Justice System

Since her first day on the Miami Herald, rookie reporter Deborah Jones has been agitating for a shot at one particular story. William Craig is on death row, convicted of killing Senator Jack O'Neill's only son. There is no question of his guilt. Craig murdered the young man who was acquitted of raping his granddaughter. There are only five weeks and one day until his execution. And Craig has not given a single interview. She wants to know what prompted Craig to exact revenge.

"Copaganda" is a special kind of propaganda employed by police, prosecutors, and news media. It stokes fear of police-recorded crime and distorts society’s responses to it. As the United States incarcerates five times more people per capita than it did in 1970—despite record low crime rates—a sprawling and profitable punishment bureaucracy spends a lot of time and money to manipulate what we think that bureaucracy does and why.

On a summer night in 1984, 19-year-old UC Berkeley sophomore Karen Thomas leaves her uniformed patrol job at the University of California Police Department and walks home alone in darkness. At the threshold of her apartment a man assaults her at knife point. After a soul chilling struggle she manages to escape and call 911. Police catch her assailant, she identifies him, and he is arrested. Fast forward 2014, 30 years after her assault. Why does the body remember what the mind tries so desperately to forget?

In the past thirty years alone, more than 2,800 innocent American prisoners—their combined sentences surpassing 25,000 years—have been exonerated and freed after being condemned for crimes they did not commit. Terrifyingly, this number represents only a fraction of the actual number of persons wrongfully accused and convicted over the same period.

Dr. Michael Baden has been involved in some of the most high-profile civil rights and police brutality cases in United States history, from the government's 1976 re-investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the 2014 death of Michael Brown, whose case sparked the initial Ferguson protests that grew into the Black Lives Matter movement. The playbook hasn't changed since 1979, when Dr. Baden was demoted from his job as New York City's Chief Medical Examiner after ruling that the death of a Black man in police custody was a homicide.

Seventeen years old and facing nearly 30 years behind bars, Jarrett Adams sought to figure out the why behind his fate. Sustained by his mother and aunts who brought him back from the edge of despair through letters of prayer and encouragement, Adams became obsessed with our legal system in all its damaged glory. After studying how his constitutional rights to effective counsel had been violated, he solicited the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, an organization that exonerates the wrongfully convicted, and won his release after nearly 10 years in prison.

The courthouse is an important part of every story of mass incarceration in America and, too often, it is a place of powerlessness for those facing criminal charges, their families, and their communities. But the courthouse can also be an important site of resistance, a place where Americans affected by incarceration can become agents of change—even though they are not lawyers or judges.

Alan Dershowitz, one of the foremost legal thinkers of our time, explores a series of questions raised by the most-watched criminal trial in American history. Through this brilliant, eye-opening account of the O.J. Simpson case, he exposes the realities of the criminal justice system of this country.

Here, Professor Dershowitz examines the issues and social forces -- media, money, gender, and race -- that shape the criminal justice system in America today.

This book is the culmination of a lifetime of love and lessons that have shaped my personal journey from a young man in crisis to a champion for children. There were critical moments in my story where self-appointed “Hope Dealers” like my mother, Alice Lovelace, and my educator, Dr. Lorraine Wilson, intervened in my projected course to failure. The lessons I learned from them became the foundation of my own work with and for young people facing challenges that they often did not believe they can face alone: hopelessness, shame, disability, tragic home life, generally summed up as the ...

Prepare to question every notion you hold about truth, innocence, and the power of accusation in this riveting collection of true crime stories. Within these pages, you will discover 33 astonishing accounts of individuals who found themselves ensnared in webs of deceit—people framed for crimes they never committed. Each chapter unveils a gripping narrative of injustice, unraveling shady evidence, sensational media coverage, and twisted law enforcement tactics that nearly sealed innocent lives behind bars forever. • Experience the shock and outrage as misidentified suspects are ripped ...

Criminal Trial Lawyer… Memoirs of Managing Chaos and embracing it. The book, sometimes humorously, describes my memoirs and adventures as a successful criminal trial lawyer both as Prosecutor and Defense Counsel. It begins as a child and explains the influences which made me a criminal trial lawyer driven by my desire to serve The Lady of Justice, Justicia. I fell in love with her and lived a Samurai of Justice love story. Beginning with a Trial Lawyers philosophy, I describe the entire chaotic thinking and acting process from meeting the client and trial preparation, through actual ...

The American legal system changed dramatically when the OJ Simpson trial became a television-ratings bonanza. Now it's all crime, all the time, from tabloid news to police procedurals. Americans now know more about the criminal justice system than ever before. Or do they?

Unlock the complexities of the justice system with Theories of Punishment, an insightful and comprehensive eBook that navigates the myriad philosophies and practicalities behind punitive measures. Delve deep into the historical development and fundamental principles shaping how societies understand and administer justice. Begin your journey with an illuminating introduction that sets the stage, offering clarity on the essential role punishment plays in maintaining social order. Discover the philosophical and moral foundations of retribution, exploring its legal frameworks and its place in ...

When tough-on-crime laws passed 30 years ago during an era of drug-fueled violence, they were supported across the political spectrum. The subsequent "war on drugs" sent non-violent offenders to prison for decades and, in some cases, life. As a result, the nation's prison and jail population today is 2.3 million, more than quadruple the number that were incarcerated in 1980. One in 100 adults is behind bars in America.

Every day, innocent men across America are thrown into prison, betrayed by a faulty justice system, and robbed of their lives - either by decades-long sentences or the death penalty itself. Injustice tarnishes our legal process from start to finish. From the racial discrimination and violence used by backwards law enforcement officers, to a prison culture that breeds inmate conflict, there is opportunity for error at every turn.

When your work is inextricable from your identity, your community, and your own liberation, you need a unique praxis of care to sustain it—and for mission-driven activists, organizers, and changemakers working under oppressive systems, making space to center vital needs like rest, self-care, and healthy boundaries isn’t as simple as clocking out. Practicing Liberation reorients collective justice work toward a model that transforms the effects of injustice, harm, and oppressive systems into resilience, joy, and community care.

What would happen if the systems within our society focused on care and healing instead of growth and profit? In A Case for Compassion: What Happens When We Prioritize People and the Planet, Sara Schairer—a leader in the compassion field—examines five of our most influential systems: education, health care, corrections, law enforcement, and the workplace. Using personal narratives, research, thought-leader interviews, and examples of compassionate institutions, Schairer shows us that compassion can solve many of our society’s most pressing problems. You’ll read inspiring stories ...

In Justice on the Brink, legendary journalist Linda Greenhouse gives us unique insight into a court under stress, providing the context and brilliant analysis readers of her work in The New York Times have come to expect. In a thrilling narrative, she recounts the twelve months when the court turned its back on its legacy and traditions, abandoning any effort to stay above and separate from politics.

Victor Rios grew up in the ghetto of Oakland, California, in the 1980s and '90s. A former gang member and juvenile delinquent, Rios managed to escape the bleak outcome of many of his friends and earned a PhD at Berkeley and returned to his hometown to study how inner-city young Latino and African American boys develop their sense of self in the midst of crime and intense policing. Punished examines the difficult lives of these young men.

How can we be proud of a system of justice that often pressures the innocent to plead guilty? How can we claim that justice is equal when we imprison thousands of poor Black men for relatively modest crimes but rarely prosecute rich white executives who commit crimes having far greater impact? Federal Judge Jed S. Rakoff, a leading authority on white-collar crime, explores these and other puzzles in Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free, a startling account of our broken legal system.