I am an unlikely blogger. I am a United States District Court judge for the District of Massachusetts. I have been a judge since 1994, and have taught Sentencing at the Yale Law School for the past nine years. (Emily Bazelon, in fact, was in my class!) I have taught discrimination law, and evidence law at Harvard, BU and a number of other school. I have travelled internationally training judges and advocates in human rights law. And I am an intermittent op-ed writer about issues involving punishment, prosecution policy, gender discrimination, etc. Although judges are more limited than other public actors in what they can say about a host of things, like cases pending before me or even cases pending before other judges, we are permitted to speak about the administration of justice and other general legal matters. To me, the issue goes beyond what we are “permitted” to comment about and what we are not “permitted” to comment about. I think judges have a responsibility to participate in the public debate and that’s what I hope to do here – all consistent with, indeed enhancing, my “day” job.
