Andy Thibault’s thoughts while shaving

Columnist Andy Thibault reflects on offensive speech, O.J. tactics and Adam Lanza’s secrecy.

This week I pay ongoing homage to the late and great Boston Globe sports columnist and editor Ernie Roberts, the progenitor of “Thoughts While Shaving.” While Roberts actually shaved and thought, I still do less of both while enjoying it more. Roberts also reported on his breakfast and that of others as an introduction to a series of news vignettes. Today I am just chugging coffee.

CCLU now a force

Nobody squelches boring speech. It’s so-called offensive speech that routinely gets suppressed, especially in some of the regimented factories we call schools.

Enter the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union’s new force for free speech, Sandra Staub. Staub has racked up an impressive series of free speech victories, most recently in Wolcott http://tinyurl.com/ cv4smpy and http://tinyurl.com/c5sj8jx East Haddam. She compelled school officials to do back-flips on orders banning a t-shirt with a political statement and a bracelet supporting breast cancer awareness.

“Public school students need to know that the First Amendment is not merely a theoretical discussion topic but a real and vital guarantee of freedom in America that entitles them to express their views,” Staub said in a statement.

Before coming to Connecticut, Staub was chief of the Domestic Violence Prosecution Unit for the Northwestern District Attorney’s office in Massachusetts and a partner at firms in western Massachusetts. I only wish she was around at the very beginning of Region 10’s Famous Douche Bag Case http:// tinyurl.com/4bsdq64, which was argued valiantly by attorneys Jon Schoenhorn and Marty Margulies months and years after school administrators suppressed public records, stole an election and banned free speech t-shirts.

Staub has noted that the broad issue of school bosses trying to control off-campus speech awaits another case for constitutional issues to be fully addressed.

O.J. defense tactics redux?

The best defense in a criminal case can be a good offense.

Ever since O.J. Simpson’s dream team of defense lawyers and investigators went after cops, the tactic gained traction and sometimes results. Others preceded Simpson with the strategy, targeting prosecution teams and even judicial officials in their probes.

It can take years for many of the details to emerge.

Woody Allen – while under investigation in Connecticut for alleged sexual assault of a minor in the early 1990s – deployed high-level teams of private investigators to dig up dirt on state police and the Litchfield County state’s attorney.

A top-ranking state police official told the state’s attorney “that the Allen people were hiring private detectives to try to get some dirt on us.” Allen’s private detectives were compartmentalized, hired by different lawyers and subcontractors working for him. The private detectives included former FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents, even former state cops.

A retired federal agent who has worked both sides of the street recently shared this view: “One year you’re talking to someone and they’re on one side and then five years later they’re on the other side.”

One of the key targets for the defense in the Allen case was investigated for drinking, gambling and marital problems. After a time, that subject was found to have issues with handling of evidence. As one of his colleagues told me: “The pieces of the puzzle didn’t always fit, but it wasn’t enough to get him into trouble ... He did a lot of favors in Waterbury …”

Cool Justice has been looking into an ongoing criminal case in which retired state police detectives have been helping the defense effort, formally and informally, directly and indirectly. Hint: The detectives worked narcotics. Their institutional memories, case work and experience are of great value to anyone investigating witnesses and others. Stay tuned.

Lanza secrecy blowback

Search warrants, affidavits, the inventory of evidence and other records about the Newtown mass killing of children were sealed by court order last month without explanation. This is despite the death of the killer, which eliminates the fair trial argument. No arrests are expected.

Normally, the records would have been released by now. What, then – other than authorities keeping the documents secret because they can get away with it – might be the purpose of keeping the records sealed?

In criminal cases, it is fair to say there are few, if any coincidences.

Adam Lanza, the killer, was believed to be a regular visitor of the Danbury Fair Mall. Did he go there to shop, meet someone, window shop or look for targets? Did Lanza buy his violent video games at the mall? After the killings, Dick’s Sporting Goods at the mall removed all its guns. Dick’s also removed some semi-automatic rifles from other stores. Maybe that was all corporate sensitivity and had nothing to do materially with Newtown.

Speculation about these questions and others will continue until authorities release the records and do their duty to inform the public. The longer they sit on the records, the more faith and trust in the judiciary will diminish. Andy Thibault is a contributing editor for Journal Register Co.’s Connecticut publications and the author of Law & Justice In Everyday Life. He formerly served as a commissioner for Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Commission. Reach Thibault by email at tntcomm82@cs.com. Follow him on Twitter @cooljustice.