Op-Eds and Columns

Jun 26, 2008

Op-Ed: The Real Story Behind the Teen Pregnancy 'Pact' (RH Reality Check)

Within hours of the publication of the Time magazine article suggesting that a spike in teen pregnancies at a Gloucester, Massachusetts, high school had been spurred by a "pact" made by several students to get pregnant and raise their children together, panic broke out. The story shot straight into breathless headlines and onto the anxious lips of talk show hosts. Maybe the girls made the pact because they want love! Maybe it's because of the economy! Maybe it's because they watched Juno! Maybe it's because they admire Jamie Lynn Spears! Maybe it's the school's fault for providing day care!... Read More

Jun 24, 2008

Column: Electronic Tracking and the Constitution (New York Law Journal)

Recent technological advances are rapidly obliterating the space that has separated law-abiding people from the police. At the same time, these advances threaten to render obsolete the legal protections people have enjoyed against unwanted police monitoring of their activities.... Read More

Jun 05, 2008

Column: Protect the Children (New York Metro)

Earlier this spring, a 12-year-old Brooklyn girl made a devastating decision – she took her own life. According to news reports, Maria Herrera, a sixth grader at Public School 72, was the subject of her classmates’ constant harassment. The little girl’s mother complained to the school, teachers and the Department of Education more than 20 times. Even after Maria’s classmates cut off her hair, nothing was ever done to protect her.... Read More

May 22, 2008

Column: The Risks of Stop-and-Frisk (New York Metro)

In the last two years, nearly a million New Yorkers were stopped, interrogated or frisked by the NYPD. Some were on their way home from school. Some were walking to the subway. Some were three-star NYPD chiefs sitting in their cars. What they have in common is that nearly all of them – 900,000 – were completely innocent.... Read More

May 01, 2008

Op-Ed: City Video Surveillance May Carry High Privacy Cost (Buffalo News)

A resident quoted in a recent Buffalo News article about the city’s new video surveillance system likened the cameras to candy, saying everybody wants more. It’s an apt comparison. The unchecked proliferation of video surveillance can erode privacy the way a steady diet of candy rots teeth. ... Read More

Apr 22, 2008

Column: A Key Law-Reform Tool in Peril – The End of Facial Challenges? (New York Law Journal)

One of the most powerful tools available to those engaged in civil rights law-reform work is the so-called “facial challenge.” Under long-standing Supreme Court precedent, advocates have been able to challenge statutes “on their face” and strike them down in their entirety, sometimes even before they were ever enforced. A notable New York example of a successful facial challenge is provided by the state’s now defunct death-penalty statute, which fell after the New York Court of Appeals found a single procedural provision of the statute to be unconstitutional.... Read More

Mar 25, 2008

Column: Congestion Pricing and Big Brother (New York Metro)

People generally don’t fret much about the proliferation of surveillance cameras in New York City, unless they’re the subject of an intrusive gaze.... Read More

Mar 24, 2008

Op-Ed: Closing Under-Used Facilities Makes Financial Sense (Buffalo News)

Sheriff Timothy Howard correctly calls the state’s juvenile justice system a costly failure (Another Voice, March 14), yet he opposes cutting state funding for pretrial juvenile detention. He argues that doing so would threaten public safety. The sheriff should reconsider.
... Read More

Feb 27, 2008

Op-Ed: Proposed State Law Would Protect Women's Reproductive Health (The Journal News)

The Feb. 21 Community View by Alan P. Mehldau, "Proposed law would increase number of abortions in N.Y.," is both misguided and factually incorrect. Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposed legislation, the Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act, would modernize our laws and ensure our rights are protected. The bill guarantees women's ability to make their own decisions about whether and when to become pregnant and whether and when to have children. It also ensures that when it comes to state regulation of abortion, women's health will always be the paramount concern.... Read More

Feb 26, 2008

Column: Garcetti v. Caballos and Public Employee Speech in the Second Circuit (New York Law Journal)

For litigators and judges, a United States Supreme Court decision that appears to depart from well-established law can present a significant challenge. A current example of this arises from Garcetti v. Cabellos, a May 2006 decision in which the Court seemed to substantially narrow the First Amendment rights of public employees.... Read More