Reviews (2)

A "criminal" case that will make your blood boil
Over a decade has passed since the end of apartheid in South Africa, yet it seems longer ago that such a nightmare actually existed in the modern world. Reading this book, which relates just one example of the many wrongs endured by the majority of inhabitants of that country, is guaranteed get your blood boiling all over again. Brilliant and Moving
Durbach is truly one of the century's greatest women. Amidst the overwhelming power of the repressive apartheid State she joined with her fellow lawyers to resurrect the power of the rule of law. The personal toll of making a difference in that time and under that regime was extraordinary. This book is an inspiration for young and old lawyers alike, as well as anyone who believes that injustice has to be accepted. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Case studies    2. Current Affairs    3. Law    4. Murder    5. Murder - General    6. Personal Memoirs    7. Politics/International Relations    8. Pop Arts / Pop Culture    9. Popular Culture - General    10. Race relations    11. South Africa    12. Trials (Murder)    13. Upington    14. Upington (South Africa)   

Editorial Review

Vincent Bugliosi, the former L.A. County prosecutor who chronicled hissuccessful efforts to put Charles Manson away in Read more

Reviews (20)

One important point. One hundred pages too many.
I've read and appreciated several of Bugliosi's books, and he has a way of boiling large issues down to their basics without sacrificing argumentative rigor. This isn't a book, though. It's an article run amok. Bugliosi makes one very good, very valid point: The Supreme Court should have weighed the interest of Paula Jones to have her case heard right away (rather than wait until Clinton's term of office was over) against the interest of the American people to have a President who wasn't endlessly distracted by depositions and trial dates.
Interesting
Good book, makes you think of how ridiculous things are in the states with regard to litigation. One wonders if this case interrupted Clinton s presidency enough todistract him from perhaps eliminating the master mind of 9/11 -> namely osama bin laden, since he did have a chance to assasinate him at one point.

not a classic;makes its point
Bugliosi begins with an irrelevant social commentary.When he gets to the subject,he makes his point well.The Jones v. Clinton decision of the Supreme Court was a tragic mistake,a travesty of justice that has forever altered the balance of power in the three branches of government,and may do untold harm in the future.Read more

Subjects:  1. 1946-    2. 1966-    3. American    4. Clinton, Bill,    5. Criminology    6. Government - U.S. Government    7. Jones, Paula,    8. Law    9. Law and legislation    10. Legal System    11. Offenses Against Women    12. Politics / Current Events    13. Sexual harassment    14. Social Science    15. Trials, litigation, etc    16. United States    17. Anthropology    18. Biography: sport    19. Clinton, Bill    20. Jones, Paula    21. Political Science / General    22. Sports & Outdoor Recreation    23. USA   

Editorial Review

Edward Lazarus, a former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, spills the beans on an institution that values silence. Nobody is supposed to understand what happens behind the scenes of the high court--that's why the justices rarely speak to the media--but Lazarus tells all he knows from his time as a top aide to Blackmun in the Supreme Court's 1988 term. There's a lot of legal theory and history, but it's well presented and usually focuses on touchstone issues in U.S. politics; cases involving abortion, the death penalty, and racial preferences receive sustained treatment in these pages. There are gossipy bits, too, revealing unflattering details about several current justices. Sure to be one of the more controversial books of the year. Read more

Reviews (51)

Excellentbut challenging
Closed Chambers is highly entertaining and gracefully written, but it is not for the average reader. Lazarus discusses so many cases and jurists that it's hard to keep track of everything. This is especially true about the death penalty section of the book, which is by far the most tedious. This is why I gave it 4 stars and not 5.
Excellent read for the non-lawyer
I enjoyed this book quite a bit.I wouldn't take everything Lazarus says as gospel truth.It's clear from reading various reviews that some of his facts are wrong, and the vast majority of the book is based on research and even things he's just heard, rather than things he witnessed.But I find myself thinking about the book often and I think it's a valuable read for anyone who wants a better understanding of our legal system.

Insightful, lucid, still topical
Perhaps the best, most well thought out, and easiest to read account of what the supreme court is all about. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Clerks of court    2. Courts - General    3. Courts - Supreme Court    4. Government - Judicial Branch    5. History    6. Judicial process    7. Law    8. Legal History    9. Legal Reference / Law Profession    10. Political questions and judicial power    11. Supreme Court    12. U.S. Supreme Court    13. United States    14. Current Events / Law   

Editorial Review

Has the Federal Communications Commission's capability to coordinate and manage technology kept up with the astonishing universe of computers and communications links that have sprouted in our midst? Peter Huber, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, doesn't think so. In this polemic, Huber traces the history of U.S. telecommunications and regulation in this century. His conclusion: the FCC should have been closed down long ago.Read more

Reviews (1)

Abolish the FCC?
On the recommendation of a good friend, I read this book to bone up for my internship at the FCC. Peter Huber presents a good history of the FCC, and why it never should have existed. His thesis is simple and compelling: of all things, communications technology doesn't need top-down regulation, but rather the evolutionary flexibility of the common law.Read more

Subjects:  1. Antitrust law    2. Current Affairs    3. General    4. Law    5. Law and legislation    6. Mass Communication Law    7. Politics / Current Events    8. Telecommunication    9. Telecommunications    10. United States    11. Communications law    12. Computer Communications & Networking    13. Economics    14. Monopolies    15. Postal & telecommunications industries    16. USA   

Subjects:  1. Current Affairs    2. Law    3. Politics/International Relations    4. Reference   

Subjects:  1. Comparative    2. Current Affairs    3. Law    4. Law (Specific Aspects)    5. Legal Reference / Law Profession    6. Reference    7. Science/Mathematics    8. English Law    9. Law / Comparative    10. Law | Reference    11. Laws of Other Jurisdictions & General Law    12. Yearbooks, annuals, almanacs    13. c 1990 to c 2000   

Editorial Review

Capital punishment is popular in the United States: the public supports it overwhelmingly, skeptical politicians are afraid to challenge it publicly, and the execution rate continues to soar (it increased by about 800 percent during the 1990s). So authors Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell will raise eyebrows when they write: "We believe [capital punishment] will come to an end fairly soon." They're advocates of abolition ("We have opposed capital punishment for many years"), but they've tried hard to become dispassionate analysts on these pages. After four years of research, they're convinced that Americans are deeply conflicted on the issue rather than cheerleaders for death. "The public embraces the death penalty in theory, but in practice they look at it with an increasingly critical eye," the authors write. Read more

Reviews (10)

Killing a Person is Either Right or Wrong...Can't Be Both, Can It?
Regardless of how "biased" or "unbiased" these authors are, or whether or not the paperback edition costs less than the hardcover, and just what Amazon's marketing intentions really are, this IS an important book that should be read by anyone concered about, or who participate in, the debate about the "death penalty." My own belief is that it's really easy to argue "for" killing as the ability to do so lies in the "nature" of each of us. As an old 3-Dog Night song goes, It's "easy to be hard...to be cruel!" Taking an honest look at forgiveness and mercy is what's difficult - I know it is for me, the belief in an "eye for an eye" notwithstanding. Actually, Jesus Christ, speaking As and For GOD "struck down" this particular belief (eye4eye) in favor of a not-so-natural way of behaving. (Matthew 5:38) Anyway, Take Care & Stay Well!

BUY THE PAPERBACK
I am primarily offended that the authors and Amazon publish the almost the exact same book in both hardback and paperback with different titles in order to sucker folks into buying both.Amazon outright recommends the purchase of both books - but you should only buy the paperback.It has all the text of the more expensive hardback plus one additional chapter. Interesting Look Yet Not Unbiased
I was a bit disappointed in this book because the dust jacket states the authors attempted to write a unbiased book covering the people that are part of the capital punishment process in America.Maybe it is that the authors stance on the death penalty is so strong that it is all they could do to be as objective as they were, but I was still looking for an unbiased account.With that said I did learn a lot from the book, I also agree with the author's position on the death penalty so their position was not that hard to take.I just wanted more of the other side represented so that I could learn more about that point of view.Read more

Subjects:  1. Capital Punishment    2. Criminal Law - General    3. Criminology    4. Ethics & Moral Philosophy    5. Law    6. Legal System    7. Penology    8. Sociology    9. United States   

Editorial Review

The inimitable Janet Malcolm has previously probed the soft white underbellies of psychiatry, journalism, literary biography, and a half-dozen other disciplines. In

Reviews (16)

A Frustrating Book
There was a good book in here somewhere, but I found the author's point of view toward the main charachter frustrating. Either offer more analysis of her poor decisions or tell us some more facts to make the reader more sympathetic to the lawyer.But the way the author left it, I felt the lawyer seemed unsympathetic and some of her actions without enough explanaton/justification/analysis to give teh reader some perspective.
Misfire
Like most of Janet Malcolm's books, "The Crime of Sheila McGough" is well-written enough to be interesting and certainly readable.Unlike her other books, which are often oddly persuasive although demonstrably wrong, or at least ill-fated ("The Journalist and the Murderer," "In the Freud Archives"), "Crime" never really manages to give a clear portrait of its central character, whom Malcolm claims to see as an "exquisite heroine," or the situation she found herself in.Sheila McGough was a defense lawyer for a con artist who wound up being indicted as a conspirator in his schemes, and while Malcolm insists her heroine was not romantically involved with her client nor a criminal, it is hard to disagree with the various attorneys interviewed in the book who characterize McGough as simply in over her head.While it seems unlikely McGough was "framed" or the target of a government conspiracy, as she and her family claim, she does seem to have been ground up in the court system mainly because she didn't really know what she was doing as a lawyer.Malcolm wants her point to be that McGough's dogged defense of her client is particularly unsuited to the legal system in America today, but her sweeping generalizations about the courts seem idiosyncratic and she faults lawyers for thinking of their profession as a career (one wonders what else she would have lawyers do).She keeps insisting her heroine is terrible but lovable, a sort of legal Madame Bovary who is noble in her doomed romantic illusions about the law, but the substance of the book seems as hard to pin down as the con artist McGough went to jail for protecting.Malcolm characterizes a trial as being a duel of narratives, but her own narrative convinces the reader of nothing except that Sheila McGough is indeed exasperating. Thoroughly Biased Writing By a Fine Author
Having been interviewed by Ms Malcomb for this book, given that I was personally responsible for the plight of her protagonist, I can say with certainty that she has really missed the truth of this matter. I have read and like a number of her other works, but this book simply ignores by omission the fact that Sheila McGough went to jail for very good reasons. There were many others who were defrauded by her, and it is no fluke or prejudice of our system--as Ms Malcomb avers--that she was found guilty. Read more

Subjects:  1. Alexandria    2. Criminal Justice Administration    3. Criminal Law    4. Criminal Law - General    5. Criminal justice, Administration of    6. Criminology    7. Female Offenders (Criminology)    8. Law    9. McGough, Sheila    10. Politics - Current Events    11. Politics / Current Events    12. Trials (Fraud)    13. Trials, litigation, etc    14. Virginia    15. Current Events / Law    16. True crime   

Subjects:  1. Action & Adventure    2. Current Affairs    3. Fiction    4. Cliff Roehr    5. Current Events / Law   

Subjects:  1. Audio-visual materials    2. Communications    3. Copyright    4. Europe    5. Intellectual Property - Copyright    6. International    7. Law    8. Legal Reference / Law Profession    9. Mass Media    10. Belgium    11. Communications law    12. Germany    13. Law / General    14. Private, property, family law    15. USA    16. United Kingdom, Great Britain   

Subjects:  1. Current Affairs    2. Law    3. Media Studies    4. Political Freedom & Security - Civil Rights    5. Politics - Current Events    6. Politics / Current Events    7. Politics/International Relations   

Reviews (2)

Good Read but Flawed Conclusions
George Stephens' book is a very interesting and informative read, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I must disagree with two of his conclusions.First, I see little or no evidence that the United States has experienced a 100 year cycle of moving away from property rights and moving back to them.He uses this cycle hypothesis to show that we are starting a new century of returning to a more Lockean view of property rights, but his evidence is scant and even if true historically, does not necessarily have any bearing on the future. Locke, Jefferson and the Justices
This book made me re-evaluate my long-held political feelings, and actually changed a few. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Civil rights    2. Constitutional    3. Constitutional history    4. History    5. History: American    6. Law    7. Law and politics    8. Legal Reference / Law Profession    9. Political aspects    10. United States    11. United States - 20th Century    12. United States - Revolutionary War    13. Constitutional & administrative law    14. USA   

Editorial Review

Over 20 million people tuned in to watch Dr. Jack Kevorkian help a terminally ill man die on Read more

Reviews (3)

The Right To Die
Great book.Our society makes it a "sin" to help terminally ill people end their lives without further pain.Thats the sin!When you'rewell, a book such as this might seem ridiculous but when you're walking indeath's shoes from a painful, degenerating disease, its complete inhumanetorture to allow the patient to suffer past his/her wishes.

"Right-to-die": killing disabled people for economic reasons
Chapter 21 of this book, titled "The Unspoken Argument,"advocates the economic benefits of euthanasia, as follows:"Similarto other social issues, the right-to-die movement has not arisen separateand distinct from other concurrent developments of our time.In attemptingto answer the question Why Now?, one must look at the realities of theincreasing cost of health care in an aging society, because in the finalanalysis, economics, not the quest for broadened individual liberties orincreased autonomy, will drive assisted suicide to the plateau ofacceptable practice." Incredible
This book truly made me re-think my attitude towards the subject.Mr.Humphrey and Ms. Clement should be commended for this masterpiece. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Current Affairs    2. Death & Dying    3. Ethics & Moral Philosophy    4. Government - U.S. Government    5. Law    6. Law and legislation    7. Politics / Current Events    8. Politics/International Relations    9. Public opinion    10. Right to die    11. United States   

Editorial Review

When Senator William V. Roth Jr., the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, initiated an oversight investigation of the Internal Revenue Service in 1996, it was the first time in two generations that the agency had been subject to serious review. The proceedings brought to light horror stories of taxpayers subjected to the IRS's unrelenting bureaucracy, stories recounted in the pages of Read more

Reviews (20)

Tax Reform means more tax litigation
In 13 years, Congress has passed almost 80 tax bills.To understand the impact of this expansive nature of tax regulation lets look at the impact of the "Tax Relief Act of 1997: 285 new sections and 824 amendments.In the early, 20th century the tax code spanned 5.5 million words requiring 17,000 pages.
Cancer of Corruption in a Mountain of Malfeasance
Roth's book reveals much about the world's most feared, most hated, most powerful, and most corrupt criminal organization. While some of the material is dated, the underlying problems are still with us. Unbridled Imagination
As a later GAO investigation revealed, Senator Roth's 1997 hearings on the IRS were a farce.The witnesses' stories of abuse were exaggerated at best, falsified with the connivance of the Senator and his commitee staff, at worst.His book, ghost written by a staffer, (I didn't know the Senator was literate!) should be listed here under "fiction."Its all bull - pandering to marginal and disaffected losers who wear aluminum foil inside their hats.Thankfully, the good citizens of Delware voted the rascal out in 1999, sending him and his horrible toupee back to the obscurity to which he so deservedly belongs. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Internal Revenue Service    2. Law    3. Politics - Current Events    4. Politics/International Relations    5. Tax administration and procedure    6. Tax collection    7. Taxation    8. Taxation - General    9. U.S. Government    10. United States    11. United States.   

Reviews (4)

Interesting but not convincing
Goodrich has an enviable ability to write with eloquence and insightful introspection. His descriptions of his experiences and perceptions at Yale Law are the strongest parts of this account. However, I do not believe he succeeds in his attempt to articulate a need for reform within America's system of legal education and its broader (negative) impact on American culture.
Funny and insightful
As a current 1L at YLS, I can vouch for the accuracy of Goodrich's account - even down to Guido's "Evil Deity" speech, which apparently remains unchanged 15 years later. In fact, not much seems to have changed at all in 15 years, which is a little daunting given Goodrich's insightful criticism of the state of legal education. This is an excellent book for anyone thinking of law school - both as preparation for the stressful academics of first year, and for the tremendous and disconcerting shift in perspective and thought processes that nearly every law student undergoes. The author's description of the personal costs is a bit overdone at points - I at least have not observed such profound personality changes in any of my classmates - but the basic concept is sound. An entertaining and informative book.

Too much self-righteous moral superiority...
Considering that Chris Goodrich was a Yale graduate himself, as well as editor of California Lawyer magazine prior to the start of his law fellowship (i.e. he's a smart guy), the man exhibits a striking degree of naivete about how the legal system works. He expresses shock and disappointment that the legal profession is not really about "helping people" or "finding the truth", but rather about doing one's best to represent the interests of one's client, and that whoever can present the best arguments usually wins. Goodrich's view of the law is so overly idealistic that it strains credulity. One can't help but wonder if it is only a manufactured device through which to write a book such as this. Read more

Subjects:  1. General    2. Law    3. Legal Reference / Law Profession    4. Education    5. Jurisprudence & General Issues   

Editorial Review

It was sheer serendipity that drew criminology professor Jim Fisher into the re-opening of two unrelated, 30-year-old murder cases. When Fisher's book Read more

Reviews (3)

Riveting
Although horrifying to read, this book is absolutely gripping and impossible to put down. Author Jim Fisher does an excellent job of bringing the reader along with him as he essentially stumbles into the 30-year-old Zubryd murder case and becomes entangled in a web of inconsistencies surrounding the evidence, the crime scene, and the boy's confession, and eventually uncovers the identity of the true murderer. He describes the investigative process matter-of-factly, never lapsing into tediousness or overplaying the drama. Fisher lays out his reasoning beautifully, and the reader experiences every nagging question, every false hope, and every thrilling break in the case right alongside the detectives. How Fisher then became involved in the Stevick/Pacek case, which ultimately helped spur the Zubryd investigation, makes this already amazing story truly stunning.
fall guys
Mr Fisher,You don't know me but I am the daughter of Harry & Maureen Zubryd.My father and i talked back in 1979 about this case and he showed me charlie at my aunts funeral.I would never of known him.Your book was very informative, and i love finding out the information you had in the book.I would love to know which library you went to to get copies of these newspaper articles.Can i get them through my computer do you think.This is the only way i thought I might be able to reach you.Since Helen was my aunt and i was just curious.Please e-mail me back if you can.I would appreciate and love to hear from the man that knows a good bit about my family.Eileen

True Crime by a True Crime Fighter
A good read for fans of true crime books. The wrinkle that sets this book apart from others in this genre is that the author himself is an investigator (a former FBI agent). He helped reopen two cases in whichyoungsters had been railroaded into confessing to murders they didn'tcommit (both times by the same detective), and in both cases, he was ableto discover evidence to exonerate the wrongly accused. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Confession (Law)    2. Criminology    3. Current Affairs    4. Forensic Science    5. Homicide investigation    6. Investigation    7. Law    8. Murder    9. Murder - General    10. Nonfiction - True Crime / Espionage    11. Politics/International Relations    12. True Crime / Espionage    13. United States    14. True crime    15. USA   

Subjects:  1. Arms Control And Disarmament    2. Arms control    3. Current Affairs    4. Export controls    5. International Relations - Arms Control    6. Law    7. Nuclear nonproliferation    8. Politics / Current Events    9. Chemical & biological weapons    10. Non-Classifiable    11. Nuclear weapons   

Editorial Review

Here it is--the result of four years of investigative research, at an approximate cost of $40 million. Back in 1994, Kenneth Starr was appointed to investigate a series of investments made by Bill and Hillary Clinton; the Whitewater allegations never bore fruit, but then somebody whispered stories about the president and an intern named Monica Lewinsky into Starr's ear. He and his team of prosecutors sniffed around, and this is what they've come up with: "According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had ten sexual encounters, eight while she worked at the White House and two thereafter." The details are bathetic in their precision: "during many of their sexual encounters," Starr notes, "the President stood leaning against the doorway of the bathroom across from the study, which, he told Ms. Lewinsky, eased his sore back." And yes, as far as we know, that was the president's semen on Monica's navy dress.Read more

Reviews (22)

Consider what this says about Starr as a prosecutor...
...any half-way competent prosecutor, given the license and budget and political backing that Ken Starr had should have been able to get indictments against Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Teresa and the Pope, let alone a good ol' boy politician from Arkansas.
Why wasn't this effort spent investigating the TALIBAN?
40 million dollars. 200 FBI agents. Had the FBI at this point in our history, been able to do their jobs tracking down terrorist cells and putting their ears to the ground,instead of being pushed by enemies of Clinton obsessed with ruining him at all costs (funded by us tax payers) , to waste thousands of person-hours trying to destroy a man and reverse his election,due to a private failing that should have been between Clinton, his God, and his family, perhaps 9-11 would have never happened.
Paranoid garbage
In the greatest of ironies, the same conservatives who were for fiscal accountability and against state surveilence, attempted to engineer one of the most undemocratic actions in reccent history. Sexual McCarthyism would not be an overexaggerated way to describe all of the hypocricy and danger the GOP placed the constution and American people in during this period. McCarthy would be very proud his likeness still has a home among conservatives. Read more

Subjects:  1. 1946-    2. 1989-    3. Clinton, Bill,    4. Conspiracy & Scandal Investigations    5. General    6. Government - U.S. Government    7. Law    8. Political    9. Political Corruption    10. Political Science    11. Politics - Current Events    12. Politics / Current Events    13. Politics and government    14. Politics/International Relations    15. President U.S    16. Reference    17. U.S. Government    18. U.S. President    19. United States    20. Current Events / Law   

Subjects:  1. Education    2. Education / Teaching    3. Educational vouchers    4. Finance    5. General    6. Law    7. Law and legislation    8. Philosophy & Social Aspects    9. School choice    10. United States