Author: David S. Rudolf
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780008525095
Category : LAW
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
From the fearless defense attorney and civil rights lawyer who rose to fame with Netflix's The Staircase comes an essential examination of America's corrupt and abusive criminal justice system.
American Injustice
Author: David S. Rudolf
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780008525095
Category : LAW
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
From the fearless defense attorney and civil rights lawyer who rose to fame with Netflix's The Staircase comes an essential examination of America's corrupt and abusive criminal justice system.
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780008525095
Category : LAW
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
From the fearless defense attorney and civil rights lawyer who rose to fame with Netflix's The Staircase comes an essential examination of America's corrupt and abusive criminal justice system.
Law, Gender, and Injustice
Author: Joan Hoff
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814735096
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 580
Book Description
The legal status of women has changed more rapidly in the last 20 years than in the previous 200, Hoff argues, but these changes have become less important over time. The American power structure has relinquished rights to women and minorities only after these rights have been diminished by a white-male-dominated legal system. She calls for a reinterpretation of legal texts to create a feminist jurisprudence. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814735096
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 580
Book Description
The legal status of women has changed more rapidly in the last 20 years than in the previous 200, Hoff argues, but these changes have become less important over time. The American power structure has relinquished rights to women and minorities only after these rights have been diminished by a white-male-dominated legal system. She calls for a reinterpretation of legal texts to create a feminist jurisprudence. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Injustice for All
Author: Chris Surprenant
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000750523
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
American criminal justice is a dysfunctional mess. Cops are too violent, the punishments are too punitive, and the so-called Land of the Free imprisons more people than any other country in the world. Understanding why means focusing on color—not only on black or white (which already has been studied extensively), but also on green. The problem is that nearly everyone involved in criminal justice—including district attorneys, elected judges, the police, voters, and politicians—faces bad incentives. Local towns often would rather send people to prison on someone else’s dime than pay for more effective policing themselves. Local police forces can enrich themselves by turning into warrior cops who steal from innocent civilians. Voters have very little incentive to understand the basic facts about crime or how to fix it—and vote accordingly. And politicians have every incentive to cater to voters’ worst biases. Injustice for All systematically diagnoses why and where American criminal justice goes wrong, and offers functional proposals for reform. By changing who pays for what, how people are appointed, how people are punished, and which things are criminalized, we can make the US a country which guarantees justice for all. Key Features: Shows how bad incentives, not "bad apples," cause the dysfunction in American criminal justice Focuses not only on overincarceration, but on overcriminalization and other failures of the criminal justice system Provides a philosophical and practical defense of reducing the scope of what’s considered criminal activity Crosses ideological lines, highlighting both the weaknesses and strengths of liberal, conservative, and libertarian agendas Fully integrates tools from philosophy and social science, making this stand out from the many philosophy books on punishment, on the one hand, and the solely empirical studies from sociology and criminal science, on the other Avoids disciplinary jargon, broadening the book’s suitability for students and researchers in many different fields and for an interested general readership Offers plausible reforms that realign specific incentives with the public good.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000750523
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
American criminal justice is a dysfunctional mess. Cops are too violent, the punishments are too punitive, and the so-called Land of the Free imprisons more people than any other country in the world. Understanding why means focusing on color—not only on black or white (which already has been studied extensively), but also on green. The problem is that nearly everyone involved in criminal justice—including district attorneys, elected judges, the police, voters, and politicians—faces bad incentives. Local towns often would rather send people to prison on someone else’s dime than pay for more effective policing themselves. Local police forces can enrich themselves by turning into warrior cops who steal from innocent civilians. Voters have very little incentive to understand the basic facts about crime or how to fix it—and vote accordingly. And politicians have every incentive to cater to voters’ worst biases. Injustice for All systematically diagnoses why and where American criminal justice goes wrong, and offers functional proposals for reform. By changing who pays for what, how people are appointed, how people are punished, and which things are criminalized, we can make the US a country which guarantees justice for all. Key Features: Shows how bad incentives, not "bad apples," cause the dysfunction in American criminal justice Focuses not only on overincarceration, but on overcriminalization and other failures of the criminal justice system Provides a philosophical and practical defense of reducing the scope of what’s considered criminal activity Crosses ideological lines, highlighting both the weaknesses and strengths of liberal, conservative, and libertarian agendas Fully integrates tools from philosophy and social science, making this stand out from the many philosophy books on punishment, on the one hand, and the solely empirical studies from sociology and criminal science, on the other Avoids disciplinary jargon, broadening the book’s suitability for students and researchers in many different fields and for an interested general readership Offers plausible reforms that realign specific incentives with the public good.
Ordinary Injustice
Author: Amy Bach
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805074475
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
From an award-winning lawyer-reporter, a radically new explanation for America’s failing justice system The stories of grave injustice are all too familiar: the lawyer who sleeps through a trial, the false confessions, the convictions of the innocent. Less visible is the chronic injustice meted out daily by a profoundly defective system. In a sweeping investigation that moves from small-town Georgia to upstate New York, from Chicago to Mississippi, Amy Bach reveals a judicial process so deeply compromised that it constitutes a menace to the people it is designed to serve. Here is the public defender who pleads most of his clients guilty; the judge who sets outrageous bail for negligible crimes; the prosecutor who brings almost no cases to trial; the court that works together to achieve a wrong verdict. Going beyond the usual explanations of bad apples and meager funding, Bach identifies an assembly-line approach that rewards shoddiness and sacrifices defendants to keep the court calendar moving, and she exposes the collusion between judge, prosecutor, and defense that puts the interests of the system above the obligation to the people. It is time, Bach argues, to institute a new method of checks and balances that will make injustice visible—the first and necessary step to any reform. Full of gripping human stories, sharp analyses, and a crusader’s sense of urgency, Ordinary Injustice is a major reassessment of the health of the nation’s courtrooms.
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805074475
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
From an award-winning lawyer-reporter, a radically new explanation for America’s failing justice system The stories of grave injustice are all too familiar: the lawyer who sleeps through a trial, the false confessions, the convictions of the innocent. Less visible is the chronic injustice meted out daily by a profoundly defective system. In a sweeping investigation that moves from small-town Georgia to upstate New York, from Chicago to Mississippi, Amy Bach reveals a judicial process so deeply compromised that it constitutes a menace to the people it is designed to serve. Here is the public defender who pleads most of his clients guilty; the judge who sets outrageous bail for negligible crimes; the prosecutor who brings almost no cases to trial; the court that works together to achieve a wrong verdict. Going beyond the usual explanations of bad apples and meager funding, Bach identifies an assembly-line approach that rewards shoddiness and sacrifices defendants to keep the court calendar moving, and she exposes the collusion between judge, prosecutor, and defense that puts the interests of the system above the obligation to the people. It is time, Bach argues, to institute a new method of checks and balances that will make injustice visible—the first and necessary step to any reform. Full of gripping human stories, sharp analyses, and a crusader’s sense of urgency, Ordinary Injustice is a major reassessment of the health of the nation’s courtrooms.
Unfair
Author: Adam Benforado
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0770437788
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Unfair succinctly and persuasively recounts cutting-edge research testifying to the faulty and inaccurate procedures that underpin virtually all aspects of our criminal justice system, illustrating many with case studies.”—The Boston Globe A child is gunned down by a police officer; an investigator ignores critical clues in a case; an innocent man confesses to a crime he did not commit; a jury acquits a killer. The evidence is all around us: Our system of justice is fundamentally broken. But it’s not for the reasons we tend to think, as law professor Adam Benforado argues in this eye-opening, galvanizing book. Even if the system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would still end up with wrongful convictions, trampled rights, and unequal treatment. This is because the roots of injustice lie not inside the dark hearts of racist police officers or dishonest prosecutors, but within the minds of each and every one of us. This is difficult to accept. Our nation is founded on the idea that the law is impartial, that legal cases are won or lost on the basis of evidence, careful reasoning and nuanced argument. But they may, in fact, turn on the camera angle of a defendant’s taped confession, the number of photos in a mug shot book, or a simple word choice during a cross-examination. In Unfair, Benforado shines a light on this troubling new field of research, showing, for example, that people with certain facial features receive longer sentences and that judges are far more likely to grant parole first thing in the morning. Over the last two decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have uncovered many cognitive forces that operate beyond our conscious awareness. Until we address these hidden biases head-on, Benforado argues, the social inequality we see now will only widen, as powerful players and institutions find ways to exploit the weaknesses of our legal system. Weaving together historical examples, scientific studies, and compelling court cases—from the border collie put on trial in Kentucky to the five teenagers who falsely confessed in the Central Park Jogger case—Benforado shows how our judicial processes fail to uphold our values and protect society’s weakest members. With clarity and passion, he lays out the scope of the legal system’s dysfunction and proposes a wealth of practical reforms that could prevent injustice and help us achieve true fairness and equality before the law.
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0770437788
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Unfair succinctly and persuasively recounts cutting-edge research testifying to the faulty and inaccurate procedures that underpin virtually all aspects of our criminal justice system, illustrating many with case studies.”—The Boston Globe A child is gunned down by a police officer; an investigator ignores critical clues in a case; an innocent man confesses to a crime he did not commit; a jury acquits a killer. The evidence is all around us: Our system of justice is fundamentally broken. But it’s not for the reasons we tend to think, as law professor Adam Benforado argues in this eye-opening, galvanizing book. Even if the system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would still end up with wrongful convictions, trampled rights, and unequal treatment. This is because the roots of injustice lie not inside the dark hearts of racist police officers or dishonest prosecutors, but within the minds of each and every one of us. This is difficult to accept. Our nation is founded on the idea that the law is impartial, that legal cases are won or lost on the basis of evidence, careful reasoning and nuanced argument. But they may, in fact, turn on the camera angle of a defendant’s taped confession, the number of photos in a mug shot book, or a simple word choice during a cross-examination. In Unfair, Benforado shines a light on this troubling new field of research, showing, for example, that people with certain facial features receive longer sentences and that judges are far more likely to grant parole first thing in the morning. Over the last two decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have uncovered many cognitive forces that operate beyond our conscious awareness. Until we address these hidden biases head-on, Benforado argues, the social inequality we see now will only widen, as powerful players and institutions find ways to exploit the weaknesses of our legal system. Weaving together historical examples, scientific studies, and compelling court cases—from the border collie put on trial in Kentucky to the five teenagers who falsely confessed in the Central Park Jogger case—Benforado shows how our judicial processes fail to uphold our values and protect society’s weakest members. With clarity and passion, he lays out the scope of the legal system’s dysfunction and proposes a wealth of practical reforms that could prevent injustice and help us achieve true fairness and equality before the law.
Criminal Injustice
Author: Glenn McNair
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813929830
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
Criminal Injustice: Slaves and Free Blacks in Georgia’s Criminal Justice System is the most comprehensive study of the criminal justice system of a slave state to date. McNair traces the evolution of Georgia’s legal culture by examining its use of slave codes and slave patrols, as well as presenting data on crimes prosecuted, trial procedures and practices, conviction rates, the appellate process, and punishment. Based on more than four hundred capital cases, McNair’s study deploys both narrative and quantitative analysis to get at both the theory and the reality of the criminal procedure for slaves in the century leading up to the Civil War. He shows how whites moved from the utopian innocence of the colony’s original Trustees, who envisioned a society free of slavery and the depravity it inculcated in masters, to one where slaveholders became the enforcers of laws and informal rules, the severity of which was limited only by the increasing economic value of their slaves as property. The slaves themselves, regarded under the law both as moveable property and--for the purposes of punishment--as moral agents, had, inevitably, a radically different view of Georgia’s slave criminal justice system. Although the rules and procedures were largely the same for both races, the state charged and convicted blacks more frequently and punished them more severely than whites for the same crimes. Courts were also more punitive in their judgment and punishment of black defendants when their victims were white, a pattern of disparate treatment based on race that persists to this day. Informal systems of control in urban households and on rural plantations and farms complemented the formal system and enhanced the power of slaveowners. Criminal Injustice shows how the prerogatives of slavery and white racial domination trumped any hope for legal justice for blacks.
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813929830
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
Criminal Injustice: Slaves and Free Blacks in Georgia’s Criminal Justice System is the most comprehensive study of the criminal justice system of a slave state to date. McNair traces the evolution of Georgia’s legal culture by examining its use of slave codes and slave patrols, as well as presenting data on crimes prosecuted, trial procedures and practices, conviction rates, the appellate process, and punishment. Based on more than four hundred capital cases, McNair’s study deploys both narrative and quantitative analysis to get at both the theory and the reality of the criminal procedure for slaves in the century leading up to the Civil War. He shows how whites moved from the utopian innocence of the colony’s original Trustees, who envisioned a society free of slavery and the depravity it inculcated in masters, to one where slaveholders became the enforcers of laws and informal rules, the severity of which was limited only by the increasing economic value of their slaves as property. The slaves themselves, regarded under the law both as moveable property and--for the purposes of punishment--as moral agents, had, inevitably, a radically different view of Georgia’s slave criminal justice system. Although the rules and procedures were largely the same for both races, the state charged and convicted blacks more frequently and punished them more severely than whites for the same crimes. Courts were also more punitive in their judgment and punishment of black defendants when their victims were white, a pattern of disparate treatment based on race that persists to this day. Informal systems of control in urban households and on rural plantations and farms complemented the formal system and enhanced the power of slaveowners. Criminal Injustice shows how the prerogatives of slavery and white racial domination trumped any hope for legal justice for blacks.
Anatomy of Injustice
Author: Raymond Bonner
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307948544
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
From Pulitzer Prize winner Raymond Bonner, the gripping story of a grievously mishandled murder case that put a twenty-three-year-old man on death row. In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case. With the exemplary moral commitment and tenacious investigation that have distinguished his reporting career, Bonner follows Holt's battle to save Elmore's life and shows us how his case is a textbook example of what can go wrong in the American justice system. Moving, enraging, suspenseful, and enlightening, Anatomy of Injustice is a vital contribution to our nation's ongoing, increasingly important debate about inequality and the death penalty.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307948544
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
From Pulitzer Prize winner Raymond Bonner, the gripping story of a grievously mishandled murder case that put a twenty-three-year-old man on death row. In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case. With the exemplary moral commitment and tenacious investigation that have distinguished his reporting career, Bonner follows Holt's battle to save Elmore's life and shows us how his case is a textbook example of what can go wrong in the American justice system. Moving, enraging, suspenseful, and enlightening, Anatomy of Injustice is a vital contribution to our nation's ongoing, increasingly important debate about inequality and the death penalty.
Usual Cruelty
Author: Alec Karakatsanis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781620979143
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
A "searing, searching, and eloquent" (Martha Minow, Harvard Law School) investigation into the role of the legal profession in perpetuating mass incarceration--now in an accessible paperback format from the award-winning civil rights lawyer Alec Karakatsanis doesn't think people who have gone to law school, passed the bar, and sworn to uphold the Constitution should be complicit in the mass caging of human beings--an everyday brutality inflicted disproportionately on the bodies and minds of poor people and people of color, for which the legal system has never offered sufficient justification. Usual Cruelty offers a radical reconsideration of the American "injustice system" by someone who is actively--and wildly successfully--challenging it. Hailed by luminaries from James Forman Jr. and Vanita Gupta to U.S. Circuit Judge Bernice Donald, and MacArthur Award-winning poet and attorney Reginald Dwayne Betts, Usual Cruelty offers a condemnation of the whole deplorable enterprise, starting with profound questions about the specific things our system chooses to criminalize (marijuana plants, low-level gambling, petty theft) versus those we don't (tobacco plants, high-level gambling by bankers, massive wage theft by employers). It calls out a bail system that charges people money to go free despite the lack of any evidence this will make them more likely to show up in court or make anybody safer. And it explores the everyday brutality of our courts, prisons, and jails, and the ways in which the legal profession has allowed itself to become desensitized to the everyday pain these institutions inflict on our most vulnerable populations. Now in an accessible paperback format, Usual Cruelty will cement Karakatsanis's reputation as one of the most inspiring civil rights lawyers of our time.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781620979143
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
A "searing, searching, and eloquent" (Martha Minow, Harvard Law School) investigation into the role of the legal profession in perpetuating mass incarceration--now in an accessible paperback format from the award-winning civil rights lawyer Alec Karakatsanis doesn't think people who have gone to law school, passed the bar, and sworn to uphold the Constitution should be complicit in the mass caging of human beings--an everyday brutality inflicted disproportionately on the bodies and minds of poor people and people of color, for which the legal system has never offered sufficient justification. Usual Cruelty offers a radical reconsideration of the American "injustice system" by someone who is actively--and wildly successfully--challenging it. Hailed by luminaries from James Forman Jr. and Vanita Gupta to U.S. Circuit Judge Bernice Donald, and MacArthur Award-winning poet and attorney Reginald Dwayne Betts, Usual Cruelty offers a condemnation of the whole deplorable enterprise, starting with profound questions about the specific things our system chooses to criminalize (marijuana plants, low-level gambling, petty theft) versus those we don't (tobacco plants, high-level gambling by bankers, massive wage theft by employers). It calls out a bail system that charges people money to go free despite the lack of any evidence this will make them more likely to show up in court or make anybody safer. And it explores the everyday brutality of our courts, prisons, and jails, and the ways in which the legal profession has allowed itself to become desensitized to the everyday pain these institutions inflict on our most vulnerable populations. Now in an accessible paperback format, Usual Cruelty will cement Karakatsanis's reputation as one of the most inspiring civil rights lawyers of our time.
Supreme Injustice
Author: Paul Finkelman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674051211
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
In ruling after ruling, the three most important pre–Civil War justices—Marshall, Taney, and Story—upheld slavery. Paul Finkelman establishes an authoritative account of each justice’s proslavery position, the reasoning behind his opposition to black freedom, and the personal incentives that embedded racism ever deeper in American civic life.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674051211
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
In ruling after ruling, the three most important pre–Civil War justices—Marshall, Taney, and Story—upheld slavery. Paul Finkelman establishes an authoritative account of each justice’s proslavery position, the reasoning behind his opposition to black freedom, and the personal incentives that embedded racism ever deeper in American civic life.
Deadly Injustice
Author: Devon Johnson
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479873454
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
"Uses the Trayvon Martin case as a springboard to examine race, crime, and justice in our criminal justice system. Contributors explores how race and racism inform how Americans think about criminality; how crimes are investigated and prosecuted; and how highly publicized criminal cases go on to shape public views about offenders and the criminal process"--
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479873454
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
"Uses the Trayvon Martin case as a springboard to examine race, crime, and justice in our criminal justice system. Contributors explores how race and racism inform how Americans think about criminality; how crimes are investigated and prosecuted; and how highly publicized criminal cases go on to shape public views about offenders and the criminal process"--