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Courtroom 302

A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse

Author: Steve Bogira

Publisher: Vintage

ISBN: 030781419X

Category: Social Science

Page: 416

Steve Bogira’s riveting book takes us into the heart of America’s criminal justice system. Courtroom 302 is the story of one year in one courtroom in Chicago’s Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the busiest felony courthouse in the country. We see the system through the eyes of the men and women who experience it, not only in the courtroom but in the lockup, the jury room, the judge’s chambers, the spectators’ gallery. When the judge and his staff go to the scene of the crime during a burglary trial, we go with them on the sheriff’s bus. We witness from behind the scenes the highest-profile case of the year: three young white men, one of them the son of a reputed mobster, charged with the racially motivated beating of a thirteen-year-old black boy. And we follow the cases that are the daily grind of the court, like that of the middle-aged man whose crack addiction brings him repeatedly back before the judge. Bogira shows us how the war on drugs is choking the system, and how in most instances justice is dispensed–as, under the circumstances, it must be–rapidly and mindlessly. The stories that unfold in the courtroom are often tragic, but they no longer seem so to the people who work there. Says a deputy in 302: “You hear this stuff every day, and you’re like, ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s get this over with and move on to the next thing.’” Steve Bogira is, as Robert Caro says, “a masterful reporter.” His special gift is his understanding of people–and his ability to make us see and understand them. Fast-paced, gripping, and bursting with character and incident, Courtroom 302 is a unique illumination of our criminal court system that raises fundamental issues of race, civil rights, and justice. From the Hardcover edition.

Defending the Damned

Inside a Dark Corner of the Criminal Justice System

Author: Kevin Davis

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

ISBN: 0743270940

Category: Law

Page: 320

A member of Chicago's elite Murder Task Force unit describes the lives of its public defenders, many of whom juggle dozens of clients and death-row cases simultaneously, in a sobering account that focuses on the dramatic trial of an accused cop killer. Reprint.

How Can You Defend Those People?

Author: Mickey Sherman

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

ISBN: 9781599215785

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 240

In the tradition of true crime bestsellers by Alan Dershowitz and Dominick Dunne, Mickey Sherman delivers a powerful and extraordinarily candid account of his legal career that gives the readers an all-access backstage pass to not only the sausage factory that is the criminal justice system but the “big cases” we have all lived with on TV. Sherman started his career as a public defender, then as a prosecutor, and later became a criminal defense attorney for clients such as Michael Skakel (convicted 27 years after the fact for the murder of Martha Moxley) and Alex Kelly (who, on the eve of his double-rape trial in Darien, fled to Europe for nine years). Sherman's work has been groundbreaking and sometimes controversial: the raw Court TV coverage of his successful PTSD defense of a Vietnam veteran charged with murdering an unarmed man over a parking space argument was nominated for a Cable Ace Award. When, after a mistrial due to a hung jury in a rape trial, Sherman hired one of the jurors to be his consultant in the retrial of the client, the New York Times declared he had “undercut the entire jury system.” A law was soon passed in Connecticut making Sherman's move a misdemeanor. This is both an entertaining account of how a successful attorney deals with impossible cases and clients and boldly challenges accepted laws and conventional tactics, as well as a voyeuristic glimpse into the real lives and travails of clients who represent a fascinating cross section of life.

Inside the Criminal Courts

Author: David Richard Lynch

Publisher: N.A

ISBN: 9781594607448

Category: Law

Page: 347

Inside the Criminal Courts is an innovative textbook that combines elements of nonfiction with fictional stories based in large part on author David Lynch's experiences as a full-time prosecutor and full-time public defender. Lynch, who holds both a law degree and a PhD in criminal justice, has published numerous articles on the criminal courts in such leading journals as Law & Social Inquiry, Criminal Justice and Behavior, and the Journal of Criminal Justice. He currently teaches in the criminal justice program at Weber State University where he recently won a prestigious teaching award. Inside the Criminal Courts covers all of the usual topics generally associated with a course on the criminal courts, but does so by integrating the essentials into compelling and realistic stories that are enjoyable to read. Students learn important concepts and terms which are embedded in instructive case studies featuring prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, witnesses, defendants, and others. Far from being merely a book on the law, this text takes the reader behind the scenes on a journey into the real world dynamics of criminal courthouse justice. An instructor¿s manual (including a test bank) is available. Topics explored in this book are presented in fifteen chapters as follows: (1) The Education of Lawyers and Judges; (2) A Day in Juvenile Court; (3) Justice Delayed; (4) The Criminal Defense Attorney; (5) The Prosecuting Attorney; (6) The Judge; (7) The Witness; (8) The Steps of Due Process; (9) The Plea Bargain; (10) The Trial, Part I; (11) The Trial, Part II; (12) The Jury Deliberates; (13) Sentencing; (14) The Appeal; (15) Problem-Solving Courts. In this second edition, the author (who has both a law degree and a Ph.D. in criminal justice) has added, among other things, helpful "Questions for Class Discussion" to each chapter and a brand new, provocative final chapter that ties the entire book together.

America's Courts and the Criminal Justice System

Author: David W. Neubauer,Henry F. Fradella

Publisher: Cengage Learning

ISBN: 1337670146

Category: Education

Page: 648

The premier choice for Courts courses for decades, this popular text offers a comprehensive explanation of the courts and the criminal justice system, presented in a streamlined, straightforward manner that appeals to instructors and students alike. Neubauer and Fradella's crisp and clear writing, characterized by the organization of material into brief sections within chapters, ensures that readers gain a firm handle on the material. At the same time, the text's innovative courtroom workhouse model -- which focuses on the interrelationships among the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney -- brings the courtroom to life. AMERICA'S COURTS AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM has long been known for the way it gives students an accurate glimpse of what it is like to work within the American criminal justice system, and the thirteenth edition is no exception. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

American Courts and the Judicial Process

Author: G. Larry Mays,Laura Woods Fidelie

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

ISBN: 9780190278892

Category:

Page: 464

Featuring the insights of criminal justice scholars G. Larry Mays and Laura Woods Fidelie, American Courts and the Judicial Process, Second Edition, is ideal for undergraduate courts courses. It examines the many elements of the U.S. court system--its structures, functions, and key actors--addressing the major problems facing the system and considering potential solutions. This unique text also provides students with a practical perspective, discussing the contrast between the law and the rules as they are written and the ways in which they actually play out in the real world. The book is enhanced by "In the News" boxes that discuss contemporary events and "World View" boxes covering international courts and legal systems.

The Police and the Public

Author: Albert J. Reiss

Publisher: Yale University Press

ISBN: 9780300016468

Category: Political Science

Page: 304

This study of police-citizen interaction in the United States is directed toward an understanding and existence of a more civil society. Research is derived from the observations of thirty-six persons who rode with the police in select cities for eight hour tours of duty. Data is included on arrest, police routine, conduct, and discretion. Situations are investigated in which policemen break laws and how such actions relate to the subculture of an individual neighborhood or beat. The author presents his view that the morality of the public and the morality of the police are intimately related, and that one cannot be expected to improve unless the other does.

Felony Justice

An Organizational Analysis of Criminal Courts

Author: James Eisenstein,Herbert Jacob

Publisher: Lanham, MD : University Press of America

ISBN: 9780819180889

Category: Law

Page: 322

In a break with prior research, this book compares the disposition of 4500 felony defendants' cases in Baltimore, Chicago and Detroit in 1972, examining the role of judge, prosecutors and defense attorneys by relying on observation and the interview process. Descriptions of the factors shaping the outcomes of preliminary hearings, courtroom dispositions, and sentences rely on multivariate analysis of case and defendant variables drawn from court and prosecutor files. It uses the organizational approach to analyze and interpret the results, providing a model widely used and cited for broader studies. Originally published in 1977 by Little, Brown and Company.

Indefensible

One Lawyer's Journey Into the Inferno of American Justice

Author: David Feige

Publisher: Little Brown & Company

ISBN: 9780316156233

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 276

With verve and insider know-how, a young lawyer reveals his outrageous and heartbreaking long day's journey into night court.

Ordinary Injustice

How America Holds Court

Author: Amy Bach

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

ISBN: 9781429984270

Category: Political Science

Page: 320

"A groundbreaking book . . . revealing the systemic, everyday problems in our courts that must be addressed if justice is truly to be served."—Doris Kearns Goodwin Attorney and journalist Amy Bach spent eight years investigating the widespread courtroom failures that each day upend lives across America. What she found was an assembly-line approach to justice: a system that rewards mediocre advocacy, bypasses due process, and shortchanges both defendants and victims to keep the court calendar moving. Here is the public defender who pleads most of his clients guilty with scant knowledge about their circumstances; the judge who sets outrageous bail for negligible crimes; the prosecutor who habitually declines to pursue significant cases; the court that works together to achieve a wrongful conviction. Going beyond the usual explanations of bad apples and meager funding, Ordinary Injustice reveals a clubby legal culture of compromise, and shows the tragic consequences that result when communities mistake the rules that lawyers play by for the rule of law. 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 reform.

Mistrial

An Inside Look at How the Criminal Justice System Works...and Sometimes Doesn't

Author: Mark Geragos,Pat Harris

Publisher: Penguin

ISBN: 1101595019

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 304

A searing and entertaining manifesto on the ills of the criminal justice system from two of America’s most prominent defense attorneys. From the rise of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle to the television ratings bonanza of the O.J. Simpson trial, a perfect storm of media coverage has given the public an unprecedented look inside the courtroom, kicking off popular courtroom shows and TV legal commentary that further illuminate how the criminal justice system operates. Or has it? In Mistrial, Mark Geragos and Pat Harris debunk the myths of judges as Solomon-like figures, jurors as impartial arbiters of the truth, and prosecutors as super-ethical heroes. Mistrial draws the curtain on the court’s ugly realities—from stealth jurors who secretly swing for a conviction, to cops who regularly lie on the witness stand, to defense attorneys terrified of going to trial. Ultimately, the authors question whether a justice system model drawn up two centuries ago before blogs and television is still viable today. In the aftermath of recent high-profile cases, the flaws in America’s justice system are more glaring than ever. Geragos and Harris are legal experts and prominent criminal defense attorneys who have worked on everything from celebrity media-circuses—having represented clients like Michael Jackson, Winona Ryder, Scott Peterson, Chris Brown, Susan MacDougal, and Gary Condit—to equally compelling cases defending individuals desperate to avoid the spotlight. Shining unprecedented light on what really goes on in the courtroom, Mistrial is an enjoyable, fun look at a system that rarely lets you see behind the scenes.

How Do Judges Decide?

The Search for Fairness and Justice in Punishment

Author: Cassia Spohn

Publisher: SAGE

ISBN: 1412961041

Category: Law

Page: 357

How are sentences for Federal, State, and Local crimes determined in the United States? Is this process fairly and justly applied to all concerned? How have reforms affected the process over the last 25 years? This text for advanced undergraduate students in criminal justice programs seeks to answer these questions.

Locked In

The True Causes of Mass Incarceration—and How to Achieve Real Reform

Author: John Pfaff

Publisher: Basic Books

ISBN: 0465096921

Category: Social Science

Page: 272

"Pfaff, let there be no doubt, is a reformer...Nonetheless, he believes that the standard story--popularized in particular by Michelle Alexander, in her influential book, The New Jim Crow--is false. We are desperately in need of reform, he insists, but we must reform the right things, and address the true problem."--Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker A groundbreaking examination of our system of imprisonment, revealing the true causes of mass incarceration as well as the best path to reform In the 1970s, the United States had an incarceration rate comparable to those of other liberal democracies-and that rate had held steady for over 100 years. Yet today, though the US is home to only about 5 percent of the world's population, we hold nearly one quarter of its prisoners. Mass incarceration is now widely considered one of the biggest social and political crises of our age. How did we get to this point? Locked In is a revelatory investigation into the root causes of mass incarceration by one of the most exciting scholars in the country. Having spent fifteen years studying the data on imprisonment, John Pfaff takes apart the reigning consensus created by Michelle Alexander and other reformers, revealing that the most widely accepted explanations-the failed War on Drugs, draconian sentencing laws, an increasing reliance on private prisons-tell us much less than we think. Pfaff urges us to look at other factors instead, including a major shift in prosecutor behavior that occurred in the mid-1990s, when prosecutors began bringing felony charges against arrestees about twice as often as they had before. He describes a fractured criminal justice system, in which counties don't pay for the people they send to state prisons, and in which white suburbs set law and order agendas for more-heavily minority cities. And he shows that if we hope to significantly reduce prison populations, we have no choice but to think differently about how to deal with people convicted of violent crimes-and why some people are violent in the first place. An authoritative, clear-eyed account of a national catastrophe, Locked In transforms our understanding of what ails the American system of punishment and ultimately forces us to reconsider how we can build a more equitable and humane society.

Courtroom 302

A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse

Author: N.A

Publisher: N.A

ISBN: 9781448710577

Category:

Page: N.A

In the Interest of Justice

Great Opening & Closing Statements Throu

Author: Joel Seidemann

Publisher: Zondervan

ISBN: 006174512X

Category: Law

Page: 384

This rich and rewarding volume collects more than two dozen of the most memorable opening and closing arguments made by top prosecutors and defense attorneys of the last one hundred years. Carefully selected to explore every major aspect and challenge of the legal process, these speeches highlight the tactics and strategies, colorful language, and stirring rhetoric that lawyers use to win judge and jury to their side. With a shrewd eye for courtroom stratagems and a keen understanding of the social currents that shape them, Manhattan assistant district attorney Joel Seidemann introduces and illuminates each speech from an insider's perspective. Arguments from landmark trials are included to reveal the smartest tricks of the trial lawyer's trade and demonstrate the power of an impassioned presentation to tip the scales toward the fulfillment of justice.

Objection!

How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System

Author: Nancy Grace,Diane Clehane

Publisher: Hachette Books

ISBN: 1401382665

Category: Law

Page: 336

Court TV host Nancy Grace presents her case in this behind-the-scenes look at the high-profile cases everyone is talking about ancy Grace is a name millions of Americans recognize from her regular appearances on Court TV and Larry King Live. Legions of loyal fans tune in for her opinions on today's high-profile cases and her expert commentary on the challenges facing the American judicial system. Now, in Objection!, she makes her case for what's wrong with the legal system and what can be done about it.

The Injustice System

A Murder in Miami and a Trial Gone Wrong

Author: Clive Stafford Smith

Publisher: Penguin

ISBN: 0143124161

Category: Law

Page: 366

Shares the story of the most discouraging case of the author's career, during which he defended an innocent Miami businessman whose murder conviction reflects disturbing and fundamental flaws in today's legal system.

Jacket

The Trials of a New Jersey Criminal Defense Attorney

Author: John W. Hartmann

Publisher: Plexus Pub

ISBN: 9780937548752

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 205

A Trial by Jury

Author: D. Graham Burnett

Publisher: Vintage

ISBN: 0375727515

Category: Law

Page: 208

In an incisive study of the the privileges and pitfalls of citizenship, a historian and author of Masters of All They Surveyed details his harrowing account with the American criminal justice system when he became foreman of a sequestered jury debating the guilt or innocence of an individual accused of a brutal murder. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.

Galileo's Revenge

Junk Science in ihe Courtroom

Author: Peter W. Huber

Publisher: Basic Books

ISBN: 9780465026241

Category: Law

Page: 288

A scathing indictment of the growing role of junk science in our courtrooms. Peter W. Huber shows how time and again lawyers have used—and the courts have accepted—spurious claims by so-called expert witnesses to win astronomical judgments that have bankrupted companies, driven doctors out of practice, and deprived us all of superior technologies and effective, life-saving therapies.