The Search for Justice: A Defense Attorney's Brief on the O.J. Simpson Case


Robert L. Shapiro - 1996
    Simpson, starting with the critical hours before and after Simpson's arrest and including his own unique perspective on his fellow lawyers, the jury, the defense, the role of DNA, and a controversial verdict that has divided a nation. of photos.

Death and Justice


Mark Fuhrman - 2004
    Are innocent people being executed? Is capital punishment justice or is it revenge? Into the debate steps Mark Fuhrman, America's most famous detective, and no stranger to controversy himself.Fuhrman seeks to answer these questions by investigating the death penalty in Oklahoma, where a "hang 'em high" attitude of cowboy justice resulted in twenty–one executions in 2001, more than any other state. Most of these cases came from one jurisdiction, Oklahoma County, where legendary DA Bob Macy bragged of sending more people to death row than any other prosecutor, and police chemist Joyce Gilchrist was eventually fired for mismanaging the crime lab. Examining police records, trial transcripts, appellate decisions and conducting hundreds of interviews, Fuhrman focuses his considerable investigative skills on more than a dozen of the most controversial Oklahoma death penalty cases.

Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case


Alan M. Dershowitz - 1996
    Using the O.J. Simpson murder case as the backdrop, Reasonable Doubts explores the larger issues that shape our country's legal system.Chosen to prepare the appeal should O.J. Simpson be convicted, Alan Dershowitz is uniquely suited to deconstruct the case in order to use it in understanding the modern criminal justice system. The crucial questions raised by the O.J. Simpson case, and Dershowitz's answers, invite a reassessment not only of the case itself, but also of the strengths—and weaknesses—of the legal system in America today.

American Tragedy


Lawrence Schiller - 1996
    Simpson murder trial is told in the uncensored words of Simpson's closest confidants and attorneys. American Tragedy reveals the answers to many of he case's unexplained questions for the first time. What happened to the missing Louis Vuitton bag? How did Simpson's team stage a deception during the jury's visit to his mansion? You've heard the speculations and rumors; now read what really happened.

O.J. is Innocent and I Can Prove It


William C. Dear - 2012
    The weeks and months that followed were full of spectacle, including a much-watched car chase and the eventual arrest of O. J. Simpson for the murders. The televised trial that followed was unlike any that the nation had ever seen.Long convinced of O. J.’s guilt, the world was shocked when the jury of the “trial of the century” read the verdict of not guilty. To this day, the LAPD, Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, mainstream media, and much of the world at large remain firmly convinced that O. J. Simpson literally got away with murder.According to private investigator William Dear, it is precisely this assuredness that has led both the police and public to overlook a far more likely suspect. Dear now compiles more than sixteen years of investigation by his team of forensic experts and presents evidence that O. J. was not the killer. In O. J. is Innocent and I Can Prove It, Dear makes the controversial but compelling case that it was, in fact, the “overlooked suspect,” O. J.’s eldest son Jason, who committed the grisly murders. Sure to stir the pot and raise some eyebrows, this book is a must-read.

Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men


Lundy Bancroft - 2002
    So...why does he do that? You've asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men--and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn about:The early warning signs of abuse- The nature of abusive thinking- Myths about abusers- Ten abusive personality types- The role of drugs and alcohol- What you can fix, and what you can't- And how to get out of an abusive relationship safelyPrevention Programs, Harvard School of Public Health

The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence


Gavin de Becker - 1996
    The new nanny gives a mother an uneasy feeling. A stranger in a deserted parking lot offers unsolicited help. The threat of violence surrounds us every day. But we can protect ourselves, by learning to trust—and act on—our gut instincts.In this empowering book, Gavin de Becker, the man Oprah Winfrey calls the nation's leading expert on violent behavior, shows you how to spot even subtle signs of danger—before it's too late. Shattering the myth that most violent acts are unpredictable, de Becker, whose clients include top Hollywood stars and government agencies, offers specific ways to protect yourself and those you love, including how to act when approached by a stranger, when you should fear someone close to you, what to do if you are being stalked, how to uncover the source of anonymous threats or phone calls, the biggest mistake you can make with a threatening person, and more. Learn to spot the danger signals others miss. It might just save your life.

For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence


Alice Miller - 1980
    Her conclusions―on what sort of parenting can create a drug addict, or a murderer, or a Hitler―offer much insight, and make a good deal of sense, while also straying far from psychoanalytic dogma about human nature, which Miller vehemently rejects.This important study paints a shocking picture of the violent world―indeed, of the ever-more-violent world―that each generation helps to create when traditional upbringing, with its hidden cruelty, is perpetuated. The book also presents readers with useful solutions in this regard―namely, to resensitize the victimized child who has been trapped within the adult, and to unlock the emotional life that has been frozen in repression.

No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us


Rachel Louise Snyder - 2019
    Through the stories of victims, perpetrators, law enforcement, and reform movements from across the country, Snyder explores not only the dark corners of private violence, but also its far-reaching consequences for society, and what it will take to truly address it.

Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential--and Endangered


Bruce D. Perry - 2009
    Perry and award-winning science journalist Maia Szalavitz interweave research and stories from Perry's practice with cutting-edge scientific studies and historical examples to explain how empathy develops, why it is essential for our development into healthy adults, and how it is threatened in the modern world.Perry and Szalavitz show that compassion underlies the qualities that make society work—trust, altruism, collaboration, love, charity—and how difficulties related to empathy are key factors in social problems such as war, crime, racism, and mental illness. Even physical health, from infectious diseases to heart attacks, is deeply affected by our human connections to one another.As Born for Love reveals, recent changes in technology, child-rearing practices, education, and lifestyles are starting to rob children of necessary human contact and deep relationships—the essential foundation for empathy and a caring, healthy society. Sounding an important warning bell, Born for Love offers practical ideas for combating the negative influences of modern life and fostering positive social change to benefit us all.

Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal


Donna Jackson Nakazawa - 2015
    Childhood Interrupted also explains how to cope with these emotional traumas and even heal from them.Your biography becomes your biology. The emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall well-being. Scientists now know on a bio-chemical level exactly how parents, chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent, physical fingerprints on our brains.When we as children encounter sudden or chronic adversity, excessive stress hormones cause powerful changes in the body, altering our body chemistry. The developing immune system and brain react to this chemical barrage by permanently re-setting our stress response to high, which in turn can have a devastating impact on our mental and physical health.Donna Jackson Nakazawa shares stories from people who have recognized and overcome their adverse experiences, shows why some children are more immune to stress than others, and explains why women are at particular risk. Groundbreaking in its research, inspiring in its clarity, Childhood Interrupted explains how you can reset your biology and help your loved ones find ways to heal.

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror


Judith Lewis Herman - 1992
    In the intervening years, Herman’s volume has changed the way we think about and treat traumatic events and trauma victims. In a new afterword, Herman chronicles the incredible response the book has elicited and explains how the issues surrounding the topic have shifted within the clinical community and the culture at large. Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually. Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context. Meticulously documented and frequently using the victims’ own words as well as those from classic literary works and prison diaries, Trauma and Recovery is a powerful work that will continue to profoundly impact our thinking.

Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity


Andrew Solomon - 2012
    He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down's syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter.All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges.Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, Far from the Tree explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other—a theme in every family’s life.

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America


Robert Whitaker - 2010
    What is going on? Anatomy of an Epidemic challenges readers to think through that question themselves. First, Whitaker investigates what is known today about the biological causes of mental disorders. Do psychiatric medications fix “chemical imbalances” in the brain, or do they, in fact, create them? Researchers spent decades studying that question, and by the late 1980s, they had their answer. Readers will be startled—and dismayed—to discover what was reported in the scientific journals. Then comes the scientific query at the heart of this book: During the past fifty years, when investigators looked at how psychiatric drugs affected long-term outcomes, what did they find? Did they discover that the drugs help people stay well? Function better? Enjoy good physical health? Or did they find that these medications, for some paradoxical reason, increase the likelihood that people will become chronically ill, less able to function well, more prone to physical illness?  This is the first book to look at the merits of psychiatric medications through the prism of long-term results. Are long-term recovery rates higher for medicated or unmedicated schizophrenia patients? Does taking an antidepressant decrease or increase the risk that a depressed person will become disabled by the disorder? Do bipolar patients fare better today than they did forty years ago, or much worse? When the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) studied the long-term outcomes of children with ADHD, did they determine that stimulants provide any benefit?  By the end of this review of the outcomes literature, readers are certain to have a haunting question of their own: Why have the results from these long-term studies—all of which point to the same startling conclusion—been kept from the public?  In this compelling history, Whitaker also tells the personal stories of children and adults swept up in this epidemic. Finally, he reports on innovative programs of psychiatric care in Europe and the United States that are producing good long-term outcomes. Our nation has been hit by an epidemic of disabling mental illness, and yet, as Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, the medical blueprints for curbing that epidemic have already been drawn up.

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure


Jonathan Haidt - 2018
    These three Great Untruths are part of a larger philosophy that sees young people as fragile creatures who must be protected and supervised by adults. But despite the good intentions of the adults who impart them, the Great Untruths are harming kids by teaching them the opposite of ancient wisdom and the opposite of modern psychological findings on grit, growth, and antifragility. The result is rising rates of depression and anxiety, along with endless stories of college campuses torn apart by moralistic divisions and mutual recriminations. This is a book about how we got here. First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt take us on a tour of the social trends stretching back to the 1980s that have produced the confusion and conflict on campus today, including the loss of unsupervised play time and the birth of social media, all during a time of rising political polarization. This is a book about how to fix the mess. The culture of “safety” and its intolerance of opposing viewpoints has left many young people anxious and unprepared for adult life, with devastating consequences for them, for their parents, for the companies that will soon hire them, and for a democracy that is already pushed to the brink of violence over its growing political divisions. Lukianoff and Haidt offer a comprehensive set of reforms that will strengthen young people and institutions, allowing us all to reap the benefits of diversity, including viewpoint diversity. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what’s happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live and work and cooperate across party lines.