Chasing Gideon

Chasing Gideon
Author: Karen Houppert
Publisher: New Press, The
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2013-03-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1595588698

On March 18, 1963, in one of its most significant legal decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that all defendants facing significant jail time have the constitutional right to a free attorney if they cannot afford their own. Fifty years later, 80 percent of criminal defendants are served by public defenders. In a book that combines the sweep of history with the intimate details of individual lives and legal cases, veteran reporter Karen Houppert movingly chronicles the stories of people in all parts of the country who have relied on Gideon’s promise. There is the harrowing saga of a young man who is charged with involuntary vehicular homicide in Washington State, where overextended public defenders juggle impossible caseloads, forcing his defender to go to court to protect her own right to provide an adequate defense. In Florida, Houppert describes a public defender’s office, loaded with upward of seven hundred cases per attorney, and discovers the degree to which Clarence Earl Gideon’s promise is still unrealized. In New Orleans, she follows the case of a man imprisoned for twenty-seven years for a crime he didn’t commit, finding a public defense system already near collapse before Katrina and chronicling the harrowing months after the storm, during which overworked volunteers and students struggled to get the system working again. In Georgia, Houppert finds a mentally disabled man who is to be executed for murder, despite the best efforts of a dedicated but severely overworked and underfunded capital defender. Half a century after Anthony Lewis’s award-winning Gideon’s Trumpet brought us the story of the court case that changed the American justice system, Chasing Gideon is a crucial book that provides essential reckoning of our attempts to implement this fundamental constitutional right.

The People's Justice

The People's Justice
Author: Amul Thapar
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2023-06-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1684514665

"Amul Thapar sets the record straight with this can't-put-down series of stories that reveal the courage, decency, and humanity of the man behind what many are calling the Thomas Court." —Megyn Kelly, journalist "Amul Thapar has done what even gifted law professors and professional 'Court watchers' often fail to do: Thapar has focused on the men and women whose lives are before the nine and on how one justice, Clarence Thomas, has carefully, consistently, and compassionately applied his understanding of the Constitution to those lives." — Hugh Hewitt, host of The Hugh Hewitt Show and professor of law For thirty years, Clarence Thomas has been denounced as the “cruelest justice,” a betrayer of his race, an ideologue, and the enemy of the little guy. In this compelling study of the man and the jurist, Amul Thapar demolishes that caricature. Every day, Americans go to court. Invoking the Constitution, they fight for their homes, for a better education for their children, and to save their cities from violence. Recounting the stories of a handful of these ordinary Americans whose struggles for justice reached the Supreme Court, Thapar shines new light on the heart and mind of Clarence Thomas. A woman in debilitating pain whose only effective medication has been taken away by the government, the motherless children of a slain police officer, victims of sexual assault— read their eye-opening stories, stripped of legalese, and decide for yourself whether Thomas’s originalist jurisprudence delivers equal justice under law. “Finding the right answer,” Justice Thomas has observed, “is often the least difficult problem.” What is needed is “the courage to assert that answer and stand firm in the face of the constant winds of protest and criticism.” That courage—along with wisdom and compassion—shines out from every page of The People’s Justice. At the heart of this book is the question: Would you want to live in Justice Thomas’s America? After reading these stories, even his critics might be surprised by their answer.

We Cry Justice

We Cry Justice
Author: Liz Theoharis
Publisher: Broadleaf Books
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-10-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1506473652

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible proclaims justice and abundance for the poor. Yet these powerful passages about poverty are frequently overlooked and misinterpreted. Enter the Poor People's Campaign, a movement against racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism, and religious nationalism. In We Cry Justice, Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the campaign, is joined by pastors, community organizers, scholars, low-wage workers, lay leaders, and people in poverty to interpret sacred stories about the poor seeking healing, equity, and freedom. In a world roiled by poverty and injustice, Scripture still speaks. Organized into fifty-two chapters, each focusing on a key Scripture passage, We Cry Justice offers comfort and challenge from the many stories of the poor taking action together. Read anew the story of the exodus that frees people from debt and slavery, the prophets who denounce the rich and ruling classes, the stories of Jesus's healing and parables about fair wages, and the early church's sharing of goods. Reflection questions and a short prayer at the end of each chapter offer the opportunity to use the book devotionally through a year. The Bible cries for justice, and we do too. It's time to act on God's persistent call to repair the breach and fight poverty, not the poor.

Strange Justice

Strange Justice
Author: Jane Mayer
Publisher: Graymalkin Media
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2018-05-09
Genre: Law
ISBN: 163168163X

Now a New York Times Best Seller and a National Book Award finalist. Charged with racial, sexual, and political overtones, the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court justice was one of the most divisive spectacles the country has ever seen. Anita Hill’s accusation of sexual harassment by Thomas, and the attacks on her that were part of his high-placed supporters’ rebuttal, both shocked the nation and split it into two camps. One believed Hill was lying, the other believed that the man who ultimately took his place on the Supreme Court had committed perjury. In this brilliant, often shocking book, Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, two of the nation’s top investigative journalists examine all aspects of this controversial case. They interview witnesses that the Judiciary Committee chose not to call, and present documents never before made public. They detail the personal and professional pasts of both Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill and lay bare a campaign of lobbying, public relations, and character assassination fueled by conservative power at its most desperate. A gripping high-stakes drama, Strange Justice is not only a definitive account of the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings, but is also a classic casebook of how the Washington game is played by those for whom winning is everything.

Justice

Justice
Author: Flora Sapio
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2017-07-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1107190428

A conceptual-based analysis of China's legal and justice systems, and their social and political impact in the twenty-first century.

Justice on the Brink

Justice on the Brink
Author: Linda Greenhouse
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2021-11-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 059344793X

The gripping story of the Supreme Court’s transformation from a measured institution of law and justice into a highly politicized body dominated by a right-wing supermajority, told through the dramatic lens of its most transformative year, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning law columnist for The New York Times “A dazzling feat . . . meaty, often scintillating and sometimes scary . . . Greenhouse is a virtuoso of SCOTUS analysis.”—The Washington Post In Justice on the Brink, legendary journalist Linda Greenhouse 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. In a page-turning narrative, she recounts the twelve months when the court turned its back on its legacy and traditions, abandoning any effort to stay above and separate from politics. With remarkable clarity and deep institutional knowledge, Greenhouse shows the seeds being planted for the court’s eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, expansion of access to guns, and unprecedented elevation of religious rights in American society. Both a chronicle and a requiem, Justice on the Brink depicts the struggle for the soul of the Supreme Court, and points to the future that awaits all of us.

Criminal Justice in Post-Mao China

Criminal Justice in Post-Mao China
Author: Shao-chuan Len
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 1985-06-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1438410506

The post-Mao commitment to modernization, coupled with a general revulsion against the lawlessness of the Cultural Revolution, has led to a significant law reform movement in the People's Republic of China. China's current leadership seeks to restore order and morale, to attract domestic support and external assistance for its modernization program, and to provide a secure, orderly environment for economic development. It has taken a number of steps to strengthen its laws and judicial system, among which are the PRC's first substantive and procedural criminal codes. This is the first book-length study of the most important area of Chinese law—the development, organization, and functioning of the criminal justice system in China today. It examines both the formal aspects of the criminal justice system—such as the court, the procuracy, lawyers, and criminal procedure—and the extrajudicial organs and sanctions that play important roles in the Chinese system. Based on published Chinese materials and personal interviews, the book is essential reading for persons interested in human rights and laws in China, as well as for those concerned with China's political system and economic development. The inclusion of selected documents and an extensive bibliography further enhance the value of the book.

The People Called

The People Called
Author: Paul D. Hanson
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 588
Release: 2001-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780664224455

In this unique work, Paul Hanson traces the concept of "community" from its early biblical origins through the end of the apostolic age. This edition includes a chapter devoted to the contemporary implications of this concept and in his new introduction, the author further explores the importance of this theme.

The African American Experience in Vietnam

The African American Experience in Vietnam
Author: James E. Westheider
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780742545328

In this book James E. Westheider explores the social and professional paradoxes facing African-American soldiers in Vietnam. Service in the military started as a demonstration of the merits of integration as blacks competed with whites on a near equal basis for the first time. Yet as the war in Vietnam progressed, many black recruits felt isolated and threatened in an institution controlled almost totally by whites. Consequently, many blacks no longer viewed the military as a professional opportunity, but an undue burden on the black community.