The Plea Bargaining Blog

I am pleased to announce that my short story, entitled " A Prisoner of Time ," has been selected as the winner of the  2014 Hofstra Law School Mystery Short Story Contest  and is now available on the Mulholland Books website.  The competition was judged by Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series, Marcia Clark, the former OJ Simpson prosecutor and author of the highly-praised Rachel Knight series, and Alafair Burke, best selling author of ten thrillers. Below are the first few paragraphs of story. The years passed faithfully, each one much like the last, and yet each distinctive and filled with its own memories.  George Duncan, known simply as Duncan since his first year of school, sat in his large recliner.  Though the chair was old and tattered, the fabric was woven with far too many memories to discard.  Duncan, currently in the eighth decade of his life, had never felt the cold beneath his skin as he did now.  But...

The Economist has an excellent article on the Criminalization of American Companies entitled " A Mammoth Guilt Trip ."  Among the many interesting issues the article examines is this regarding the risks of proceeding to trial for corporations: Chief executives now say it would be simply irresponsible for them to run the risk of an indictment and trial. The result is “regulation through prosecution”, argues James Copland of the Manhattan Institute, a think-tank. The mere threat of an indictment forces a negotiation which can lead to an entire new construction of law. So how does a legal process without an open trial operate? The kind answer is “mysteriously”; a harsher one might be “coercively”.  Read the entire article here .