Book picks similar to
Miles Away... Worlds Apart by Alan Sakowitz
non-fiction
first-reads
law
true-crime
The Polygamist's Daughter
Anna LeBaron - 2017
With her father wanted by the FBI for killing anyone who tried to leave his cult--a radical branch of Mormonism--Anna and her siblings were constantly on the run with the other sister-wives. Often starving and always desperate, the children lived in terror. Even though there were dozens of them together, Anna always felt alone.She escaped when she was thirteen . . . but the nightmare was far from over. A shocking true story of murder, fear, and betrayal, The Polygamist's Daughter is also the heart-cry of a fatherless girl and her search for love, faith, and a safe place to call home.
The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers
Bridgett M. Davis - 2019
The upper middle class splendor in which she and her siblings so happily lived was made possible by her mother's business in the Numbers, the informal lottery that powered African American communities across the United States. A poignant and revealing examination of how one family lifted itself out of poverty and into a completely different life, for good and bad, The World According to Fannie Davis introduces us to an unforgettable matriarch, and her daughter, whose ways of understanding still resonate today.Offering a daughter's perspective on her larger-than-life mother, Bridgett Davis traces her family's story as part of the Great Migration, showing how her mother and father arrived in Detroit from Tennessee carrying with them not just their own hopes but also those of their families. A child gifted with extraordinary powers of perception and understanding, Davis breaks the code of secrecy around her mother's business and in so doing reveals both her mothers' extraordinary sacrifices as well as her seemingly endless generosity. We come to understand just how keenly Fannie Davis believed in the power of money, and family, to make the world right.Moving, suspenseful and emotionally rewarding, The World According to Fannie Davis will change the way you understand the lengths a mother will go to provide for her family, and the way those sacrifices resonate over time, offering not just a moving portrait of one American family, but also a new way of understanding Detroit.
Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House
Rachel Maddow - 2020
Agnew, Richard Nixon's second-in-command. Long on firebrand rhetoric and short on political experience, Agnew had carried out a bribery and extortion ring in office for years, when--at the height of Watergate--three young federal prosecutors discovered his crimes and launched a mission to take him down before it was too late. Before Nixon's downfall made way for Agnew to ascend to the presidency himself. Agnew did everything he could to bury their investigation: dismissing it as a "witch hunt," riling up his partisan base, making the press the enemy, and, with a crumbling circle of loyalists, scheming to obstruct justice.In this blockbuster account, Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz detail the investigation that exposed Agnew's crimes, the attempts at a cover-up - which involved future President George H. W. Bush - and the bargain that forced Agnew's resignation but also spared him years in federal prison. Based on the hit podcast, Bag Man expands and deepens the story of Spiro Agnew's scandal and its lasting influence on our politics, our media, and our understanding of what it takes to confront a criminal in the White House.
Lord High Executioner: The Legendary Mafia Boss Albert Anastasia
Frank DiMatteo - 2020
legend who helped create the modern American Mafia—one body at a time—featuring shocking eyewitness accounts . . . Umberto “Albert” Anastasia was born in Italy at the turn of the century. Five decades later, he would be gunned down in a barber shop in New York City. What happened in the years in between-- and why every crime family had reason to want him dead-- is one of the most brutal and fascinating stories in the history of American organized crime. This in-depth account of the man who became one of the most powerful and homicidal crime bosses of the twentieth century from Mafia insider Frank Dimatteo is the first full-length book to chronicle Anastasia’s bloody rise from fresh-off-the-boat immigrant to founder of the notorious killer’s club Murder, Inc.—featuring never-before-told accounts from those who feared him most . . . They called him “The One Man Army.” “Mad Hatter.” “Lord High Executioner.” Albert Anastasia came to America mean and became a prolific killer. His merciless assassination of Mafia godfather Vincent Mangano is recounted here in chilling first-hand detail. He set the record: the first man in the history of American justice to be charged with four separate murders—and walk free after each one. But in the end, he was the last obstacle in rival Mafia hoodlum Vito Genovese’s dream of becoming the boss of bosses—and paid the ultimate price . . .
Kingpin: Prisoner of the War on Drugs
Richard Stratton - 2017
Gulag America tells the story of the eight years that followed, through two federal trials and the underworld of the federal prison system, at a time when it was undergoing unprecedented expansion due to the War on Drugs. Stratton was shipped by bus from LA's notorious Glass House to jails and prisons across the country, a softening process known as diesel therapy. Resisting pressure to falsely implicate his friend and mentor, Norman Mailer, he was convicted in his second trial under the kingpin statute and sentenced to twenty-five years without the possibility of parole.While doing time in prisons from Manhattan's Criminal Hilton to rural Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, and New York, he witnessed brutality as well as camaraderie, rampant trafficking of contraband, and crimes by both guards and convicts. He first learned the lessons of survival. Then he learned to prevail, becoming a jailhouse lawyer and winning the reversal of his kingpin sentence and eventual release.Gulag America includes cameos by Norman Mailer and Muhammad Ali, and an account of the author's friendship with mafia don Joe Stassi, a legendary hitman from the early days of the mob who knew gangsters Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Abe Zwillman and has insights into the killing of Dutch Schultz and the Kennedy assassinationGulag America is the second volume in Richard Stratton's trilogy, Remembrance of the War on Plants.
The Making of a Country Lawyer: An Autobiography
Gerry Spence - 1996
The author, who has defended Karen Silkwood and Randy Weaver among others, recounts his life growing up in Wyoming and the tragic event that caused him become an attorney.
Law Man: Memoir of a Jailhouse Lawyer
Shon Hopwood - 2017
Those who knew him well would never have imagined that, as a young man, he’d be adrift with few prospects and plotting to rob a bank. But he did, committing five armed bank robberies before being apprehended. Serving ten years in federal prison, Shon feared his life was over. He wasn’t sure if he could survive a cell block, but he was determined to try. Hopwood pumped-up in the prison gym to defend himself and earned respect on the basketball court. He reconnected with the girl of his dreams from high school through letters and prison visits; and, crucially, he talked his way into a job in the prison law library. Hopwood slowly taught himself criminal law and began to help fellow inmates rather than himself. He wrote one petition to the Supreme Court, which was chosen to be heard from over 7,000 other petitions submitted by the greater legal community that year. The Justices voted 9-0 in favor of Hopwood’s petition when the case was finally heard. What might have been considered luck by some, was dispelled when a second petition from him was selected to be heard by the Supreme Court. He didn’t grasp it yet, but Shon’s legal work was the start of a new life. Shon works on policy reform, and he is a cofounder of PrisonProfessors.com. He strives to improve outcomes of America’s prison system, and he tells his amazing story in Law Man.
God in a Brothel: An Undercover Journey Into Sex Trafficking and Rescue
Daniel Walker - 2011
It is a story of triumph for the children and young teens released from a life of slavery and the rescuer who freed many hundreds of victims leading to the prosecution of dozens of perpetrators. And it is a story of haunting despair for those left behind in corrupt systems of law enforcement.It is the personal story of Daniel Walker, one man who followed a path of costly discipleship, agonizing failure and unlikely redemption. And it is a challenge to God's people to join in the battle that all might be freed.
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.
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
Bill BrowderBill Browder - 2014
It continued in Moscow, where Browder made his fortune heading the largest investment fund in Russia after the Soviet Union's collapse. But when he exposed the corrupt oligarchs who were robbing the companies in which he was investing, Vladimir Putin turned on him and, in 2005, had him expelled from Russia. In 2007, a group of law enforcement officers raided Browder's offices in Moscow and stole $230 million of taxes that his fund's companies had paid to the Russian government. Browder's attorney Sergei Magnitsky investigated the incident and uncovered a sprawling criminal enterprise. A month after Sergei testified against the officials involved, he was arrested and thrown into pre-trial detention, where he was tortured for a year. On November 16, 2009, he was led to an isolation chamber, handcuffed to a bedrail, and beaten to death by eight guards in full riot gear. Browder glimpsed the heart of darkness, and it transformed his life: he embarked on an unrelenting quest for justice in Sergei's name, exposing the towering cover-up that leads right up to Putin. A financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade, Red Notice is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world.
It's All About Muhammad: A Biography of the World's Most Notorious Prophet
F.W. Burleigh - 2014
It's about the man who composed the Koran.Author F. W. Burleigh draws on an academic, investigative, and literary background to bring forth this penetrating look at the man behind it all. Burleigh’s interest in Islam was sparked by the events of 9/11. The questions guiding his studies were, “Why do Muslims do what they do? Why is there so much violence connected with this religion?” After a line-by-line scrutiny of 20,000 pages of the original literature of Islam, the author gives his blunt assessment in the title: It’s All About Muhammad.The book is in three parts. The first 12 chapters explore the epileptic fits that convinced Muhammad that he was in communion with God, explain the Koran and why he composed it the way he did, and show the humble origin of the Kabah, which only attained its cubic shape in the year A.D. 605 with Muhammad as a member of the construction crew. The book shows the magma chamber of hatred that formed in him due to traumatic early-life experience and tracks the emergence of his psychopathic nature. It exposes how he modified ideas he took from Judaism and Christianity to suit his grandiose idea of himself as the "last and final prophet," his intolerance of Meccan polytheistic beliefs, and finally his declaration of war against "all and sundry" who refused to accept him and his religion.In the second part, Muhammad's magma chamber of hatred erupts on the world. The book shows the creation of his al-qaeda--his base of operations in Yathrib (Medina) where he fled after the Meccans decided they had to kill him, his conflict with the Jewish tribes of Yathrib after they refused to accept him as their prophet; his genocide of the Jews including the beheading of the men of an entire tribe; the assassination of his critics; the battles and raids and orgies of rape, plunder, and slaughter; and finally his conquest of Mecca. Like a dramatic arc, these 18 chapters form Act II of a script that is still being played out today.In the final part, Muhammad's ruthless conquest of all of Arabia is presented. This section also gives an account of his numerous wives and the expansion of his wars beyond the confines of the Arabian peninsula. One of the final chapters explores his claim that he will be the first to be resurrected on the day of resurrection and that he will assist Allah in determining who goes to heaven and who stays in hell--part of the "breathtaking nonsense" of what Muhammad claimed about himself, as the author phrases it.What Muhammad created continues to wreak havoc on the world. It follows the script he wrote fourteen centuries ago. It is not sufficient any longer merely to raise the alarm about Islam--an ideology of submission to the will of a psychologically deformed and spiritually grotesque man. What needs to accompany the alarm is a solution, and this book offers a solution: It is a matter of an aggressive, relentless, and unapologetic exposure of the truth about Muhammad in every graphic form possible, from illustrated books to docudramas to full-length feature films. With its 25 illustrations, It's All About Muhammad offers itself as an example of the approach.The truth about Muhammad is a powerful weapon of self-defense that people must take up to oppose and ultimately push back what he created. It is a weapon within the reach of everyone.
Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World
Tom Wright - 2018
The dust had yet to settle on the global financial crisis in 2009 when an unlikely Wharton grad was setting in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude--one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Billion Dollar Whale will become a classic, harrowing parable about the financial world in the twenty-first century.
Life Sentence
Christie Blatchford - 2013
When Christie Blatchford wandered into a Toronto courtroom in 1978 for the start of the first criminal trial she would cover as a newspaper reporter, little did she know she was also at the start of a self-imposed life sentence. In this book, Christie Blatchford revisits trials from throughout her career and asks the hard questions--about judges playing with the truth--through editing of criminal records, whitewashing of criminal records, pre-trial rulings that kick out evidence the jury can't hear. She discusses bad or troubled judges--how and why they get picked, and what can be done about them. And shows how judges are handmaidens to the state, as in the Bernardo trial when a small-town lawyer and an intellectual writer were pursued with more vigor than Karla Homolka. For anyone interested in the political and judicial fabric of this country, Life Sentence is a remarkable, argumentative, insightful and hugely important book.
Case of a Lifetime: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Story
Abbe Smith - 2008
Some are exonerated through DNA evidence, but many more languish in prison because their convictions were based on faulty eyewitness accounts and no DNA is available. Prominent criminal lawyer and law professor Abbe Smith weaves together real life cases to show what it is like to champion the rights of the accused. Smith describes the moral and ethical dilemmas of representing the guilty and the weighty burden of fighting for the innocent, including the victorious story of how she helped free a woman wrongly imprisoned for nearly three decades.
For fans of Law and Order and investigative news programs like 20/20, Case of a Lifetime is a chilling look at what really determines a person's innocence.