humor and his actual humility came through. I am not going to go around and look for ways that he is either a hypocrite or even wrong. I think for the first time since Justice Douglas, we have an erudite well spoken and well read judicial hero. He may not be universally liked, but he stated his case for originalism well. I only wish Stahl had asked questions about federalism's reach and what if any limits there may be.

Originalism is not a dead constitution, it is for letting the constitution stand for what it says and for laws to stand for what they stand for. It is the reason that the constitution gets amended when the country believes there is a reason for it. It is the reason that it requires so many votes to amend it.

I like the way Scalia spoke about how he would do away with all abortion or have thrown the flag burner in jail if it were up to him. How his belief in the constitution does not allow for personal opinions to take the sway.

I did think he parsed words a bit too much when it came to using the cruel and unusual punishment language in the discussion about torture. I agreed with Stahl that the 8th amendment to the constitution would not allow for the use of torture and torture is just as easily a punishment for one's beliefs or race etc. as it can be viewed as an instrument of interrogation. The point is that I think Scalia asks the correct questions, in that the first question he must ask himself is, does the issue present a question that implicates the constitution as the forefather's wrote it. Where he and I may disagree comes down to understanding what is taken in by the meanings. He is broader than I in some places, and I broader than he in others. I also may take a more narrow view of how expansive a law is. In interpreting law, I am one who believes in looking at the actual words of a law and not giving meanings to them that either restricts or expands them beyond the words the legislature uses. I would also say that I would have to look hard at legislative history in interpreting many laws. I think he uses too little of that in his writings.

I also wish Stahl had asked him how he uses Presidential (or executive) signing statements and what if any effect he thinks they should be viewed by a judge when interpreting statutes.

Getting back to his originalist views, I am glad to hear him explain that if a case (like Roe) is found to be outside the constitution by the court, then go back to the public or their leaders and ask them to change it. Make a new law, or amend the constitution, either way, it is a republic and the majority's interests must often be upheld. Yes that view may hurt me a lot on a lot of cases, Yes it is the way a judge and a citizen should look at the Constitution.

Well I think we finally have a plan

Well I think I finally have a plan for this blog. I have wanted to mesh both blogs for a while. (Long Island (Criminal) Trial Law and That Lawyer Dude.) I also wanted to kind of start over for a bunch of reasons. I was trying to get the thing redesigned but my time for this is kind of limited. SOOOOO:

I have decided that I will be moving "That Lawyer Dude" to a new site (sorry blogger but this isn't working anymore)then I've decided that the new "That Lawyer Dude" will continue to be an amalgam of thought pieces and law combined. I will continue to write the blog alone for now, though I am still interested in a group blog.

Since the time table for the move is not set, and since I feel like writing, I am going to start blogging here again. If people start reading me again, great. If not, well at least my thoughts won't keep getting bottled up inside of me.

Now for the few of you who wonder what I have been up to. Well, I have been answering questions galore over at both Lawguru.com and AVVO.com I also occasionally take questions on at Linkedin.com I have also been more active on Solosez and the NYSACDL Listserves. So I have been writing but just not here.

On the office front, I have expanded our Lawfirm to include 2 new lawyers and I am hoping to add one of our "Of Counsels" as a partner.

I have tried a couple of cases and have expanded our practice areas. We now have an active Appellate Practice Group and a fledgling Catastrophic/Medical Malpractice Group. Our Qui Tam (False Claims Act Whistle blower) practice has also picked up substantially, as employees of Iraq-war contractors begin to report employers who cheat our Government and our taxpayers. There appears to be some favorable federal legislation pending on this area and I am hoping that if it passes, our Qui Tam/False Claims Act Practice Group will continue to grow. It is one of the most interesting areas of our practice and frankly very important. After all, anything that cheats our soldiers is abhorrent to me so I feel really good about going after these companies.

Our White Collar Criminal Practice Group is also booming. We have been doing a lot of work in the area of Criminal Trademark Infringement and Counterfeiting. These cases prosecute (mostly in federal court) the alleged illegal theft, retention, and sale of trademarked, patented, and copywritten material. They also usually include conspiracy, money laundering, RICO, and a myriad of other charges. The prosecution can be large or of a small group. The Federal Sentencing guidelines make these crimes much different from other White Collar Crimes.

Because many of these crimes cross international boundries, we have had to add a number of people on the staff who speak other languages. At this time our employees speak Chinese(Mandarin, Cantonese, and Taiwanese), Japanese, Italian, French and French Creole,German,Hindi,Tagalog (Philippines)Erdu & Arabic. We may not all be fluent in all of these languages but I am proud of my colleagues for their efforts

For example we are working on a case which alleges a syndicated was bringing in over 20 million dollars in trademarked NIKE and ADDIDAS clothing; another where a group was illegally obtaining credit card numbers and embossing them on purloined AMEX and VISA cards; a third case where the accused is accused of obtaining and selling first run movies on DVD as they come out and even BEFORE they come out in theaters.

It seems that the federal government is cracking down on these crimes as in part because of greater security at ports a direct result of the changes in prosecution initiatives in the wake of 9-11.

Finally we continue to try cases of the more "traditional" criminal kind. I will be starting hearings on a Murder 2 case (America's Most Wanted highlighted the case here)and I have a Burglary case scheduled for trial in two weeks, following a very interesting assault case.

So, while I will be posting here more regularly until the big MOVE, don't plan on seeing too much too soon. On the other hand, you never know what could happen. Maybe a Governor of a big eastern state will be caught patronizing prostitutes...

I want to keep up with the Q & A posts at LawGuru and Avvo, but I need a place to rant too. Hence I am returning.

Don't Give Up, Don't EVER Give Up.

The words spoken in the title, were spoken to me, and to millions of others, by the great, late Jimmy Valvano a basketball coach, a sportscaster, a cancer victim, a son, brother,father,and husband. Jim's fight with cancer, is the reason there is a Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research.

There is little a mere mortal such as I can give to the words given to Valvano from the Lord above. I am linking to both the words and the video.

Tonight the ESPY's are on and that marks in a sense the 15th anniversary of these words. I commend this paragraph to you all. These words are the words that Jimmy left us with. They are the words of his parents and my own. They are the words my wife, my sons and I as well as many who face the worst that life has to offer everyday live by to get to another day:

"I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get you're emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day and [as] Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm" -- to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality."

Enjoy, Be Inspired and Never Ever Give Up!