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50 Founders Plaza
East Hartford, CT 06108
50 Founders Plaza
East Hartford, CT 06108
Personal injury and other tort lawsuits allow injured victims to hold defendants responsible for their negligence when it causes someone harm. One of the key phases of any personal injury litigation is the damages calculation, which is where the court determines what harms the plaintiff suffered, and how much compensation they are owed.
It is important to remember that the legal system in Connecticut wants to perfectly compensate the plaintiff for all of the harm that the defendant's negligence caused. In order to do this, Connecticut law recognizes a wide variety of damages. Plaintiffs may seek “special compensatory damages” to cover specific harms such as medical bills, and they may also seek “general compensatory damages” to cover their pain and suffering. Additionally, juries in Connecticut are allowed to award “punitive damages,” extra damages designed to punish defendants.
Ever since the War on Drugs began in the 1980s, drug crimes have been some of the most commonly prosecuted offenses across the country. Even low level drug crimes like simple possession can come with severe penalties, and they can become even more serious for drug crimes like distribution of a controlled substance. Understanding both of these crimes and their penalties is important for people charged with a drug crime in Connecticut.
To fully understand these crimes, it is important to understand the distinction between an illegal drug and a controlled substance. Illegal drugs are drugs such as cocaine and heroin, which are illegal to possess under any circumstances. A controlled substance includes illegal drugs, but it also includes prescription medications like Oxycontin and Vicodin. Prescription medications are legal to possess if prescribed by a doctor’s and dispensed by a pharmacist, but the unauthorized possession, giving to someone else, or sale of them is illegal.
White collar crime is a broad term that has always been difficult to define. According to the FBI, there are two major ways of defining what white collar crime is. First, it can be defined by the offender. Under this definition, white collar crimes are those committed by people who are wealthy or high up in the social strata, or by people whose jobs place them in positions of trust. Second, it can be defined by the types of offense, probably the more common of the two definitions. Under this view of white collar crime, it is an economic offense, a nonviolent crime, usually some sort of theft or fraud.
Examples of white collar crime run the gamut from tax evasion to securities fraud to embezzlement. Some of these are punished by both state and federal law, while others are almost exclusively prosecuted by federal agencies. A good example of the first type is embezzlement. Connecticut law criminalizes embezzlement as a type of larceny.
Emergency vehicles like fire trucks, ambulances, and police cruisers exist to protect the public and keep people safe, but they themselves can often be a danger to society. Connecticut law gives emergency vehicles a considerable amount of freedom to violate traffic laws when they are responding to an emergency.
Emergency vehicles have a special law § 14-283 that allows them to disobey most traffic laws provided that they are using their lights and sirens and are responding to an actual emergency. This freedom means that injured victims cannot point to traffic law violations as evidence of negligence the way they normally could. Traffic accidents involving these sorts of vehicles present special issues because it can be more difficult to prove that the driver of the emergency vehicle was operating it negligently.
Ambulance Services and Traffic Accidents
Even seemingly minor car accidents can lead to serious medical problems if they go untreated. Accident victims often face a variety of unfamiliar medical terms that can make the whole examination and treatment process more confusing. However, it is important that patients pursue such examination and treatment promptly.
This speed is important because of a legal doctrine known as a statute of limitations. Statutes of limitations are laws that place time limits on people's ability to bring lawsuits for harms that they have suffered. Connecticut's statute of limitations for injury in a car accident is unusually short. Victims only have two years from the time when they discover or should have discovered their injury before courts bar them from recovering damages for their injuries. This makes it especially important for people to understand their injuries, so that they can bring them to an attorney.
Child pornography has become more prevalent since the advent of the internet and the proliferation of cameras. Consequently, law enforcement at both the state and federal levels have begun cracking down on people who possess child pornography. This has created a patchwork of federal and local laws that people are subject to. However, it is still important for people to understand this complex patchwork since the penalties for violating it can be incredibly severe.
State Law
Connecticut law on the possession of child pornography criminalizes knowingly possessing some amount of images of child pornography, which is defined as video or images depicting someone under the age of 16 engaging in sexually explicit conduct. The penalties for the crime depend on the amount of images a person has in their possession. Fewer than 20 images is a Class D felony punishable by five years in prison, with a one year mandatory minimum sentence. Possession of between 20 and 50 images is a Class C felony punishable by at most 20 years in prison, with a two year mandatory minimum sentence. More than 50 images brings it up to a Class B felony, and increases the mandatory minimum sentence to five years. However, the state law does make some reductions in severity if the person who possesses the images is a minor because of the prevalence of teenagers with cell phone cameras.
Sexual assault is a highly complex crime under Connecticut law. At its most severe, it can be a class A felony, the second most serious class that Connecticut law allows for, but it can also be punished as a mere misdemeanor. This is because Connecticut recognizes four degrees of sexual assault, with first degree being the most serious and fourth degree being the least serious. On top of the different degrees, there are also aggravating or mitigating factors for some of the crimes, things that make them more or less serious.
Degrees of Sexual Assault
Which degree of sexual assault a person is charged with varies depending on a variety of factors. These include things like the relationship between the offender and the victim, the type of force used, the type of sex acts performed, and the age of the victim, among others. For instance, first-degree sexual assault occurs when a person compels another to have sex with him or her either through force or the threat of force against the victim or against another person. However, first-degree sexual assault also occurs when a person has sexual intercourse with a person who is mentally incapacitated to the point where he or she cannot consent, or when a person has sexual intercourse with someone under the age of 13, provided that the offender is more than two years older than the victim.
Gun control and Second Amendment rights are an important political topic right now, but the debate over them often obscures other laws about dangerous weapons. Connecticut law ordinarily forbids people from carrying dangerous weapons, but that alone does not provide a clear picture of the law. For instance, not everything that could intuitively be a dangerous weapon actually falls under the law. Instead, the law itself provides a specific list of forbidden types of weapons. The law also includes a list of exceptions where the carrying of certain weapons or by certain people is allowed.
What Dangerous Weapons Are
Dangerous weapons are a broad category that the law breaks down into a list:
Well we ought to know its not about "Ferguson!" Ferguson was a mere catalyst for what will hopefully be a better USA for people of all colors and creeds.
As many of my colleagues in the criminal defense bar know, when we're traveling on the highway and see those blue flashing lights, 80% of the time the occupants are people of color. 80% plus of our clients are people of color. The Criminal court dockets consists of 80% plus of people of color.
We've sadly come to accept that! But all clearly realize that the disproportionality of these facts are "real".
The Grand Jury proceeding in Ferguson was a farce. "Probable Cause", is the lowest standard of proof in our criminal procedure. The Grand Jury was turned into a one sided full blown trial without the maximum benefit of the right to confrontation. That's not the purpose of a Grand Jury. It's merely to find that lowest denominator -"PC".
50 Founders Plaza
