Best of
Law

2021

Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken System


Jarrett Adams - 2021
    Now, in this unforgettable memoir, a pioneering lawyer recalls the journey that led to his exoneration--and inspired him to devote his life to fighting the many injustices in our legal system.Seventeen years old and facing nearly thirty 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 ten years in prison.But the journey was far from over. Adams took the lessons he learned through his incarceration and worked his way through law school with the goal of helping those who, like himself, had faced our legal system at its worst. After earning his law degree, he worked with the New York Innocence Project, becoming the first exoneree ever hired by the nonprofit as a lawyer. In his first case with the Innocence Project, he argued before the same court that had convicted him a decade earlier--and won.In this cinematic story of hope and full-circle redemption, Adams draws on his life and the cases of his clients to show the racist tactics used to convict young men of color, the unique challenges facing exonerees once released, and how the lack of equal representation in our courts is a failure not only of empathy but of our collective ability to uncover the truth. Justice for Sale is an unforgettable firsthand account of the limits--and possibilities--of our country's system of law.

The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America


Carol Anderson - 2021
    The Second is neither a “pro-gun” nor an “anti-gun” book; the lens is the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans.From the seventeenth century, when it was encoded into law that the enslaved could not own, carry, or use a firearm whatsoever, until today, with measures to expand and curtail gun ownership aimed disproportionately at the African American population, the right to bear arms has been consistently used as a weapon to keep African Americans powerless—revealing that armed or unarmed, Blackness, it would seem, is the threat that must be neutralized and punished.Throughout American history to the twenty-first century, regardless of the laws, court decisions, and changing political environment, the Second has consistently meant this: That the second a Black person exercises this right, the second they pick up a gun to protect themselves (or the second that they don't), their life—as surely as Philando Castile's, Tamir Rice's, Alton Sterling's--may be snatched away in that single, fatal second. Through compelling historical narrative merging into the unfolding events of today, Anderson's penetrating investigation shows that the Second Amendment is not about guns but about anti-Blackness, shedding shocking new light on another dimension of racism in America.

The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America's Judicial Hero


Peter S. Canellos - 2021
    But not in the case of the most famous dissenter on the Supreme Court. Almost a century after his death, John Marshall Harlan’s words helped end segregation and gave us our civil rights and our modern economic freedom. But his legacy would not have been possible without the courage of Robert Harlan, a slave who John’s father raised like a son in the same household. After the Civil War, Robert emerges as a political leader. With Black people holding power in the Republican Party, it is Robert who helps John land his appointment to the Supreme Court. At first, John is awed by his fellow justices, but the country is changing. Northern whites are prepared to take away black rights to appease the South. Giant trusts are monopolizing entire industries. Against this onslaught, the Supreme Court seemed all too willing to strip away civil rights and invalidate labor protections. So as case after case comes before the court, challenging his core values, John makes a fateful decision: He breaks with his colleagues in fundamental ways, becoming the nation’s prime defender of the rights of Black people, immigrant laborers, and people in distant lands occupied by the US. Harlan’s dissents, particularly in Plessy v. Ferguson, were widely read and a source of hope for decades. Thurgood Marshall called Harlan’s Plessy dissent his “Bible”—and his legal roadmap to overturning segregation. In the end, Harlan’s words built the foundations for the legal revolutions of the New Deal and Civil Rights eras. Spanning from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement and beyond, The Great Dissenter is a “magnificent” (Douglas Brinkley) and “thoroughly researched” (The New York Times) rendering of the American legal system’s most significant failures and most inspiring successes.

Her Honor: My Life on the Bench...What Works, What's Broken, and How to Change It


LaDoris Hazzard Cordell - 2021
    And yet, she believes in the system. From ending school segregation to legalizing same-sex marriage, its progress relies on legal professionals and jurors who strive to make the imperfect system as fair as possible.Her Honor is an entertaining and provocative look into the hearts and minds of judges. Cordell takes you into her chambers where she haggles with prosecutors and defense attorneys and into the courtroom during jury selection and sentencing hearings. She uses real cases to highlight how judges make difficult decisions, all the while facing outside pressures from the media, law enforcement, lobbyists, and the friends and families of the people involved.Cordell’s candid account of her years on the bench shines light on all areas of the legal system, from juvenile delinquency and the shift from rehabilitation to punishment, along with the racial biases therein, to the thousands of plea bargains that allow our overburdened courts to stay afloat―as long as innocent people are willing to plead guilty. There are tales of marriages and divorces, adoptions, and contested wills―some humorous, others heartwarming, still others deeply troubling.Her Honor is for anyone who’s had the good or bad fortune to stand before a judge or sit on a jury. It is for true-crime junkies and people who vote in judicial elections. Most importantly, this is a book for anyone who wants to know what our legal system, for better or worse, means to the everyday lives of all Americans.

Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives


Michael A. Heller - 2021
    By the time we grow up, the idea of ownership seems natural, whether buying a cup of coffee or a house. But who controls the space behind your airplane seat: you reclining or the squished laptop user behind? Why is plagiarism wrong, but it's okay to knock-off a recipe or a dress design? And after a snowstorm, why does a chair in the street hold your parking space in Chicago, but in New York you lose the space and the chair?Mine! explains these puzzles and many more. Surprisingly, there are just six simple stories that everyone uses to claim everything. Owners choose the story that steers us to do what they want. But we can always pick a different story. This is true not just for airplane seats, but also for battles over digital privacy, climate change, and wealth inequality. As Michael Heller and James Salzman show--in the spirited style of Freakonomics, Nudge, and Predictably Irrational--ownership is always up for grabs.With stories that are eye-opening, mind-bending, and sometimes infuriating, Mine! reveals the rules of ownership that secretly control our lives.

Accidental Activist: Justice for the Groveland Four


Josh Venkataraman - 2021
    It is a primer for positive action, a journey through Florida's past as well as its future. Some of the things you will learn: everything takes more time than you think, nothing ever goes according to plan, help can come from unexpected places, time is on your side, everyone is connected to everyone else, you can reach your tipping point for success and not even realize it, your goals can change along the way, and flexibility is key. Let's get started, shall we? ***Proceeds from the sale of this book will be used to establish "The Charles Greenlee Memorial Scholarship" to benefit a child with an incarcerated parent.

The Trial of Julian Assange: A Story of Persecution


Nils Melzer - 2021
    In July 2010, Wikileaks published Cablegate, one of the biggest leaks in the history of the US military, including evidence for war crimes and torture. In the aftermath Julian Assange, the founder and spokesman of Wikileaks, found himself at the centre of a media storm, accused of hacking and later sexual assault. He spent the next seven years in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fearful that he would be extradited to Sweden to face the accusations of assault and then sent to US. In 2019, Assange was handed over to the British police and, on the same day, the U.S. demanded his extradition. They threatened him with up to 175 years in prison for alleged espionage and computer fraud.At this point, Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, started his investigation into how the US and UK governments were working together to ensure a conviction. His findings are explosive, revealing that Assange has faced grave and systematic due process violations, judicial bias, collusion and manipulated evidence. He has been the victim of constant surveillance, defamation and threats. Melzer also gathered together consolidated medical evidence that proves that the prison has suffered prolonged psychological torture.Melzer's compelling investigation puts the UK state into the dock, showing how, through secrecy, impunity and, crucially, public indifference, unchecked power reveals a deeply undemocratic system. Furthermore, the Assange case sets a dangerous precedent: once telling the truth becomes a crime, censorship and tyranny will inevitably follow.

Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor's Code and Corrupted the Justice Department


Elie Honig - 2021
    During his tenure, Barr has done profound and pervasive damage, trampling the two core virtues that have long defined the department and its mission across both Democratic and Republican administrations: credibility and independence. Barr has bent the truth, distorted the law, and undermined his Department’s own prosecutions, with one consistent outcome: to protect and advance the political interests of Donald Trump.Barr’s first act as AG was distorting the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, earning a public rebuke for his dishonesty from Mueller himself and, later, from a federal judge. Barr tried to manipulate the law to squash a whistleblower’s complaint about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine—the report that eventually led to Trump’s impeachment. Barr intervened in the prosecutions of Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, undermining the work of his own prosecutors to aid the loyal Trump advisers. He got caught lying about his late-night effort to displace the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, whose office was investigating the Trump family and its business. Barr has denigrated Democrats and Trump opponents and has amplified baseless theories about massive mail-in ballot fraud, bolstering the possibility of an ugly battle over the 2020 election results. Working at the Justice Department, Elie Honig was taught that the two most important assets a prosecutor has is credibility and independence; without them, a prosecutor is lost. While he and his colleagues fought hard to do justice, to charge well-supported and righteous cases, and to convict serious lawbreakers, they knew that nothing was worth sacrificing character or integrity. To America’s detriment, Barr has relinquished both.Hatchet Man examines Barr’s unprecedented abuse of power as Attorney General and the lasting structural damage done to the Justice Department through his callous, almost gleeful, politicization of his position and his vast power.

Nothing But the Truth


Marie Henein - 2021
    Her story, as an immigrant from a tightknit Egyptian-Lebanese family, demonstrates the value of strong role models--from her mother and grandmother, to her brilliant uncle Sami who died of AIDS. She learned the value of hard work, being true to herself and others, and unapologetically owning it all.Marie Henein shares here her unvarnished view on the ethical and practical implications of being a criminal lawyer, and how the job is misunderstood and even demonized. Ironically, her most successful cases made her a "lightning rod" in some circles, confirming her belief that much of the public's understanding of the justice system is based on popular culture, and social media, and decidedly not the rule of law. As she turns 50 and struggles with the corrosive effect on women of becoming invisible, Marie doubles down on being even more highly visible and opinionated as she deconstructs, among other things, the otherness of the immigrant experience (Where are you really from?), the pros and cons of being a household name in this country, opening her own boutique law firm, and the likes of Martha Stewart and her commoditization of previously unpaid female labour. Nothing But the Truth is refreshingly unconstrained and surprising--a woman at the top of her game in a male-dominated world.

Flying Kites: A Story of the 2013 California Prison Hunger Strike


The Stanford Graphic Novel Project - 2021
    Life in the SHU is monotonous, isolating, and enraging. It literally drives prisoners insane. Rodrigo resolves to survive. He struggles to maintain a connection to his daughter, Luz, through letters that are his only happiness. As Luz grows up, though, she presses Rodrigo for more insight into his daily life. She wants the real him. Willing to give her anything she asks, but finding himself at a loss for words, Rodrigo makes a mistake that threatens to destroy the trust between them. Meanwhile a bold, state-wide hunger strike in California prisons gathers force. Gang enmities are set aside. Improbable alliances are forged. Activists and prisoner families organize on the outside. Finding herself increasingly politicized over this issue, Luz fears she can never help her dad. Rodrigo fears he 's lost his daughter forever. On opposite sides of the prison walls they fight to end the torture of endless isolation. Based on the events of the historic 2013 California prison hunger strike, Flying Kites is a story about resilience, forgiveness, hope, and what it means to find your own voice.

The Words That Made Us: America's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840


Akhil Reed Amar - 2021
    But ratification hardly ended the conversation. For the next half century, ordinary Americans and statesmen alike continued to wrestle with weighty questions in the halls of government and in the pages of newspapers. Should the nation's borders be expanded? Should America allow slavery to spread westward? What rights should Indian nations hold? What was the proper role of the judicial branch? In The Words that Made Us, Akhil Reed Amar unites history and law in a vivid narrative of the biggest constitutional questions early Americans confronted, and he expertly assesses the answers they offered. His account of the document's origins and consolidation is a guide for anyone seeking to properly understand America's Constitution today.

Brock (Bracken Ridge Rebels MC, #3)


Mackenzy Fox - 2021
    rule and the only thing they ride or die for more than their club is their women, this is Brock’s storyBrock: For years I’ve let it slide. What she does to me, how she makes me feel. I’ve brushed it off like an annoying habit that comes back every now and again to haunt me. We came together once, then we drifted apart. It’s the story of my life. We were best friends, but back then we were a lot of things. She was the fire in my blood, the elixir in my veins. My world fell at her feet, before it fell spectacularly apart. She thinks she can run from the M.C. she thinks she can run from me. Little does she know that this old dog ain’t learnin’ any new tricks. I’ve got my eyes on the prize. She will be my ol’ lady, I’ll make sure of it.I let her slip away once before, but I have no intension of doing that again.She’s mine, and I’m gonna make her realize it once and for all.Angel: Nobody owns me. I don’t want to be someone’s property, and in the M.C. when you’re a woman; that’s all you are. Property. I belong to myself. My life’s been no fairytale, I’ve had to grow up fast, learn hard lessons, dust myself off and start again.Now I’ve got my daughter to think of things have changed.I can’t fall for him. What Brock and I had was a long time ago. What we had was lust, infatuation, nothing more. We were a couple of kids and now it’s ancient history.We’re not the same people we were then.I have to protect my heart; it can’t be broken again. He can’t have what was never his to take. I won’t let him.NOTE: This book is book 3 in a series but is written as a stand-alone with no cliff hanger and a HEA. Recommended for readers 18+ as it contains foul language, sexy steamy scenes, violence and hot alpha males. Readers beware the Bracken Ridge Rebels rule.......enter at own risk

READY RECKONER ON PREVENTION OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN AT WORKPLACES IN INDIA


Anupamaa V - 2021
    Everything that an Organisation needs to know is explained in simple and easy words. What you find in the market, is a handbook or a complicated commentary that can be referred to only by lawyers. We have worked on this Ready Reckoner which is a one of a kind for organizations to fall back on to understand their roles and obligations under the Act, in simple easy language. The book has been edited by Ms. Jyothi Bahri and the foreword is written by Mr. Ram Madhav, former National General Secretary BJP and author, and Mr. Bhaskar Rao, Ex-AGDP, Railways, and former Commissioner of Police Bangalore. About the Author: Passion driven professional entrepreneur, with over 2 decades as a corporate lawyer and over 15 years as a partner and managing partner. Possesses a sharp acumen and in-depth legal knowledge in various branches of corporate laws. Passionately believes in equitable, respectful, inclusive, and bias-free workplaces, which resulted in the founding of UCS. Possesses excellent leadership and communications skills, and in-depth knowledge in Industrial Psychology. A certified mediation and negotiation expert. A professional mentor and guide to many.

The Case Against Kids


Jo Napolitano - 2021
    Journalist Jo Napolitano shines a light on recent federal lawsuits filed to protect these children from discrimination, focusing on a southern Pennsylvania case fought in the summer of 2016 against the backdrop of Trump's election. In that instance, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the School District of Lancaster for refusing to admit older, non-English speaking refugees or for sending them to a high-discipline alternative school meant for troubled youth.One of the would-be students is 18-year-old Sudanese teen, Khadidja, who was told that she was too old to enroll even though state law permitted all students to attend until at least age 21. The teen pushed back and was eventually admitted to Phoenix Academy---a for-profit alternative school where youth where students were subjected to random searches and daily pat-downs.Napolitano follows Khadidja as she weathers her initial rejection from the school district, undergoes the disappointment of Phoenix Academy and reluctantly decides to join the ACLU's lawsuit. The fiery week-long showdown between the ACLU and the school district was decided by a conservative Republican judge who, to everyone's surprise, ruled in favor of the refugees. His decision, upheld months later in federal appellate court, forever changed the Lancaster school district's admissions policies - and set a hopeful precedent for young immigrants and refugees all over the country.

The Family Roe: An American Story


Joshua Prager - 2021
    Journalist Joshua Prager spent hundreds of hours with Norma, discovered her personal papers—a previously unseen trove—and witnessed her final moments. The Family Roe presents her life in full. Propelled by the crosscurrents of sex and religion, gender and class, it is a life that tells the story of abortion in America.Prager begins that story on the banks of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya River where Norma was born, and where unplanned pregnancies upended generations of her forebears. A pregnancy then upended Norma’s life too, and the Dallas waitress became Jane Roe.Drawing on a decade of research, Prager reveals the woman behind the pseudonym, writing in novelistic detail of her unknown life from her time as a sex worker in Dallas, to her private thoughts on family and abortion, to her dealings with feminist and Christian leaders, to the three daughters she placed for adoption.Prager found those women, including the youngest—Baby Roe—now fifty years old. She shares her story in The Family Roe for the first time, from her tortured interactions with her birth mother, to her emotional first meeting with her sisters, to the burden that was uniquely hers from conception.The Family Roe abounds in such revelations—not only about Norma and her children but about the broader “family” connected to the case. Prager tells the stories of activists and bystanders alike whose lives intertwined with Roe. In particular, he introduces three figures as important as they are unknown: feminist lawyer Linda Coffee, who filed the original Texas lawsuit yet now lives in obscurity; Curtis Boyd, a former fundamentalist Christian, today a leading provider of third-trimester abortions; and Mildred Jefferson, the first black female Harvard Medical School graduate, who became a pro-life leader with great secrets.An epic work spanning fifty years of American history, The Family Roe will change the way you think about our enduring American divide: the right to choose or the right to life.

The Farmer's Lawyer: The North Dakota Nine and the Fight to Save the Family Farm


Sarah Vogel - 2021
    In the early 1980s, farmers were suffering through the worst economic crisis to hit rural America since the Great Depression. Land prices were down, operating costs and interest rates were up, and severe weather devastated crops. Instead of receiving assistance from the government as they had in the 1930s, these hardworking family farmers were threatened with foreclosure by the very agency that Franklin Delano Roosevelt created to help them. Desperate, they called Sarah Vogel in North Dakota. Sarah, a young lawyer and single mother, listened to farmers who were on the verge of losing everything and, inspired by the politicians who had helped farmers in the '30s, she naively built a solo practice of clients who couldn't afford to pay her. Sarah began drowning in debt and soon her own home was facing foreclosure. In a David and Goliath legal battle reminiscent of A Civil Action or Erin Brockovich, Sarah brought a national class action lawsuit, which pitted her against the Reagan administration's Department of Justice, in her fight for family farmers' Constitutional rights. It was her first case. A courageous American story about justice and holding the powerful to account, The Farmer's Lawyer shows how the farm economy we all depend on for our daily bread almost fell apart due to the willful neglect of those charged to protect it, and what we can learn from Sarah's battle as a similar calamity looms large on our horizon once again.

Spider Woman: A Life


Brenda Hale - 2021
    Yet that dramatic moment was merely the pinnacle of a career throughout which she was hailed as a pioneering reformer.As 'a little girl from a little school in a little village in North Yorkshire', she only went into the law because her headteacher told her she wasn't clever enough to study history. She became the most senior judge in the country.How does a self-professed 'girly swot' get ahead in a profession dominated by men? A lifelong smasher of glass-ceilings, who took as her motto 'women are equal to everything', her landmark rulings in areas including domestic violence, divorce, mental health and equality were her attempt to correct that.

The Great Post Office Scandal: The fight to expose a multimillion pound IT disaster which put innocent people in jail


Nick Wallis - 2021
    A novel PFI-funded IT system called Horizon was rolled-out into the Post Office network. At the time, suppliers Fujitsu described it as the “largest non-military IT system in Europe”. Horizon didn’t work properly, and errors and discrepancies appeared in hundreds of Subpostmasters’ accounts. The Post Office held Subpostmasters liable for these discrepancies. Thousands were forced to pay the Post Office sums they didn’t owe, many were sacked. Some 800 people were prosecuted by the Post Office and many were sent to prison. In 2019, after a three year multimillion-pound legal battle, in which the Post Office was supported by the government, the Post Office admitted defeat and settled out of court. Dozens of criminal convictions are due to be overturned at the Court of Appeal in March. There have been suicides, mental health breakdowns and hundreds of family tragedies. No one has been held responsible for the false prosecutions.

Brody (King's Cops, #4)


Sadie King - 2021
    He’s seen her nearly naked and wants a taste. Whose will is stronger?BethYou are strong. You are powerful. You are daring.At least that’s what the mantra from the Confident Woman program says I should be. But when one of the 100 Activities to a More Daring You goes horribly wrong and I have to be rescued by a policeman, I feel anything but daring.As soon as Brody wraps his arms around my shaking body, I know I’ll do anything to be with him.Being with Brody makes me feel confident and daring, but will he just let me down?BrodyI’m the new police recruit, and I’m determined to get noticed and get ahead in my career.When I take a call about indecent exposure at the lake, I don’t expect to find the sweet and sexy Beth.I’m hooked before she even gets out of the water.
She wants to be daring and confident, and I’m the man to make her feel that. But when a big opportunity at work comes up, I have to choose between advancing my career or advancing my relationship.Do you love BBW police romance books? Then the King’s Cops series is for you! Join the Kings County Police Department as they catch criminals and capture hearts. But can our brave boys, and girls, in blue find true love?If you like funny short romance books with strong female characters than Brody is for you!

The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA


Jorge L. Contreras - 2021
    When attorney Chris Hansen learned that the U.S. government was issuing patents for human genes to biotech companies, his first thought was, How can a corporation own what makes us who we are? Then he discovered that women were being charged exorbitant fees to test for hereditary breast and ovarian cancers, tests they desperately needed—all because Myriad Genetics had patented the famous BRCA genes. So he sued them. Jorge L. Contreras, one of the nation’s foremost authorities on human genetics law, has devoted years to investigating the groundbreaking civil rights case known as AMP v. Myriad. In The Genome Defense Contreras gives us the view from inside as Hansen and his team of ACLU lawyers, along with a committed group of activists, scientists, and physicians, take their one-in-a-million case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Contreras interviewed more than a hundred key players involved in all aspects of the case—from judges and policy makers to ethicists and genetic counselors, as well as cancer survivors and those whose lives would be impacted by the decision—expertly weaving together their stories into a fascinating narrative of this pivotal moment in history.  The Genome Defense is a powerful and compelling story about how society must balance scientific discovery with corporate profits and the rights of all people.

The Engagement: America's Quarter Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage


Sasha Issenberg - 2021
    Supreme Court ruled that state bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional, making same-sex unions legal across the United States. But the road to that momentous decision was much longer than many know. In this definitive account, Sasha Issenberg vividly guides us through same-sex marriage's unexpected path from the unimaginable to the inevitable.It is a story that begins in Hawaii in 1990, when a rivalry among local activists triggered a sequence of events that forced the state to justify excluding gay couples from marriage. In the White House, one president signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which elevated the matter to a national issue, and his successor tried to write it into the Constitution. Over twenty-five years, the debate played out across the country, from the first legal same-sex weddings in Massachusetts to the epic face-off over California's Proposition 8 and, finally, to the landmark Supreme Court decisions of United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges. From churches to hedge funds, no corner of American life went untouched.This richly detailed narrative follows the coast-to-coast conflict through courtrooms and war rooms, bedrooms and boardrooms, to shed light on every aspect of a political and legal controversy that divided Americans like no other. Following a cast of characters that includes those who sought their own right to wed, those who fought to protect the traditional definition of marriage, and those who changed their minds about it, The Engagement is certain to become a seminal book on the modern culture wars.

The Law Says What? Stuff You Didn't Know About the Law (but Really Should)


Maclen Stanley - 2021
    Wade is overturned? When can you legally use self-defense? How the hell does the Electoral College work, and who came up with it anyway? We hear about the law everywhere, from our social media feeds to 24/7 news coverage, and even during heated debates with friends and family. But do the people we’re listening to really understand the law, or how it works?The Law Says What? offers a crash course on some of the most bizarre, infuriating, and vitally important legal topics of today. Using real-world cases as a guide, you’ll explore laws that affect your everyday life and analyze the rationales behind the ones that might make your head spin. Your mind will be blown and you’ll even find yourself laughing as you learn about the weird quirks of criminal law, civil law, contract law, property law, tort law, international law, and courtroom procedure.You’ll discover things like:Why the police don’t actually have a legal duty to protect youHow marijuana is both legal and illegal at the same timeWhen you can be charged for murder without actually killing anyoneWhat someone has to do to legally steal your propertyAnd much more!Harvard Law School graduate and practicing attorney Maclen Stanley has already studied all the boring laws so you don’t have to, condensing the real-world legal cases into fascinating stories with valuable information. Designed to be easily digestible for all readers, you’ll feel like you’re having a casual conversation with a friend, rather than reading your mortgage disclosures.This book will help you make better decisions and have deeper conversations about the most important laws that affect you, your family, and your friends on a daily basis. Along the way, you’ll see that, in practice, the law—much like the human beings that create and enforce it—is actually pretty weird.The Law Says What? is perfect for fans of books like Freakonomics and Outliers, and anyone else who’s looking to engage with modern political discussions, educate themselves about the curiosities of our legal system, or even attend law school.You’ll also love this book if you’re curious about:Current eventsPoliticsThe U.S. legal systemThe ConstitutionThe justice system

Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty


Maurice Chammah - 2021
    ANTHONY LUKAS AWARD In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country's death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier.When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment. Then, amid a larger wave of criminal justice reform, came the death penalty's decline, a trend so durable that even in Texas the punishment appears again close to extinction.In Let the Lord Sort Them, Maurice Chammah charts the rise and fall of capital punishment through the eyes of those it touched. We meet Elsa Alcala, the orphaned daughter of a Mexican American family who found her calling as a prosecutor in the nation's death penalty capital, before becoming a judge on the state's highest court. We meet Danalynn Recer, a lawyer who became obsessively devoted to unearthing the life stories of men who committed terrible crimes, and fought for mercy in courtrooms across the state. We meet death row prisoners--many of them once-famous figures like Henry Lee Lucas, Gary Graham, and Karla Faye Tucker--along with their families and the families of their victims. And we meet the executioners, who struggle openly with what society has asked them to do.In tracing these interconnected lives against the rise of mass incarceration in Texas and the country as a whole, Chammah explores what the persistence of the death penalty tells us about forgiveness and retribution, fairness and justice, history and myth. Written with intimacy and grace, Let the Lord Sort Them is the definitive portrait of a particularly American institution.

The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America


Noah Feldman - 2021
    He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution--a system he regarded as the "last best hope of mankind." But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution?In this groundbreaking study, Noah Feldman argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States' founding arrangements. When he came to power, it was widely believed that the federal government could not use armed force to prevent a state from seceding. It was also assumed that basic civil liberties could be suspended in a rebellion by Congress but not by the president, and that the federal government had no authority over slavery in states where it existed. As president, Lincoln broke decisively with all these precedents, and effectively rewrote the Constitution's place in the American system. Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact--a rough and ready deal between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution came to be seen as a sacred text--a transcendent statement of the nation's highest ideals.The Broken Constitution is the first book to tell the story of how Lincoln broke the Constitution in order to remake it. To do so, it offers a riveting narrative of his constitutional choices and how he made them--and places Lincoln in the rich context of thinking of the time, from African American abolitionists to Lincoln's Republican rivals and Secessionist ideologues.Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations

Take Charge: The Skills That Drive Professional Success


Norman Bacal - 2021
    It's just the basics. If you want to move ahead, there are all kinds skills you need to learn that no one is teaching in an organized way. How to interview so you'll get hired, choosing the workplace most suited to you, how to be effective in communicating with clients and superiors, the secrets of service you need to master, how to set up a career plan and so much more.I've taken the secrets of my own success as a prominent entertainment attorney and law firm leader, and I've interviewed countless other professionals who've succeeded against all odds, to boil it down for you into an easy-to-read instructional book.This isn't another "how to" book written by a consultant who's never done it. This is practical advice from someone who has sat on both sides of the interview table, hired thousands of professionals, just like you, and helped them flourish.Whether you are in college or just starting your career, this book is a roadmap to turbo charge your career. ­

Code of Silence: A Federal Judge, a Reluctant Whistleblower, and a Culture of Cover-Ups in Our Nation's Courts


Lise Olsen - 2021
    Code of Silence tells the story of federal court employee Cathy McBroom, who had to flee her job as a case manager in Galveston, Texas, after enduring years of sexual harassment and assault by her boss—US District Judge Samuel Kent. Following a decade of firsthand reporting at the Houston Chronicle, investigative reporter Lise Olsen charts McBroom’s assault and the aftermath, when McBroom was thrust into the role of whistleblower to denounce a federal judge.What Olsen discovered by investigating McBroom’s story and other federal judicial misconduct matters nationwide was shocking. With the help of other federal judges, Kent was being protected by a secretive court system that has long tolerated or ignored complaints about corruption, sexism, and sexual misconduct—enabling him to remain in office for years. Other powerful judges accused of judicial misconduct were never investigated and remain in power or retired with full pay, such as US Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski and Kozinski’s mentee, Brett Kavanaugh.McBroom’s ultimate triumph is a rare story of redemption and victory as Judge Kent became the first and only federal judge to be impeached for sexual misconduct. Olsen also weaves in narratives of other brave women across the country who, at great personal risk, have reported federal judges to reveal how sexual harassment and assault occur elsewhere inside the federal court system. The accounts of the women and their allies who are still fighting for reforms are moving, intimate, and inspiring—including whistleblowers and law professors like Leah Litman, Emily Murphy, and novelist Heidi Bond, who emerged to denounce Kozinski in 2017. A larger group of women—and men—banded together to form a group called Law Clerks for Accountability, which is continuing to push for more reforms to the courts’ secretive complaint review system.Code of Silence also reveals the role the press plays in holding systems of power in check. Kent would not have been charged had it not been for Olsen’s reporting and the Houston Chronicle’s commitment to the story.

Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution


Gordon S. Wood - 2021
    Wood elucidates the debates over the founding documents of the United States.The half century extending from the imperial crisis between Britain and its colonies in the 1760s to the early decades of the new republic of the United States was the greatest and most creative era of constitutionalism in American history, and perhaps in the world. During these decades, Americans explored and debated all aspects of politics and constitutionalism--the nature of power, liberty, representation, rights, the division of authority between different spheres of government, sovereignty, judicial authority, and written constitutions. The results of these issues produced institutions that have lasted for over two centuries.In this new book, eminent historian Gordon S. Wood distills a lifetime of work on constitutional innovations during the Revolutionary era. In concise form, he illuminates critical events in the nation's founding, ranging from the imperial debate that led to the Declaration of Independence to the revolutionary state constitution making in 1776 and the creation of the Federal Constitution in 1787. Among other topics, he discusses slavery and constitutionalism, the emergence of the judiciary as one of the major tripartite institutions of government, the demarcation between public and private, and the formation of states' rights.Here is an immensely readable synthesis of the key era in the making of the history of the United States, presenting timely insights on the Constitution and the nation's foundational legal and political documents.

Darrow's Nightmare: The Forgotten Story of America's Most Famous Trial Lawyer (Los Angeles 1911–1913)


Nelson Johnson - 2021
    It was during this time period that Darrow was hired to represent the McNamara brothers, two union workers accused of bombing the Los Angeles Times building, an incident that resulted in twenty-one deaths and hundreds more injuries. Along with investigative journalist Lincoln Steffens, Darrow negotiated an ambitious plea bargain on behalf of the McNamara brothers. But the plan soon unraveled; before the plea bargain came to a head, Darrow was accused of attempting to bribe a juror. As Darrow himself became the defendant, what was once his shining moment in the national spotlight became a threat to the future of his career and the safety of his family.Forgotten by history books, New York Times best-selling author Nelson Johnson brings two of the most tumultuous years of Darrow’s life back to the forefront of conversation. Drawing upon the 8,500-page transcript saved from the two trials, Johnson makes Darrow’s story come to life like never before. Darrow’s Nightmare is a true story unlike any other—a historical courtroom thriller brought to life.

Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining Is a Bad Deal


Carissa Byrne Hessick - 2021
    Barkow, author of Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass IncarcerationA provocative and timely exploration of how plea bargaining prevents true criminal justice reform and how we can fix it When Americans think of the criminal justice system, the image that comes to mind is a trial-a standard court­room scene with a defendant, attorneys, a judge, and most important, a jury. It's a fair assumption. The right to a trial by jury is enshrined in both the body of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It's supposed to be the foundation that undergirds our entire justice system. But in Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining Is a Bad Deal, University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick shows that the popular conception of a jury trial couldn't be further from reality. That bed­rock constitutional right has all but disappeared thanks to the unstoppable march of plea bargaining, which began to take hold during Prohibition and has skyrocketed since 1971, when it was affirmed as constitutional by the Supreme Court. Nearly every aspect of our criminal justice system encourages defendants-whether they're innocent or guilty-to take a plea deal. Punishment Without Trial showcases how plea bargaining has undermined justice at every turn and across socioeconomic and racial divides. It forces the hand of lawyers, judges, and defendants, turning our legal system into a ruthlessly efficient mass incarceration machine that is dogging our jails and pun­ishing citizens because it's the path of least resistance. Professor Hessick makes the case against plea bargaining as she illustrates how it has damaged our justice system while presenting an innovative set of reforms for how we can fix it. An impassioned, urgent argument about the future of criminal justice reform, Punishment Without Trial will change the way you view the criminal justice system.

Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Fostered Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System


Erwin Chemerinsky - 2021
    The fact that police are nine times more likely to kill Black men than other Americans is no accident; it is the result of an elaborate body of doctrines that allow the police and courts to presume that suspects are guilty before being charged.Demonstrating how the pro-defendant Warren Court was a brief historical aberration, Erwin Chemerinsky shows how this more liberal era ended with Nixon’s presidency and the ascendance of conservative justices, whose rulings―like Terry v. Ohio and Los Angeles v. Lyons―have permitted stops and frisks, limited suits to reform police departments, and even abetted the use of choke holds. Presumed Guilty concludes that an approach to policing that continues to exalt “Dirty Harry” can be transformed only by a robust court system committed to civil rights.

The Fight for Free Speech: Ten Cases That Define Our First Amendment Freedoms


Ian Rosenberg - 2021
    What are libel laws, and do they need to be changed to stop the press from lying? Does Colin Kaepernick have the right to take a knee? Can Saturday Night Live be punished for parody? While citizens are grappling with these questions, they generally have nowhere to turn to learn about the extent of their First Amendment rights.The Fight for Free Speech answers this call with an accessible, engaging user's guide to free speech. Media lawyer Ian Rosenberg distills the spectrum of free speech law down to ten critical issues. Each chapter in this book focuses on a contemporary free speech question--from student walkouts for gun safety to Samantha Bee's expletives, from Nazis marching in Charlottesville to the muting of adult film star Stormy Daniels-- and then identifies, unpacks, and explains the key Supreme Court case that provides the answers. Together these fascinating stories create a practical framework for understanding where our free speech protections originated and how they can develop in the future. As people on all sides of the political spectrum are demanding their right to speak and be heard, The Fight for Free Speech is a handbook for combating authoritarianism, protecting our democracy, and bringing an understanding of free speech law to all.

Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court


Orville Vernon Burton - 2021
    But this narrative derives mostly from a short period, from the 1930s to the early 1970s. Before then, the Court spent a century largely ignoring or suppressing basic rights, while the fifty years since 1970 have witnessed a mostly accelerating retreat from racial justice.From the Cherokee Trail of Tears to Brown v. Board of Education to the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, historian Orville Vernon Burton and civil rights lawyer Armand Derfner shine a powerful light on the Court's race record--a legacy at times uplifting, but more often distressing and sometimes disgraceful. For nearly a century, the Court ensured that the nineteenth-century Reconstruction Amendments would not truly free and enfranchise African Americans. And the twenty-first century has seen a steady erosion of commitments to enforcing hard-won rights.Justice Deferred is the first book that comprehensively charts the Court's race jurisprudence. Addressing nearly two hundred cases involving America's racial minorities, the authors probe the parties involved, the justices' reasoning, and the impact of individual rulings. We learn of heroes such as Thurgood Marshall; villains, including Roger Taney; and enigmas like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Hugo Black. Much of the fragility of civil rights in America is due to the Supreme Court, but as this sweeping history also reminds us, the justices still have the power to make good on the country's promise of equal rights for all.

Dissent: The Radicalization of the Republican Party and Its Capture of the Court


Jackie Calmes - 2021
    Fourteen years before reaching the Supreme Court, during a three-year fight for a seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin would say to Kavanaugh, "It seems that you are the Zelig or Forrest Gump of Republican politics. You show up at every scene of the crime."Featuring revelatory new reporting and exclusive interviews, DISSENT is a harrowing look into the highest echelons of political power in the United States, and a captivating survey of the people who will do anything to have it.

Takeover: How a Conservative Student Club Captured the Supreme Court


Noah Feldman - 2021
    In TAKEOVER: How a Conservative Student Club Captured the Supreme Court, Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman and Lidia Jean Kott explore the rise of the most influential legal organization in U.S. history.Beginning in the early 1980s, when it was not exactly ‘cool’ to be a conservative law student, a small group of students started a club, named in honor of The Federalist Papers, where they could safely discuss their right-of-center views. They asked Antonin Scalia, then a professor at University of Chicago, to be their advisor and got to work advocating for an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Over the past 40 years, members of the organization have included Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Ted Cruz, Orrin Hatch, and Josh Hawley, among many other prominent politicians, public servants, and elected officials. Feldman and Kott, a producer on his Deep Background podcast, take listeners into the offices and chambers of the people who know the Federalist Society best, including founding member and current Senior Vice President Lee Liberman Otis, as well as judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals, Michael McConnell and Jeffrey Sutton. Using archival tape to provide historical context as well as interviews with current and former members, TAKEOVER illuminates how this student club has influenced many tenets of our country, from the war against the Affordable Care Act, to swinging the highest court in the land decidedly to the right and even swaying the most important elections in our democracy.

Driving While Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus the Latino Resistance


Terry Greene Sterling - 2021
    In Driving While Brown, they tell the tale of two opposing movements that redefined Arizona’s political landscape—the restrictionist cause embraced by Arpaio and the Latino-led resistance that rose up against it.The story follows Arpaio, his supporters, and his adversaries, including Lydia Guzman, who gathered evidence for a racial-profiling lawsuit that took surprising turns. Guzman joined a coalition determined to stop Arpaio, reform unconstitutional policing, and fight for Latino civil rights. Driving While Brown details Arpaio's transformation—from "America’s Toughest Sheriff," who forced inmates to wear pink underwear, into the nation’s most feared immigration enforcer who ended up receiving President Donald Trump’s first pardon. The authors immerse readers in the lives of people on both sides of the battle and uncover the deep roots of the Trump administration's immigration policies.The result of tireless investigative reporting, this powerful book provides critical insights into effective resistance to institutionalized racism and the community organizing that helped transform Arizona from a conservative stronghold into a battleground state.

The Behavioral Code: The Hidden Ways the Law Makes Us Better or Worse


Benjamin van Rooij - 2021
    And yet we keep relying on harsh punishment against crime despite its continued failure.Professors Benjamin van Rooij and Adam Fine draw on decades of research to uncover the behavioral code: the root causes and hidden forces that drive human behavior and our responses to society's laws. In doing so, they present the first accessible analysis of behavioral jurisprudence, which will fundamentally alter how we understand the connection between law and human behavior.The Behavioral Code offers a necessary and different approach to battling crime and injustice that is based in understanding the science of human misconduct--rather than relying on our instinctual drive to punish as a way to shape behavior. The book reveals the behavioral code's hidden role through illustrative examples like:- The illusion of the US's beloved tax refund - German walls that "pee back" at public urinators - The $1,000 monthly "good behavior" reward that reduced gun violence - Uber's backdoor "Greyball" app that helped the company evade Seattle's taxi regulators - A $2.3 billion legal settlement against Pfizer that revealed how whistleblower protections fail to reduce corporate malfeasance - A toxic organizational culture playing a core role in Volkswagen's emissions cheating scandal - How Peter Thiel helped Hulk Hogan sue Gawker into oblivionRevelatory and counterintuitive, The Behavioral Code catalyzes the conversation about how the law can effectively improve human conduct and respond to some of our most pressing issues today, from police misconduct to corporate malfeasance.

Power & Consent


Rachel Doyle - 2021
    Sexual harassment is rarely a ‘one off’. Perpetrators continue their harassment because they are not called to account for their actions. Silence and complicity allow recidivists to go unpunished and normalise the phenomenon of ‘getting away with it’. Perpetrators must be taught what consent means.This book demands a new response to complaints of sexual harassment; one which recognises the power of strength in numbers, the probative value of multiple complaints, and the restorative power of grievances shared. It also calls for the imposition of new obligations: it asks bystanders to become participants and to take collective responsibility for supporting victims and stopping perpetrators.

The Luckiest Guy in the World: The Political Memoir of Robert Abrams


Robert Abrams - 2021
    At the heart of this political memoir is the story of how the office of state attorney general, an historically sleepy backwater post, has evolved into a front line major protector of the rights of citizens across the country. New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams exercised leadership in organizing attorneys general throughout the nation to take collective action against the Reagan administration’s punishing laissez-faire anti-regulatory policies. Abrams and his fellow attorneys general set the precedent for the successful challenges mounted by today’s attorneys general against the Trump administration’s immigration policies and rollback of consumer and civil rights protections.        Through lively anecdotes, Abrams captures the Bronx of his childhood, his early insurgent grassroots campaigns taking on the powerful Democratic Party machine, the urban challenges of being Bronx Borough President, the turbulent Vietnam anti-war years, and the beginnings of the environmental justice movement. He revisits the explosive Tawana Brawley case where an African American teenage girl alleged rape and brutality by a group of white men that included law enforcement officials.     Abrams provides behind-the-scenes interactions with important figures ranging from Golda Meir, George McGovern, Mario Cuomo, Robert Moses, and Cesar Chavez to Shirley Chisholm. The book demonstrates how ordinary people battling unequal odds against corporate and other powerful forces can prevail when laws are enforced to protect their rights. A chapter about the infamous Love Canal case details the shocking revelation that buried beneath the seemingly placid upstate New York working class community lay tons of toxic waste spawning chronic health problems for residents. Abrams in a landmark lawsuit took on Occidental Petroleum for its callous actions, paved the way for the passage of the Superfund Act and a victory for the emerging environmental justice movement. He describes dramatic confrontations with the radical anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue, and its increasingly violent efforts to deny a woman’s right to choose. His courageous, path-breaking support of LGBT rights, seeking to end the prevailing bigotry with legal victories that ultimately led to marriage equality is also revisited.   In The Luckiest Guy in the World, Robert Abrams wears his progressive values on his sleeve, providing an optimistic view about our nation’s return to its fundamental values.

The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit


Randy E. Barnett - 2021
    Yet, according to Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick, the Supreme Court has long misunderstood or ignored the original meaning of the amendment's key clauses, covering the privileges and immunities of citizenship, due process of law, and the equal protection of the laws.Barnett and Bernick contend that the Fourteenth Amendment was the culmination of decades of debates about the meaning of the antebellum Constitution. Antislavery advocates advanced arguments informed by natural rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the common law. They also utilized what is today called public-meaning originalism. Although their arguments lost in the courts, the Republican Party was formed to advance an antislavery political agenda, eventually bringing about abolition. Then, when abolition alone proved insufficient to thwart Southern repression and provide for civil equality, the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted. It went beyond abolition to enshrine in the Constitution the concept of Republican citizenship and granted Congress power to protect fundamental rights and ensure equality before the law. Finally, Congress used its powers to pass Reconstruction-era civil rights laws that tell us much about the original scope of the amendment.With evenhanded attention to primary sources, The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment shows how the principles of the Declaration eventually came to modify the Constitution and proposes workable doctrines for implementing the key provisions of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Political Killings in Mamata's Bengal: A White Paper on Violence Against the Opposition


Shubham Tiwari - 2021
    Hope, people across the country understand what actually "Khela Habe" means on ground in West Bengal. Dr. Anirban Ganguly Director, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, New Delhi“I have been on the ground in Bengal for the past several months. People should travel to Bengal to see how dangerous is the exercise of democratic will here. Read this report to understand how democracy and rule of law have been endangered in the state.” Pradeep BhandariPsephologist, Founder, Jan Ki BaatThe families of Rajesh Sarkar and Tapas Burman, instead of cremating their dead, have buried their bodies hoping for justice at some point in future. In Anup Kumar Roy’s case, the courts ordered a third post-mortem, which is yet to be carried out.Political violence in the State of West Bengal has been an unfortunate element of its public life. This has carried over from when the State was being ruled by the Left Front. Allegations of the State machinery being used against the political opposition by the ruling dispensation abound. The authors of this book take a detailed look at the violence during the current ruling dispensation of Mamata Banerjee’s TMC. They find that the criminal justice system has virtually been dismantled in the State in so far as political killings are concerned. The book enumerates a total of 126 cases, the information for which is available in public domain.

Capitalism as Civilisation: A History of International Law


Ntina Tzouvala - 2021
    

My Little Golden Book about Kamala Harris


Rajani LaRocca - 2021
    Help your little one dream big with a Little Golden Book biography all about the first female Vice President Kamala Harris! The perfect introduction to nonfiction for preschoolers!This Little Golden Book about Kamala Harris--the first woman, first African American woman, and first Indian American woman to be elected Vice President of the United States--is an inspiring read-aloud for young girls and boys.Read all the Little Golden Book biographies: My Little Golden Book About Kamala Harris, My Little Golden Book About Frida Kahlo, My Little Golden Book About Ruth Bader Ginsburg, My Little Golden Book About Betty White, My Little Golden Book About Jackie Robinson, My Little Golden Book About Martin Luther King Jr., My Little Golden Book About George Washington, My Little Golden Book About Abraham Lincoln, My Little Golden Book About Balto, and My Little Golden Book About Johnny Appleseed.

Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue: A Life's Work Fighting for a More Perfect Union


Ruth Bader Ginsburg - 2021
    Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue is the result of a period of collaboration between Ginsburg and Amanda L. Tyler, a Berkeley Law professor and former Ginsburg law clerk. During Justice Ginsburg's visit to Berkeley, she told her life story in conversation with Tyler. In this collection, the two bring together that conversation and other materials—many previously unpublished—that share details from Justice Ginsburg's family life and long career. These include notable briefs and oral arguments, some of Ginsburg's last speeches, and her favorite opinions that she wrote as a Supreme Court Justice (many in dissent), along with the statements that she read from the bench in those important cases. Each document was chosen by Ginsburg and Tyler to tell the story of the litigation strategy and optimistic vision that were at the heart of Ginsburg's unwavering commitment to the achievement of "a more perfect Union."   In a decades-long career, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an advocate and jurist for gender equality and for ensuring that the United States Constitution leaves no person behind. Her work transformed not just the American legal landscape, but American society more generally. Ginsburg labored tirelessly to promote a Constitution that is ever more inclusive and that allows every individual to achieve their full human potential. As revealed in these pages, in the area of gender rights, Ginsburg dismantled long-entrenched systems of discrimination based on outdated stereotypes by showing how such laws hold back both genders. And as also shown in the materials brought together here, Justice Ginsburg had a special ability to appreciate how the decisions of the high court impact the lived experiences of everyday Americans. The passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020 as this book was heading into production was met with a public outpouring of grief. With her death, the country lost a hero and national treasure whose incredible life and legacy made the United States a more just society and one in which “We the People,” for whom the Constitution is written, includes everyone.

The Justices Behind Roe V. Wade: The Inside Story, Adapted from The Brethren


Bob Woodward - 2021
    

Law in a Time of Crisis


Jonathan Sumption - 2021
    In crises the law sets the boundaries of what the government can and should do. But in a country without a written constitution such as the UK, the precise limits between legal obligation and convention can be hazy. Conventions, such as the Prime Minister being an MP, can not be enforced in the same way as laws.What are the limits of law in politics? What is the relationship between law and the constitution? Is not having a constitution a hindrance or a help in time of crisis? Former supreme court judge Jonathan Sumption wrestles with past, current and potential crises that this increasingly divided country faces. From the role of the Supreme Court to the uses of referenda to the rise of nationalisms within the United Kingdom, Sumption exposes the subtleties, uses, and abuses of legal and judicial interventions. With razor sharp intelligence and far-reaching analysis he counsels caution both in our impulse to radically upend the system and to challenge results that we may not be what we want.

Gendered Citizenship: The Original Conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment, 1920–1963


Rebecca DeWolf - 2021
    As the first comprehensive, full-length history of that struggle, this study grapples not only with the battle over women’s constitutional status but also with the more than forty-year mission to articulate the boundaries of what it means to be an American citizen. Through an examination of an array of primary source materials, Gendered Citizenship contends that the original ERA conflict is best understood as the terrain that allowed Americans to reconceptualize citizenship to correspond with women’s changing status after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Finally, Rebecca DeWolf considers the struggle over the ERA in a new light: focusing not on the familiar theme of why the ERA failed to gain enactment, but on how the debates transcended traditional liberal versus conservative disputes in early to mid-twentieth-century America. The conflict, DeWolf reveals, ultimately became the defining narrative for the changing nature of American citizenship in the era.

Sweating in the Land of Smiles: Living in Bangkok During the Year of Radical Change


Aldo A. Quintana - 2021
    We’ll discover the Bangkok way of doing things through my observations and conversations with some Thai locals. You'll get an honest account of my experience living in a city with ten and a half million people.In this book, I don’t advocate for people to pack their bags and leave everything behind. The grass isn’t always greener. We must endure hardships different from the ones back home. Consider that the chapters aren't research-based or a how-to manual to get by. I don't know the nuts and bolts about Thai culture or the Bangkok lifestyle either.If you’re open-minded and want to swim in a book that’s not the usual stuff in Amazon’s library, then this read might do the job. You’ll at least learn some interesting things about Bangkok and Thai culture that you won’t get in textbooks. Who doesn’t like to stimulate their mind and broaden their horizons?

The Case of the Crimson Kiss (Perry Mason)


Erle Stanley Gardner - 2021
    

Intellectual Freedom Manual: Tenth Edition


Martin Garnar - 2021
    It is a living document that serves as the authoritative reference for day-to-day guidance on maintaining free and equal access to information for all people. Whether you're developing or revising policies, on-boarding new staff or trustees, responding to challenges and controversies, or studying librarianship, you'll find this an indispensable resource, with features such asALA policy statements, approved by committees and Council, articulating core intellectual freedom principles and best practices; 8 new interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights, which address urgent issues like internet filtering, public performances, political activity, religion, and equity, diversity, and inclusion; "Issues at a Glance" sidebars which present key concepts, points of law, tips, and questions for reflection; expanded content about developing library policies that support intellectual freedom; updated information on censorship of library programs, displays, and databases; "Advocacy and Assistance," a section offering concrete guidance when you're called on to talk to the media or meet with legislators; Deeper Look essays which examine the laws related to library operations; advice on when to call the police, when not to, and how to handle personally identifiable information when they arrive; and an expanded glossary.

The Truth about the O.J. Simpson Trial: By the Architect of the Defense


F. Lee Bailey - 2021
    Simpson Trial by legendary Defense Attorney F. Lee Bailey It was called "The Trial of the Century." Beloved football sensation, O.J. Simpson was famous for his prowess on the field, his good looks, his charm, and for running through airports on TV commercials. But all that changed the night his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman were brutally slaughtered in her front yard late at night on June 12, 1994. The media circus that consumed the news cycle for the next eighteen months would forever change the world's opinion of O.J. Simpson, despite the fact that when the jury, after nearly a year of sequestration, came to their decision in just a few hours: Not Guilty. Half the public was convinced he'd gotten away with murder. The other half was equally convinced that the LAPD had, at best, bungled evidence, rushed to judgement, and that the State of California had prosecuted an innocent man while the real killer or killers got away. At worst, they felt the LAPD intentionally, through bias and mishandling and possibly even planting evidence, tried to pin the heinous crime on Simpson. Although at least a dozen books have been written about the O.J. Simpson trial, from every possible perspective from scholarly to sensationalistic, The Truth About the O.J. Simpson Trial is the most revealing of the lot, partly because the writer was the Architect of the Defense, F. Lee Bailey. This account takes readers from the events of the night of the murders all the way to acquittal, including links to the full trial transcript, made available for the first time in one place on his website.  The Simpson case is an extreme example of how evidence and intention can be twisted to influence public opinion against the innocent, branding them for life as guilty of a crime they did not commit. Even now, twenty-five years later, the stigma, financial ruin, and assumed guilt shattered yet another life in the wake of tragedy.    Bailey shows definitively why the jury was correct in finding that the timeline of the evening made Simpson’s presence at the murder scene impossible, which eclipses the question “Did he do it?” and establishes that he simply could not have done it. This book reveals shocking evidence of mishandling of blood samples and other materials that formed the basis of the prosecution's case. Bailey includes convincing evidence that was not presented at the trial--including interviews, forensic results, and revelations about the case that have since been made. It brings many of the other principals – counsel, judge and witnesses – to life with fresh insights.  Scathing, controversial, and, yes, entertaining, The Truth About the OJ Simpson Trial will be read and studied by anyone interested in defending the innocent, the history of law enforcement in America, students of the Law, and all those who are still obsessed with "The Trial of the Century."

Moving the Bar


Michael Ratner - 2021
    He worked for more than four decades at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) becoming first the Director of Litigation and then the President of what Alexander Cockburn called “a small band of tigerish people.” He was also the President of the National Lawyers Guild.Ratner handled some of the most significant cases In American history. This book tells why and how he did it.His last case, which he worked on until he died, was representing truth-telling whistleblower and now political prisoner Julian Assange, the editor of WikiLeaks.Ratner “moved the bar” by organizing some 600 lawyers to successfully defend habeas corpus, that is, the ancient right of someone accused of a crime to have a lawyer and to be brought before a judge.Michael had a piece of paper taped on the wall next to his desk at the CCR. It read:4 key principles of being a radical lawyer:1. Do not refuse to take a case just because it is long odds of winning in court.2. Use cases to publicize a radical critique of US policy and to promote revolutionary transformation.3. Combine legal work with political advocacy.4. Love people.Compelling and instructive, Moving the Bar is an indispensable manual for the next generation of activists and their lawyers.

Representing Radicals: A Guide for Lawyers and Movements


Tilted Scales Collective - 2021
    Representing Radicals is a concise and practical manual that will play an invaluable role in facilitating the cooperation between movement defendants and their counsel in the many struggles to come.” — Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist HandbookRepresenting Radicals helps lawyers understand ways to work with radical defendants, with an explicit focus on how to help them achieve ends that go beyond traditional legal goals. For example, many radical defendants want to use their trials to discuss political issues even if doing so could lead to a conviction when a standard criminal defense might lead to an acquittal. Understanding radical defendants’ goals and political priorities is a crucial part of providing them with the most robust criminal defense while helping them strengthen and defend their social movements. This book and its precursor, A Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant, are based on the Tilted Scales Collective’s belief that lawyers and radical defendants can work together in shared struggle in ways that strengthen movements when fighting criminal charges.

Credit Nation: Property Laws and Institutions in Early America


Claire Priest - 2021
    Credit Nation examines how the drive to expand credit shaped property laws and legal institutions in the colonial and founding eras of the republic.In this major new history of early America, Claire Priest describes how the British Parliament departed from the customary ways that English law protected land and inheritance, enacting laws for the colonies that privileged creditors by defining land and slaves as commodities available to satisfy debts. Colonial governments, in turn, created local legal institutions that enabled people to further leverage their assets to obtain credit. Priest shows how loans backed with slaves as property fueled slavery from the colonial era through the Civil War, and that increased access to credit was key to the explosive growth of capitalism in nineteenth-century America.Credit Nation presents a new vision of American economic history, one where credit markets and liquidity were prioritized from the outset, where property rights and slaves became commodities for creditors' claims, and where legal institutions played a critical role in the Stamp Act crisis and other political episodes of the founding period.

Know Your Rights: The Law in 60 Seconds


Christian Weaver - 2021
    Until they're used against us. Knowing our rights means taking control of our lives.In this handbook, lawyer Christian Weaver brings together everything you need to know to claim your space in the world. Whether you are arguing with your landlord, looking for a refund, going to a protest or being harassed, this essential guide illuminates the full power of the law, and arms you with your rights, including:- in a relationship- at home- out on the street- when you've spent money, owe it or are owed itFrom housing to relationships, police conduct to travel, this guide will give you the confidence and clarity to take control in any situation.

Standoff: Why Reconciliation Fails Indigenous People and How to Fix It


Bruce McIvor - 2021
    In this series of concise and thoughtful essays, lawyer and historian Bruce McIvor explains why reconciliation with Indigenous peoples is failing and what needs to be done to fix it.Widely known as a passionate advocate for Indigenous rights, McIvor reports from the front lines of legal and political disputes that have gripped the nation. From Wet’suwet’en opposition to a pipeline in northern British Columbia, to Mi’kmaw exercising their fishing rights in Nova Scotia, McIvor has been actively involved in advising First Nation clients, fielding industry and non-Indigenous opposition to true reconciliation, and explaining to government officials why their policies are failing.McIvor’s essays are honest and heartfelt. In clear, plain language he explains the historical and social forces that underpin the development of Indigenous law, criticizes the current legal shortcomings and charts a practical, principled way forward.By weaving in personal stories of growing up Métis on the fringes of the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba and representing First Nations in court and negotiations, McIvor brings to life the human side of the law and politics surrounding Indigenous peoples’ ongoing struggle for fairness and justice. His writing covers many of the most important issues that have become part of a national dialogue, including systemic racism, treaty rights, violence against Indigenous people, Métis identity, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) and the duty to consult.McIvor’s message is consistent and powerful: if Canadians are brave enough to confront the reality of the country’s colonialist past and present and insist that politicians replace empty promises with concrete, meaningful change, there is a realistic path forward based on respect, recognition and the implementation of Indigenous rights.

Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive


Stephen Skowronek - 2021
    In the process, two once-obscure concepts came center stage in an eerie faceoff. On one side was the specter of a Deep State conspiracy--administrators threatening to thwart the will of thepeople and undercut the constitutional authority of the president they elected to lead them. On the other side was a raw personalization of presidential power, one that a theory of the unitary executive gussied up and allowed to run roughshod over reason and the rule of law. The Deep State and theunitary executive framed every major contest of the Trump presidency. Like phantom twins, they drew each other out.These conflicts are not new. Stephen Skowronek, John A. Dearborn, and Desmond King trace the tensions between presidential power and the depth of the American state back through the decades and forward through the various settlements arrived at in previous eras. Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic isabout the breakdown of settlements and the abiding vulnerabilities of a Constitution that gave scant attention to administrative power. Rather than simply dump on Trump, the authors provide a richly historical perspective on the conflicts that rocked his presidency, and they explain why, if leftuntamed, the phantom twins will continue to pull the American government apart.

Outside the Camp: On Sickness, Quarantine, & Biblical Law


Jason M. Garwood - 2021
    This was especially true as time went on and the narrative evolved. However, it wasn't just a mass of confusion from the U.S. government and media outlets; many Christians were and are to this day unsure of how to approach medical ethics. Should Christians simply do whatever the "experts" tell them? Does the civil magistrate have jurisdiction over so-called "public health"? What about the leprosy passage in Leviticus 13 & 14 -- can this be used as a guide for developing public health policies? In this short book, Dr. Jason Garwood revisits the Levitical passage and makes the case that no, the magistrate has no authority or jurisdiction over public health. Rather than making assumptions about the leprosy passage, it is our Christian duty to draw the proper lines as we seek to teach the nations how to obey Christ.

Lakefront: Public Trust and Private Rights in Chicago


Joseph D Kearney - 2021
    Kearney and Thomas W. Merrill study the lakefront's evolution from the middle of the nineteenth century to the twenty-first. Their findings have significance for understanding not only Chicago's history but also the law's part in determining the future of significant urban resources such as waterfronts.The Chicago lakefront is where the American public trust doctrine, holding certain public resources off limits to private development, was born. This book describes the circumstances that gave rise to the doctrine and its fluctuating importance over time, and reveals how it was resurrected in the later twentieth century to become the primary principle for mediating clashes between public and private lakefront rights. Lakefront compares the effectiveness of the public trust idea to other property doctrines, and assesses the role of the law as compared to more institutional developments, such as the emergence of sanitary commissions and park districts, in securing the protection of the lakefront for public uses.By charting its history, Kearney and Merrill demonstrate that the lakefront's current status is in part a product of individuals and events unique to Chicago. But technological changes, and a transformation in social values in favor of recreational and preservationist uses, also have been critical. Throughout, the law, while also in a state of continual change, has played at least a supporting role.

Wildlife as Property Owners: A New Conception of Animal Rights


Karen Bradshaw - 2021
    People drink the same water, breathe the same air, and share the same land as other animals. Yet, property law reflects a general assumption that only people can own land. The effects of this presumption are disastrous for wildlife and humans alike. The alarm bells ringing about biodiversity loss are growing louder, and the possibility of mass extinction is real. Anthropocentric property is a key driver of biodiversity loss, a silent killer of species worldwide. But as law and sustainability scholar Karen Bradshaw shows, if excluding animals from a legal right to own land is causing their destruction, extending the legal right to own property to wildlife may prove its salvation. Wildlife as Property Owners advocates for folding animals into our existing system of property law, giving them the opportunity to own land just as humans do—to the betterment of all.

A Dead Body Never Lies


Rohayu Binti Shahar Adnan - 2021
    Dr Rohayu, a forensic pathologist, knows she has a duty to the dead and lives by the statement, ‘a dead body never lies’. She has taken the unsaid oath to be the voice of and safeguard the ones who are not able to tell their story. With Malaysia’s diverse melting pot of race, culture, and religion, Dr Rohayu has been through a plethora of extraordinary scenarios. Despite the social stigmas and taboos that come into play, Dr Rohayu is committed to seek justice and provide closure. A food enthusiast with an infectious bubbly demeanor, Dr Rohayu never fails to bring a little flare into her field of work. With the help of her co-author Fatin, they have transformed her work into a compelling piece of art for the world to see and understand.No doubt in Dr Rohayu and Fatin’s mind, every single person deserves to be heard, the right to love, and freedom to be their true self. With a combination of science and empathy, they have created a unique piece

Crossing: How We Label and React to People on the Move


Rebecca Hamlin - 2021
    Immigration laws have developed to reinforce a dichotomy between those viewed as voluntary, often economically motivated, migrants who can be legitimately excluded by potential host states, and those viewed as forced, often politically motivated, refugees who should be let in. In Crossing, Rebecca Hamlin argues against advocacy positions that cling to this distinction. Everything we know about people who decide to move suggests that border crossing is far more complicated than any binary, or even a continuum, can encompass. Drawing on cases of various border crises across Europe, North America, South America, and the Middle East, Hamlin outlines major inconsistencies and faulty assumptions on which the binary relies. The migrant/refugee binary is not just an innocuous shorthand--indeed, its power stems from the way in which it is painted as apolitical. In truth, the binary is a dangerous legal fiction, politically constructed with the ultimate goal of making harsh border control measures more ethically palatable to the public. This book is a challenge to all those invested in the rights and study of migrants to move toward more equitable advocacy for all border crossers.

Paving the Way: The First American Women Law Professors


Herma Hill Kay - 2021
    When it comes to breaking down barriers for women in the workplace, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s name speaks volumes for itself—but, as she clarifies in the foreword to this long-awaited book, there are too many trailblazing names we do not know. Herma Hill Kay, former Dean of UC Berkeley School of Law and Ginsburg’s closest professional colleague, wrote Paving the Way to tell the stories of the first fourteen female law professors at ABA- and AALS-accredited law schools in the United States. Kay, who became the fifteenth such professor, labored over the stories of these women in order to provide an essential history of their path for the more than 2,000 women working as law professors today and all of their feminist colleagues.   Because Herma Hill Kay, who died in 2017, was able to obtain so much first-hand information about the fourteen women who preceded her, Paving the Way is filled with details, quiet and loud, of each of their lives and careers from their own perspectives. Kay wraps each story in rich historical context, lest we forget the extraordinarily difficult times in which these women lived. Paving the Way is not just a collection of individual stories of remarkable women but also a well-crafted interweaving of law and society during a historical period when women’s voices were often not heard and sometimes actively muted. The final chapter connects these first fourteen women to the “second wave” of women law professors who achieved tenure-track appointments in the 1960s and 1970s, carrying on the torch and analogous challenges. This is a decidedly feminist project, one that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg advocated for tirelessly and admired publicly in the years before her death.

Immigration Matters: Movements, Visions, and Strategies for a Progressive Future


Ruth Milkman - 2021
    In the Trump years, preoccupied with each crisis upon crisis, advocates had few opportunities to consider questions of long-term policy or future strategy. Now is the time for a reset.Immigration Matters offers a new, actionable vision for immigration policy. It brings together key movement leaders and academics in the immigration space to share cutting-edge approaches to the question of America's borders--who should be allowed in, and who, if anyone, should be kept out. The book delves into topics including new ways to frame immigration issues, fresh thinking on key aspects of policy, challenges of integration, workers' rights, family re-unification, legalization, paths to citizenship, and humane enforcement.The perfect handbook for immigration activists, scholars, policy makers, and anyone who cares about one of the most contentious issues of our age, Immigration Matters makes accessible an immigration policy that both remediates the harm done to immigrant workers and communities under Trump and advances a bold new vision for the future.

Law's Abnegation


Adrian Vermeule - 2021
    But over time, the arc of law has bent steadily toward deference to the administrative state. Adrian Vermeule argues that law has freely abandoned its imperial pretensions, and has done so for internal legal reasons.In area after area, judges and lawyers, working out the logical implications of legal principles, have come to believe that administrators should be granted broad leeway to set policy, determine facts, interpret ambiguous statutes, and even define the boundaries of their own jurisdiction. Agencies have greater democratic legitimacy and technical competence to confront many issues than lawyers and judges do. And as the questions confronting the state involving climate change, terrorism, and biotechnology (to name a few) have become ever more complex, legal logic increasingly indicates that abnegation is the wisest course of action.As Law's Abnegation makes clear, the state did not shove law out of the way. The judiciary voluntarily relegated itself to the margins of power. The last and greatest triumph of legalism was to depose itself.

Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners


Roland Boer - 2021
    In short, the resolute focus is the Reform and Opening-Up.Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is one of the most important global realities today. However, the concept and its practice remain largely misunderstood outside China. This book sets to redress such a lack of knowledge, by making available to non-Chinese speakers the sophisticated debates and conclusions in China concerning socialism with Chinese Characteristics. It presents this material in a way that is both accessible and thorough.

Listen to My Case! When Women Approach the Courts of Tamil Nadu


Justice K Chandru - 2021
    Chandru, former judge of the Madras High Court, heard many cases in his illustrious career and passed landmark judgments on them – over 54,000 in fact. Among these are rulings on common burial grounds irrespective of caste, community-based reservation in noon meal centres, women becoming priests in temples, dispensing with police permission to stage plays, and more.In twenty short accounts of such cases, Justice Chandru recounts how bold and courageous women, by approaching the law for redressal of wrongs done to them, have not only contributed to the fight for social justice, but have broadened and enriched the very meaning of justice.Justice K. Chandru is a retired judge of the Madras High Court, famous for his moral rectitude. Among other things, he was one of the first judges to declare his assets to the Chief Justice; he refused to have a red beacon on his official car or a sub-inspector ranked personal security guard; he refused to be addressed as 'My Lord' in court; and surrendered his official car on the morning of his retirement, going home by public transport that evening. He passed many landmark judgements, many in favour of the underprivileged or marginalised sections of society.‘This is a book about brave women. Brave – because the process of going to court is hard; even harder when the woman is without financial or emotional support from family, custom, or the present reading of the law. It speaks powerfully to every woman, and everyone who abhors gender-based discrimination.’ – Githa Hariharan, novelist

Justice on the Brink: The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Rise of Amy Coney Barrett, and Twelve Months That Transformed the Supreme Court


Linda Greenhouse - 2021
    The predictions that the court would move irrevocably to the far right hadn't come to pass, as the justices released surprisingly moderate opinions in cases involving abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and how local governments could respond to the pandemic, all shepherded by Chief Justice John Roberts. By the end of the 2020-21 term, much about the nation's highest court had changed. The right-wing supermajority had completed its first term on the bench, cementing Donald Trump's legacy on American jurisprudence.This is the story of those twelve months. From the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the rise of Amy Coney Barrett, from the pandemic to the election, from the Trump campaign's legal challenges to the ongoing debate about the role of religion in American life, the Supreme Court has been at the center of many of the biggest events of the year, with the liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer outnumbered six to three. Throughout Justice on the Brink, legendary journalist Linda Greenhouse, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her Supreme Court coverage, 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.Ultimately, Greenhouse asks a fundamental question relevant to all Americans: Is this still John Roberts's Supreme Court, or does the court now belong to Donald Trump?

Cyber Law and Ethics: Regulation of the Connected World


Mark Grabowski - 2021
    The authors, experienced in journalism, technology and legal practice, provide readers with expert insights into the nuts and bolts of cyber law.Cyber Law and Ethics: Regulation of the Connected World provides a practical presentation of legal principles, and the book is essential reading for non-specialist students dealing with the intersection of the internet and the law.

The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law


Amal Clooney - 2021
    The book provides a comprehensive explanation of what the right to a fair trial means in practice under international law and focuses on factual scenarios that practitioners and judges in court face.Each of the book's fifteen chapters deal with one component of the right to a fair trial as defined in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Highlighting both consensus and divisions in the international jurisprudence in this area, this book provides a valuable resource to practitioners and scholars dealing with breaches of one of the most fundamental human rights.

The Accidental History of the U.S. Immigration Courts: War, Fear, and the Roots of Dysfunction


Alison Peck - 2021
    During the Trump administration, the immigration courts were decried as more politicized enforcement weapon than impartial tribunal. Yet few people are aware of a fundamental flaw in the system that has long pre-dated that administration: The immigration courts are not really “courts” at all but an office of the Department of Justice—the nation’s law enforcement agency.   This original and surprising diagnosis shows how paranoia sparked by World War II and the War on Terror drove the structure of the immigration courts. Focusing on previously unstudied decisions in the Roosevelt and Bush administrations, the narrative laid out in this book divulges both the human tragedy of our current immigration court system and the human crises that led to its creation. Moving the reader from understanding to action, Alison Peck offers a lens through which to evaluate contemporary bills and proposals to reform our immigration court system. Peck provides an accessible legal analysis of recent events to make the case for independent immigration courts, proposing that the courts be moved into an independent, Article I court system. As long as the immigration courts remain under the authority of the attorney general, the administration of immigration justice will remain a game of political football—with people’s very lives on the line.

Discordant Notes, Volume 1: The Voice of Dissent in The Last Court of Resort


Rohinton F Nariman - 2021
    

Underwriters of the United States: How Insurance Shaped the American Founding


Hannah Farber - 2021
    The international information they gathered and the capital they generated enabled them to play central roles in state building and economic development. During the Revolution, they helped the U.S. negotiate foreign loans, sell state debts, and establish a single national bank. Afterward, they increased their influence by lending money to the federal government and to its citizens. Even as federal and state governments began to encroach on their domain, maritime insurers adapted, preserving their autonomy and authority through extensive involvement in the formation of commercial law. Leveraging their claims to unmatched expertise, they operated free from government interference while simultaneously embedding themselves into the nation's institutional fabric. By the early nineteenth century, insurers were no longer just risk assessors. They were nation builders and market makers. Deeply and imaginatively researched, Underwriters of the United States uses marine insurers to reveal a startlingly original story of risk, money, and power in the founding era

Carceral Con: The Deceptive Terrain of Criminal Justice Reform


Kay Whitlock - 2021
      Public opposition to the structural racist, gendered, and economic violence that fuels the criminal legal system is reaching a critical mass. Ignited by popular uprisings, protests, and campaigns against state violence, demands for transformational change have escalated. In response, a now deeply entrenched so-called bipartisan industry has staked its claim to the reform terrain. Representing itself as a sensible bridge across bitterly polarized political divides and party lines, the bipartisan reform industry has sought to control the nature and scope of local, state, and federal reforms. Along the way, it creates an expanding web of neoliberal public-private partnerships, with the promotion and implementation of efforts managed by billionaires, public officials, policy factories, foundations, universities, and mega nonprofit organizations. Yet many bipartisan reforms constitute deceptive sleights of hand that not only fail to produce justice but actively reproduce structural racial and economic inequality.  Carceral Con pulls the veil away from the reform public relations machine, providing a riveting overview of the repressive US carceral state and a critical examination of the reform terrain, quagmires, and choices that face us. This book vividly illustrates how contemporary bipartisan reform agendas leave the structural apparatus of mass incarceration intact while widening the net of carceral control and surveillance. Readers are also provided with information and insights useful for examining the likely impacts of reforms today and in the future. What can we learn from reforms of the past? What strategies hold most promise for dismantling structural inequalities, corporate control, and state violence? What approaches will reduce reliance on carceral control and also bring about community safety? Utilizing an abolitionist lens, Carceral Con makes the compelling case for liberatory approaches to envisioning and creating a just society.

The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder: The First Amendment and the Censor's Dilemma


Robert Corn-Revere - 2021
    This book explains how the same tactics were tried and eventually failed in the twentieth century, with efforts to censor music, comic books, television, and other forms of popular entertainment. The historic examples illustrate not just the mindset and tactics of censors, but why they are the ultimate counterculture warriors and why, in free societies, censors never occupy the moral high ground. This book is for anyone who wants to know more about why freedom of speech is important and how protections for free expression became part of the American identity

Kings as Judges: Power, Justice, and the Origins of Parliaments


Deborah Boucoyannis - 2021
    Common to these strands is the belief that representation resulted from weak ruling powers needing to concede rights to powerful social groups. Boucoyannis argues instead that representative institutions were a product of state strength, specifically the capacity to deliver justice across social groups. Enduring and inclusive representative parliaments formed when rulers could exercise power over the most powerful actors in the land and compel them to serve and, especially, to tax them. The language of rights deemed distinctive to the West emerged in response to more effectively imposed collective obligations, especially on those with most power.

Redistributing the Poor: Jails, Hospitals, and the Crisis of Law and Fiscal Austerity


Armando Lara-Mill�n - 2021
    It is widely believed that because we as a society have dis-invested from public health, the sick and poor now find themselves within the purview of criminal justice institutions. InRedistributing the Poor, ethnographer and historical sociologist Armando Lara-Mill�n takes us into the day-to-day operations of running the largest hospital and jail system in the world and argues that such received wisdom is a drastic mischaracterization of the way that states govern urban povertyat the turn of the 21st century. Rather than focus on our underinvestment of health and overinvestment of criminal justice, his idea of redistributing the poor draws attention to how state agencies circulate people between different institutional spaces in such a way that generates revenue forsome agencies, cuts costs for others, and projects illusions that services have been legally rendered. By centering the state's use of redistribution, Lara-Mill�n shows how certain forms of social suffering-the premature death of mainly poor, people of color-are not a result of the state's failureto act, but instead the necessary outcome of so-called successful policy.

Private Wrongs


Arthur Ripstein - 2021
    A person walks on another person's land. A moored boat damages a dock during a storm. A frustrated neighbor bangs on the wall. A reputation is ruined by a mistaken news report. Although the details vary, the law recognizes all of these as torts, different ways in which one person wrongs another. Tort law can seem puzzling: sometimes people are made to pay damages when they are barely or not at fault, while at other times serious losses go uncompensated. In this pioneering book, Arthur Ripstein brings coherence and unity to the baffling diversity of tort law in an original theory that is philosophically grounded and analytically powerful.Ripstein shows that all torts violate the basic moral idea that each individual is in charge of his or her own person and property, and never in charge of another individual's person or property. Battery and trespass involve one person wrongly using another's body or things, while negligence injures others by imposing risks to them in ways that are inconsistent with their independence. Tort remedies aim to provide a substitute for the right that was violated.As Private Wrongs makes clear, tort law not only protects our bodies and property but constitutes our entitlement to use them as we see fit, consistent with the entitlement of others to do the same.

Rocking Qualitative Social Science: An Irreverent Guide to Rigorous Research


Ashley T. Rubin - 2021
    This figure provides an apt analogy for the scholar at the center of this unique book. In Rocking Qualitative Social Science, Ashley Rubin provides an entertaining treatise, corrective vision, and rigorously informative guidebook for qualitative research methods that have long been dismissed in deference to traditional scientific methods. Recognizing the steep challenges facing many, especially junior, social science scholars who struggle to adapt their research models to narrowly defined notions of "right," Rubin argues that properly nourished qualitative research can generate important, creative, and even paradigm-shifting insights. This book is designed to help people conduct good qualitative research, talk about their research, and evaluate other scholars' work. Drawing on her own experiences in research and life, Rubin provides tools for qualitative scholars, synthesizes the best advice, and addresses the ubiquitous problem of anxiety in academia. Ultimately, this book argues that rigorous research can be anything but rigid.

Atrocities in Action


Kevin P. Winn - 2021
    Atrocities in Action explores the various forms of violent and cruel oppression Black people have endured over the years in a comprehensive, honest, and age-appropriate way. Developed in conjunction with educator, advocate, and author Kelisa Wing to reach children of all races and encourage them to approach our history with open eyes and minds. Books include 21st Century Skills and content, as well as activities created by Wing. Also includes a table of contents, glossary, index, author biography, sidebars, educational matter, and activities.

Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain: Migration and the Making of the United States


Samantha Seeley - 2021
    The result was a white Republic, purposefully constructed through contentious legal, political, and diplomatic negotiation. But, as Samantha Seeley demonstrates, removal, like the right to remain, was a battle fought on multiple fronts. It encompassed tribal leaders' fierce determination to expel white settlers from Native lands and free African Americans' legal maneuvers both to remain within the states that sought to drive them out and to carve out new lives in the West. Never losing sight of the national implications of regional conflicts, Seeley brings us directly to the battlefield, to middle states poised between the edges of slavery and freedom where removal was both warmly embraced and hotly contested.Reorienting the history of U.S. expansion around Native American and African American histories, Seeley provides a much-needed reconsideration of early nation building.

The First Fifteen: How Asian American Women Became Federal Judges


Susan Oki Mollway - 2021
    It took ten years for the second Asian woman to be appointed. Since then, however, over a dozen more Asian women have received lifetime federal judicial appointments.   This book tells the stories of the first fifteen. In the process, it recounts remarkable tales of Asian women overcoming adversity and achieving the American dream, despite being the daughters of a Chinese garment worker, Japanese Americans held in internment camps during World War II, Vietnamese refugees, and penniless Indian immigrants. Yet The First Fifteen also explores how far Asian Americans and women still have to go before the federal judiciary reflects America as a whole.    In a candid series of interviews, these judges reflect upon the personal and professional experiences that led them to this distinguished position, as well as the nerve-wracking political process of being nominated and confirmed for an Article III judgeship. By sharing their diverse stories, The First Fifteen paints a nuanced portrait of how Asian American women are beginning to have a voice in determining American justice.

Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity


Christopher Ali - 2021
    broadband policy to solve the rural-urban digital divide, with a proposal for a new national rural broadband plan.As much of daily life migrates online, broadband--high-speed internet connectivity--has become a necessity. The widespread lack of broadband in rural America has created a stark urban-rural digital divide. In Farm Fresh Broadband, Christopher Ali analyzes the promise and the failure of national rural broadband policy in the United States and proposes a new national broadband plan. He examines how broadband policies are enacted and implemented, explores business models for broadband providers, surveys the technologies of rural broadband, and offers case studies of broadband use in the rural Midwest. Ali argues that rural broadband policy is both broken and incomplete: broken because it lacks coordinated federal leadership and incomplete because it fails to recognize the important roles of communities, cooperatives, and local providers in broadband access. For example, existing policies favor large telecommunication companies, crowding out smaller, nimbler providers. Lack of competition drives prices up--rural broadband can cost 37 percent more than urban broadband. The federal government subsidizes rural broadband by approximately $6 billion. Where does the money go? Ali proposes democratizing policy architecture for rural broadband, modeling it after the wiring of rural America for electricity and telephony. Subsidies should be equalized, not just going to big companies. The result would be a multistakeholder system, guided by thoughtful public policy and funded by public and private support.

Uneven Justice: The Plot to Sink Galleon


Raj Rajaratnam - 2021
    Naively perhaps, Rajaratnam had expected to get a fair hearing in court. As an immigrant who had achieved tremendous success in his adopted country, he trusted the system. He had not anticipated prosecutorial overreach—inspired by political ambition—FBI fabrications, judicial compliance, and lies told under oath by cooperating witnesses. In the end, Rajaratnam was convicted and sentenced to eleven years in prison. He served seven and a half. Meanwhile, not a single senior bank executive responsible for the financial crisis was even charged. Uneven Justice is the story of his bewildering and confounding prosecution by forces who, quite frankly, were looking for bigger game. When Rajaratnam refused to support the narrative that would make that happen, he and the Galleon Group became collateral damage. A cautionary tale with implications for us all, Uneven Justice is both a riveting page-turner and an eye-opening lesson in the vagaries of justice when an unscrupulous prosecutor is calling the shots.

Competition and Antitrust Law: A Very Short Introduction


Ariel Ezrachi - 2021
    Competitive markets deliver lower prices, better quality, abundance of choice, and increased innovation. But while competition benefits the consumers, it can prove challenging to producers and sellers, who need to constantly improve tostay in business. As a result, sellers may sometimes look for ways to dampen the competitive process.Our antitrust and competition laws are designed to address these risks and safeguard consumer welfare. The competition enforcers have the task of unravelling price-fixing cartels, challenging powerful companies that abuse their power, and monitoring proposed merger transactions that could undermineeffective competition. In doing so, competition enforcers have to carefully consider the level of intervention and ensure they do not distort the natural dynamics of competition.Drawing on case studies from the US and the European Union, this Very Short Introduction explores the promise and limitations of competitive market dynamics. In examining the laws and the way they are enforced, Ariel Ezrachi considers the delicate relationship between a free market economy andgovernment intervention, and the fascinating forces of competition that shape modern society.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, andenthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Who Decides?: States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation


Jeffrey S Sutton - 2021
    And our acceptance of the resolution of those disputes often turns on who the decision makeris-because it reveals who governs us.In Who Decides, the influential US Appellate Court Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton focuses on the constitutional structure of the American states to answer the question of who should decide the key questions of public policy today. By concentrating on the role of governmental structure in shaping poweracross the 50 American states, Sutton develops a powerful explanation of American constitutional law, in all of its variety, as opposed to just federal constitutional law. As in his earlier book, 51 Imperfect Solutions, which looked at how American federalism allowed the states to serve aslaboratories of innovation for protecting individual liberty and property rights, Sutton compares state-level governments with the federal government and draws numerous insights from the comparisons. Instead of focusing on individual rights, however, he focuses on structure, while continuing todevelop some of the core themes of his previous book.An illuminating and essential sequel to his earlier work on the nature of American federalism, Who Decides makes the case that American Constitutional Law should account for the role of the state courts and state constitutions, together with the federal courts and the federal constitution, inassessing the right balance of power among all branches of government. Taken together, both books reveal a remarkably complex, nuanced, ever-changing federalist system, one that ought to make lawyers and litigants pause before reflexively assuming that the United States Supreme Court alone has theanswers to our vexing constitutional questions.

Birthing a Movement: Midwives, Law, and the Politics of Reproductive Care


Renee Ann Cramer - 2021
    In Birthing a Movement, Ren�e Ann Cramer draws on over a decade of ethnographic and archival research to examine the interactions of law, politics, and activism surrounding midwifery care.Framed by gripping narratives from midwives across the country, she parses out the often-paradoxical priorities with which they must engage--seeking formal professionalization, advocating for reproductive justice, and resisting state-centered approaches. Currently, professional midwives are legal and regulated in their practice in 32 states and illegal in eight, where their practice could bring felony convictions and penalties that include imprisonment. In the remaining ten states, Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) are unregulated, but nominally legal. By studying states where CPMs have differing legal statuses, Cramer makes the case that midwives and their clients engage in various forms of mobilization--at times simultaneous, and at times inconsistent--to facilitate access to care, autonomy in childbirth, and the articulation of women's authority in reproduction. This book brings together literatures not frequently in conversation with one another, on regulation, mobilization, health policy, and gender, offering a multifaceted view of the experiences and politics of American midwifery, and promising rich insights to a wide array of scholars, activists, healthcare professionals alike.