Criminal sentencings are a decidedly dismal affair, but rarely do they frighten me. The sentencing of Edward “Ted” Taupier in Middletown the other day did scare me. I had the sense that the center really did not hold any longer, and that warring worlds had converged without hope of doing anything other than colliding.

I attended the sentencing because I have been retained to take an appeal in Taupier’s case. After a court trial, he was convicted of threatening and related offenses.