Book picks similar to
Forfeiting Property Rights by Henry J. Hyde
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Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice
Adam Benforado - 2015
The evidence is all around us: Our system of justice is fundamentally broken. But it’s not for the reasons we tend to think, as law professor Adam Benforado argues in this eye-opening, galvanizing book. Even if the system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would still end up with wrongful convictions, trampled rights, and unequal treatment. This is because the roots of injustice lie not inside the dark hearts of racist police officers or dishonest prosecutors, but within the minds of each and every one of us. This is difficult to accept. Our nation is founded on the idea that the law is impartial, that legal cases are won or lost on the basis of evidence, careful reasoning and nuanced argument. But they may, in fact, turn on the camera angle of a defendant’s taped confession, the number of photos in a mug shot book, or a simple word choice during a cross-examination. In Unfair, Benforado shines a light on this troubling new field of research, showing, for example, that people with certain facial features receive longer sentences and that judges are far more likely to grant parole first thing in the morning. Over the last two decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have uncovered many cognitive forces that operate beyond our conscious awareness. Until we address these hidden biases head-on, Benforado argues, the social inequality we see now will only widen, as powerful players and institutions find ways to exploit the weaknesses of our legal system. Weaving together historical examples, scientific studies, and compelling court cases—from the border collie put on trial in Kentucky to the five teenagers who falsely confessed in the Central Park Jogger case—Benforado shows how our judicial processes fail to uphold our values and protect society’s weakest members. With clarity and passion, he lays out the scope of the legal system’s dysfunction and proposes a wealth of practical reforms that could prevent injustice and help us achieve true fairness and equality before the law.
The Mueller Report
The Washington Post - 2019
This edition from The Washington Post/Scribner contains: —The long-awaited Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election —An introduction by The Washington Post titled “A President, a Prosecutor, and the Protection of American Democracy” —A timeline of the major events of the Special Counsel’s investigation from May 2017, when Robert Mueller was appointed, to the report's delivery —A guide to individuals involved, including in the Special Counsel’s Office, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Trump Campaign, the White House, the Trump legal defense team, and the Russians —Key documents in the Special Counsel’s investigation, including filings pertaining to General Michael T. Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, and the Russian internet operation in St. Petersburg. Each document is introduced and explained by Washington Post reporters. One of the most urgent and important investigations ever conducted, the Mueller inquiry focuses on Donald Trump, his presidential campaign, and Russian interference in the 2016 election, and draws on the testimony of dozens of witnesses and the work of some of the country’s most seasoned prosecutors. The special counsel’s investigation looms as a turning point in American history. The Mueller Report is essential reading for all citizens concerned about the fate of the presidency and the future of our democracy.
Reefer Men: The Rise and Fall of a Billionaire Drug Ring
Tony Thompson - 2007
In 1988, they decided to carry out one final heist that would ensure they could retire forever. It did indeed turn out to be their last heist - but not for the reasons they planned. Their ship was seized, and the key Ring members all scattered all over the world.
A Gambler's Jury
Victor Methos - 2018
So when she meets Teddy Thorne, a mentally challenged teen accused of selling drugs, Dani knows she’s got this in the bag. She can easily settle the case with a couple of court appearances. But when prosecutors move for an adult felony conviction, Dani suspects Teddy’s being used as a pawn in a sinister game.As the case moves forward, Dani is certain the judge and district attorney’s office have motivations beyond the crime—a fair trial isn’t in the cards. And when she takes on guardianship of Teddy, the case becomes personal as she fights her own demons and the government. Dani will stop at nothing to protect this innocent boy—there’s no other option. Because if she loses, both she and Teddy could lose far more than just the case…
Democracy and Distrust: A Theory of Judicial Review
John Hart Ely - 1980
Written for layman and scholar alike, the book addresses one of the most important issues facing Americans today: within what guidelines shall the Supreme Court apply the strictures of the Constitution to the complexities of modern life?Until now legal experts have proposed two basic approaches to the Constitution. The first, "interpretivism," maintains that we should stick as closely as possible to what is explicit in the document itself. The second, predominant in recent academic theorizing, argues that the courts should be guided by what they see as the fundamental values of American society. John Hart Ely demonstrates that both of these approaches are inherently incomplete and inadequate. Democracy and Distrust sets forth a new and persuasive basis for determining the role of the Supreme Court today.Ely's proposal is centered on the view that the Court should devote itself to assuring majority governance while protecting minority rights. "The Constitution," he writes, "has proceeded from the sensible assumption that an effective majority will not unreasonably threaten its own rights, and has sought to assure that such a majority not systematically treat others less well than it treats itself. It has done so by structuring decision processes at all levels in an attempt to ensure, first, that everyone's interests will be represented when decisions are made, and second, that the application of those decisions will not be manipulated so as to reintroduce in practice the sort of discrimination that is impermissible in theory."Thus, Ely's emphasis is on the procedural side of due process, on the preservation of governmental structure rather than on the recognition of elusive social values. At the same time, his approach is free of interpretivism's rigidity because it is fully responsive to the changing wishes of a popular majority. Consequently, his book will have a profound impact on legal opinion at all levels--from experts in constitutional law, to lawyers with general practices, to concerned citizens watching the bewildering changes in American law.
Men in Black: How Judges are Destroying America
Mark R. Levin - 2005
Levin in his explosive book, Men in Black. “But today, our out-of-control Supreme Court imperiously strikes down laws and imposes new ones to suit its own liberal whims––robbing us of our basic freedoms and the values on which our country was founded.” In
Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America
, Levin exposes countless examples of outrageous Supreme Court abuses, from promoting racism in college admissions, expelling God and religion from the public square, forcing states to confer benefits on illegal aliens, and endorsing economic socialism to upholding partial-birth abortion, restraining political speech, and anointing terrorists with rights. Levin writes: “Barely one hundred justices have served on the United States Supreme Court. They’re unelected, they’re virtually unaccountable, they’re largely unknown to most Americans, and they serve for life…in many ways the justices are more powerful than members of Congress and the president.… As few as five justices can and do dictate economic, cultural, criminal, and security policy for the entire nation.” In
Men in Black,
you will learn: How the Supreme Court protects virtual child pornography and flag burning as forms of free speech but denies teenagers the right to hear an invocation mentioning God at a high school graduation ceremony because it might be “coercive.” How a former Klansman and virulently anti-Catholic Supreme Court justice inserted the words “wall of separation” between church and state in a 1947 Supreme Court decision––a phrase repeated today by those who claim to stand for civil liberty. How Justice Harry Blackmun, a one-time conservative appointee and the author of Roe v. Wade, was influenced by fan mail much like an entertainer or politician, which helped him to evolve into an ardent activist for gay rights and against the death penalty. How the Supreme Court has dictated that illegal aliens have a constitutional right to attend public schools, and that other immigrants qualify for welfare benefits, tuition assistance, and even civil service jobs.
Thick Girls Need Love
David Weaver - 2015
Then is patience still a virtue? Avion is married to who he believes will absolutely without a doubt be there forever. He's friends with who he knows for sure will ride for him whenever. When he crosses paths with his high school crush, he had so much he could tell her- but she had been hurt so many times that she was overly careful. In matters of the heart, physical attraction only serves as a daily introduction. Once introduced to the person, you must then deal with them, their spirits, their personalities, them as a person. Oftentimes, the person hates the person they're dealing with. Avion learns the true value of the word "love," and just why it can't be tossed around lightly. Sharo learns that even though she had been hurt in the past and felt like she would never need another man, that it was ok, and always going to be ok. No matter how angry or upset, or how much of an independent woman she was, no matter how thick of a shell she had wrapped around her heart, she still had to realize that in a world full of hatred... Thick Girls Need Love.
Trap-A-Rella
Tony Steele - 2013
And when her soon-to-be husband, Trevan "TC" Clayton, is shot to death right in front of her on the night he proposes to her, her life takes a dramatic turn for the worse. TC's mother gives all her son's worldly possessions away—including he and Nisey's Florissant suburban home—to a two-bit con-artist/ex-pimp turned reverend. Nisey is left with no other choice but to move back to the drug-infested Section 8 apartments of St. Louis' JVL.Stripped of the ghetto fabulous lifestyle, Nisey and her girlfriends pick up the scale and baggies to turn their misfortunes into a fortune. Quickly, she and her clique of "Trap-A-Rellas" become the talk of the Lou, and just as fast as she reaches the top, schemes are set in place to knock her back down.
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
Jeffrey Toobin - 2007
An institution at a moment of transition, the Court now stands at a crucial point, with major changes in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, and church-state relations. Based on exclusive interviews with the justices and with a keen sense of the Court’s history and the trajectory of its future, Jeffrey Toobin creates in The Nine a riveting story of one of the most important forces in American life today.
Pitbulls In A Skirt 3-The Rise of Lil C
Mikal Malone - 2010
Once Lil C decides he wants to help her and the other Pitbulls run Emerald City, he will not take no for an answer. He pushes the subject so much, their seemingly in tact relationship begins to falter. Yvette tries to maintain control of her relationship with Chris by not being in the relationship. When Chris makes an unexpected move, it causes her to question her feelings and her sexuality. Will being tough get her through an even tougher moment in her life? Carissa has two loves. One makes her feel high, and the other makes her crazy for him. But when she discovers that their private sex life is not so private, she questions who he really is and what he really wants. Kenyetta was never able to fully recover over the loss of Dyson, and because of it, she meets another man who may not be the best choice. And when she betrays her friends she realizes life is more difficult than she can deal with and feels she needs an out. Lil C grows up quickly in this novel, and he thinks he has it all figured out. But a threat he made to Tamir, of the Black Water Klan, causes him to grow up even faster. When an offer is placed on the table to be the drug dealer outside of Emerald, he battles with whether he ll accept and before long realizes he s also in a serious battle for his life.
Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic
Ben Westhoff - 2019
is the first deep-dive investigation of a hazardous and illicit industry that has created a worldwide epidemic, ravaging communities and overwhelming and confounding government agencies that are challenged to combat it. "A whole new crop of chemicals is radically changing the recreational drug landscape," writes Ben Westhoff. "These are known as Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and they include replacements for known drugs like heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana. They are synthetic, made in a laboratory, and are much more potent than traditional drugs"--and all-too-often tragically lethal. Drugs like fentanyl, K2, and Spice--and those with arcane acronyms like 25i-NBOMe-- were all originally conceived in legitimate laboratories for proper scientific and medicinal purposes. Their formulas were then hijacked and manufactured by rogue chemists, largely in China, who change their molecular structures to stay ahead of the law, making the drugs' effects impossible to predict. Westhoff has infiltrated this shadowy world, becoming the first journalist to report from inside an illicit Chinese fentanyls lab and providing startling and original reporting on how China's vast chemical industry operates, and how the Chinese government subsidizes it. He tracks down the little-known scientists who invented these drugs and inadvertently killed thousands, as well as a mysterious drug baron who turned the law upside down in his home country of New Zealand. Poignantly, Westhoff chronicles the lives of addicted users and dealers, families of victims, law enforcement officers, and underground drug awareness organizers in the U.S. and Europe. Together they represent the shocking and riveting full anatomy of a calamity we are just beginning to understand. From its depths, as Westhoff relates, are emerging new strategies that may provide essential long-term solutions to the drug crisis that has affected so many.
The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power
Jonathan Mahler - 2008
forces in Afghanistan. After he had confessed to being Osama bin Laden's driver, Hamdan was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, and he was soon designated by President Bush for trial before a special military tribunal. The Pentagon assigned a military defense lawyer to represent him, a boyish-looking thirtyfive-year-old graduate of the Naval Academy, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift. No one expected Swift to mount much of a defense. The rules of the tribunals, America's first in more than fifty years, were stacked against him--and that is assuming that his superiors didn't expect him to throw the game altogether. Instead, Swift enlisted the help of a young constitutional law professor at Georgetown, Neal Katyal, to help him sue the Bush administration over the legality of the tribunals. In the spring of 2006, Katyal argued the case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, before the Supreme Court and won. Written with the full cooperation of Swift and Katyal, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld is the inside story of this seminal case, perhaps the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law in the history of the Supreme Court, as told by a writer for The New York Times Magazine, Jonathan Mahler follows the story both of Swift's relationship with Hamdan, in particular his struggle to keep his client alive in Guantanamo, and of the unprecedented legal case itself. It is a legal thriller in the spirit of A Civil Action, set against the backdrop of the war on terror and the battle over presidential power.
The King of Lavender Square
Susan Ryan - 2012
While the teacher, the recluse, the advertising whizz-kid and the African woman and her young son run, rush, dart and dash, she knows for sure that she will never have anything worth dashing to. But sometimes all it takes is a little magic to bring people together. And, in Lavender Square, where the lavender grows in mysterious abundance and colours the air with a musky sense of love, magic is never very far away. The neighbours, who once passed each other by in detached universes, find themselves thrown together when they are obliged to take care of young Patrick Kimba. His mother is seriously ill and no one knows when or if she is ever coming home. At first they resist the tiresome interruption, until quite by accident Patrick’s dream of becoming a football star and finding his long-lost father becomes theirs, and their lives and heartaches become woven together in a new and unexpected pattern.
Legal Aptitude for the CLAT - Workbook: A Workbook
A.P. Bhardwaj
The book acts as a ready reckoner for students to brush up their basics and memorize important facts, figures, and concepts. About the Author: A P Bhardwaj A.P. Bhardwaj is an author-trainer-tutor for CLAT, SET, LSAT, and other law entrance examinations. He has authored more than 10 books for various competitive examinations. He is a regular contributor in the leading newspapers and monthly journals for all competitive examinations. He runs his own training institute named Innovation in Chandigarh.
Damaged Goods
Helen Black - 2008
Abused. Who do you trust when the world is against you?Hope is in short supply for Kelsey Brand! Abandoned by her mother and placed in care, 14-year-old Kelsey - along with her younger sisters - is just another forgotten child of the state. Unable to cope with the care home's harsh regimes, Kelsey attempts to take her own life, leaving her horrifically scarred - and mute. Days later, the body of Kelsey's mother Grace - a known prostitute and heroin addict - is found butchered on a notorious Luton council estate. And Kelsey becomes a suspect! Enter Lilly Valentine. A tough-talking Yorkshire lawyer with a heart of gold and a will of iron, Lilly has forsaken a glittering career to move south and help vulnerable kids escape the system. Determined to prove Kelsey's innocence, Lilly ventures into the heart of a dark city with as many secrets as problems. Prostitution, pedophilia, drugs and blackmail: Lily must put her own life at risk to save a silent, terrified child and find the real killer!