I sometimes have trouble explaining to clients that there really is no such thing as the State of Connecticut. The concept is an abstract noun, a legal fiction. The state is something akin to a necessary place holder in a vast equation. Like God, it is ever present and always absent.
But it feels different when you are standing in the well of a courtroom and a judge intones state versus you. All at once, this fiction acquires power. Clients then begin to wonder: If the state is prosecuting, does that mean the prosecution is working hand in glove with the Department of Children and Families, the tax man, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the entire administrative apparatus of all things bearing the state’s seal? After all, if the state exists, doesn’t it form intentions, have plans and otherwise coordinate its activities?
