Boston Herald letter, July 21, 2016 Donald Trump is entitled to express his political opinions, no matter how silly, as is Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis. (“If Trump can speak his mind, why can’t RBG?,” July 14). U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as a sitting judge, is not. Judges have political opinions, of course,…
Author: Brian R. Merrick
Former Massachusetts District Court judge and Visiting Scholar in the History Department at Suffolk University, free-lance writer, residing in Cape Cod, Mass. and Cape Coral, Florida
Convention Drama At Last; Cruz’s Big Moment
Senator Ted Cruz addresses the Republican National Convention tonight. To secure his participation Donald Trump’s convention managers (if that’s what they can be called) had to agree to let him be the only speaker whose remarks have not been cleared in advance. So …. will he or won’t he? Cruz fancies himself the legatee of…
What we can learn from the British: Quickly elect leaders who reflect the party
July 14, 2016. Republicans and Democrats are a year into a painful political season with months still to go before the election, both stuck with candidates no one likes very much. I propose below a way to select party leaders more reflective of the views of party members. And do it quickly too. ` In…
Hillary skates again
July 6, 2016. Not many Americans will see more than brief news clips of the statement yesterday by FBI Director James Comey. They should read it all. The FBI was investigating whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server for State Department business violated the Espionage statutes and…
Does Brexit vote foretell US election?
June 25, 2016. The new question roiling American politics is whether the triumph of the Trump position in the Brexit referendum has any significance in predicting the outcome of this year’s American Presidential election. Before you scoff, consider modern history. In fact, the history of the last 80 years shows a common pattern, a similar…
“Occupy” Dems demand vote in House, block one in Senate
June 23, 2016. Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives can’t accomplish anything. What to do? “Let’s have a sit-in, like we used to do in the Dean’s office!” They don’t seem to know that they are supposed to be the grown-ups. The tactics of the Occupy movement are the ones the House Democrats have…
Judges and Prosecutors are Accountable
Cape Cod Times Op-Ed, June 8, 2016Having retired as a district court judge, I can tell you that the Cape Cod Times was wrong that there is “Little accountability of judges, prosecutors,” as it asserted in a May 27 editorial. Active sitting judges are prohibited by the Canons of Judicial Ethics from publicly defending themselves….
The Supreme Judicial Court Tanks an Investigation
June 2, 2016, West Barnstable MA. In a letter published in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Gants’ response to Speaker’s request a misstep on November 19, 2015 and in this blog, I wrote: To the editor: When The Boston Globe Spotlight team published a series of articles revealing, to no one’s surprise, that there was political patronage…
Trump, Clinton and the Veterans
May 31, 2016. Donald Trump released a list of veterans charities to which he directed $5.6 million in donations from a fundraiser he held in January as cover for his refusal to attend a debate among Republican presidential candidates. This was accompanied by a larger than usual portion of vitriol aimed at assembled reporters. It…
Not so fast on sentencing reform
Boston Herald Op-Ed, May 29, 2016 Federal and state government initiatives on the drug epidemic and sentencing reform are working at cross-purposes. Both are attempting to come to grips with the ever-increasing epidemic of opiate and heroin addiction that has left death, crime and ruined lives in its wake at all levels of society. Both Congress…
The Transgender Non-Issue
Note: The sentiment of this post was the the subject of a Cape Cod Times letter on May 19, 2016. May 16, 2016. Without any discernible public need, the federal, state and some local governments have taken up the cause of transgender use of public facilities traditionally segregated by sex, such as rest rooms and communal locker…
I don’t want to say “I told you so” …
… It’s just that I did. In January. Before the Iowa Caucuses. In Why on earth Donald Trump? It’s fun watching all the media talking heads backtracking.
MonkfishOnCape 