Legal Writes

Philosopher Quizzed For Cop-Case Jury

by | Jan 24, 2024 3:06 pm | Comments (7)

Nora Grace-Flood Photo

Seeking justice, Tony Zona readies for jury selection.

A Yale PhD student was asked on the witness stand if he could take a firm and fair stand in a trial of cop against cops.

What is … fair’?” the graduate student responded to attorneys as jury selection kicked off in a case that will test whether top cops can be held accountable for seeking to retaliate against alleged whistleblowers.

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Alder Sues City For $100M

by | Jan 3, 2024 3:29 pm | Comments (54)

Laura Glesby photo

Streater: Lost 24 years of his life to a crooked prosecution.

On Monday Troy Streater was sworn in for his first full term a city alder. On Tuesday he sued the city for $50 million in punitive damages and $50 million in compensatory damages for the two dozen years he spent in prison on a wrongful conviction. 

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New Havener Of The Year

by | Dec 24, 2023 9:06 am | Comments (17)

Laura Glesby photos

Gaylord Salters offers "Truth With Proof" on Church Street.

Gaylord Salters imagined the event years before it took place, back when he was still fighting for his freedom. 

Then, during a year in which newly-freed Black men put New Haven’s criminal justice system on trial, Salters made the event happen: Seven days in a row of calling public attention to how law enforcement manipulated evidence to pin crimes on himself and others.

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In 2023, They Found Freedom

by | Dec 24, 2023 9:05 am | Comments (0)

Laura Glesby photos

Adam Carmon reunited with his son Najee after his release from prison.

Daryl Valentine isn’t a beach kind of dude.” But the day the state allowed him to move out of a halfway home, he went to the West Haven beach because the ocean is free.”

Maleek Jones used to love swimming, having grown up by the Brooklyn water. But his ankle monitor can’t go underwater, so he stayed out of his new backyard pool.

Adam Carmon has been out of prison for a year, but he still feels a part of me that’s chained.” On anxious mornings, he got in his car and drove to the ocean so that his mind could clear.

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Empty Lot Owner Dodges Foreclosure. Again

by | Dec 19, 2023 1:14 pm | Comments (25)

Sam Gurwitt file photo

Derrick Draughn: "It's not about the money. I just choose not to pay it until I feel like it."

A highway-adjacent vacant lot on the northern edge of Wooster Square wasn’t sold at a foreclosure auction on Saturday.

It almost was. But for the third time in a decade, the property’s owner retained control after paying off years of back taxes just in time — and kept alive a dream of building on the site himself, or selling it to someone who will.

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80,000 Records To Be Cleared As "Clean Slate" Takes Full Effect

by | Dec 18, 2023 6:54 pm | Comments (5)

Maya McFadden photo

Gov. Lamont (right) "clearing the records" of thousands of Connecticut residents with years-old criminal convictions.

Helen Caraballo is looking forward to attending nursing school while raising her five children and bouncing back from an otherwise rough year” — with the knowledge that she’ll no longer have to keep looking backward at a decade-old, low-level felony conviction, which will soon be erased.

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