front cover of Gangs on Trial
Gangs on Trial
Challenging Stereotypes and Demonization in the Courts
John M. Hagedorn
Temple University Press, 2022

John Hagedorn, who has long been an expert witness in gang-related court cases, claims that what transpires in the trials of gang members is a far cry from what we would consider justice. In Gangs on Trial, he recounts his decades of experience to show how stereotypes are used against gang members on trial and why that is harmful. Hagedorn uses real-life stories to explain how implicit bias often replaces evidence and how the demonization of gang members undermines fairness. Moreover, a “them and us” mentality leads to snap judgments that ignore the complexity of gang life in America.

Gangs on Trial dispels myths about gangs and recommends tactics for lawyers, mitigation specialists, and expert witnesses as well as offering insights for jurors. Hagedorn describes how minds are subconsciously “primed” when a defendant is identified as a gang member, and discusses the “backfire effect,” which occurs when jurors hear arguments that run counter to their beliefs. He also reveals how attributional errors, prejudice, and racism impact sentences of nonwhite defendants.

Hagedorn argues that dehumanization is the psychological foundation of mass incarceration. Gangs on Trial advocates for practical sentencing reforms and humanizing justice.

[more]
front cover of Going to Court to Change Japan
Going to Court to Change Japan
Social Movements and the Law in Contemporary Japan
Patricia G. Steinhoff, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 2014
Going to Court to Change Japan takes us inside movements dealing with causes as disparate as death by overwork, the rights of the deaf, access to prisoners on death row, consumer product safety, workers whose companies go bankrupt, and persons convicted of crimes they did not commit. Each of the six fascinating case studies stands on its own as a detailed account of how a social movement has persisted against heavy odds to pursue a cause through the use of the courts.
The studies pay particular attention to the relationship between the social movement and the lawyers who handle their cases, usually pro bono or for minimal fees. Through these case studies we learn much about how the law operates in Japan as well as how social movements mobilize and innovate to pursue their goals using legal channels. The book also provides a general introduction to the Japanese legal system and a look at how recent legal reforms are working.
Going to Court to Change Japan will interest social scientists, lawyers, and anyone interested in the inner workings of contemporary Japan. It is suitable for use in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses on Japan in social sciences and law, and can also provide a comparative perspective to general courses in these fields. Contributors include John H. Davis Jr., Daniel H. Foote, Patricia L. Maclachlan, Karen Nakamura, Scott North, Patricia G. Steinhoff, and Christena Turner.
[more]
front cover of A Good Quarrel
A Good Quarrel
America's Top Legal Reporters Share Stories from Inside the Supreme Court
Timothy R. Johnson and Jerry Goldman, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 2009

While reading what top legal reporters say about some of the most important U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in recent history, go to this website to listen to audio and hear for yourself the very style and delivery of the oral arguments that have shaped the history of our nation's highest law. See Preface for full instructions.

Contributors

  • Charles Bierbauer, CNN
  • Lyle Denniston, scotusblog.com
  • Fred Graham, Court TV
  • Brent Kendall, Los Angeles Daily Journal
  • Steve Lash, Houston Chronicle
  • Dahlia Lithwick, Slate.com
  • Tony Mauro, American Lawyer Media
  • Tim O'Brien, ABC News
  • David Savage, Los Angeles Times
  • Greg Stohr, Bloomberg News
  • Nina Totenberg, NPR

Timothy R. Johnson teaches in the Department of Political Science and the Law School at the University of Minnesota.

Jerry Goldman teaches political science at Northwestern University and directs the OYEZ Project, a multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court, at www.oyez.org.

Cover sketch by Dana Verkouteren

"Supreme Court oral arguments are good government in action. A Good Quarrel brilliantly showcases this important aspect of the Court's work."
---Paul Clement, Partner, King & Spalding, and former United States Solicitor General

"Few legal experiences are as exhilarating as a Supreme Court oral argument---a unique art form that this superb collection brings vividly to life."
---Kathleen Sullivan, Partner, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver and Hedges, and former Dean, Stanford Law School

"[A Good Quarrel] shines a brilliant spotlight on the pivotal moment of advocacy when the Supreme Court confronts the nation's most profound legal questions."
---Thomas C. Goldstein, Partner, Akin Gump, and Lecturer, Supreme Court Litigation, Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School

"A brilliant way to understand America's most important mysterious institution."
---Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School

[more]

front cover of The Great Justices, 1941-54
The Great Justices, 1941-54
Black, Douglas, Frankfurter, and Jackson in Chambers
William Domnarski
University of Michigan Press, 2006
The Great Justices offers a revealing glimpse of a judicial universe in which titanic egos often clash, and comes as close as any book ever has to getting inside the minds of Supreme Court jurists.

This is rare and little-examined territory: in the public consciousness the Supreme Court is usually seen as an establishment whose main actors, the justices, remain above emotion, vitriol, and gossip, the better to interpret our nation of laws. Yet the Court's work is always an interchange of ideas and individuals, and the men and women who make up the Court, despite or because of their best intentions, are as human as the rest of us. Appreciating that human dimension helps us to discover some of the Court's secrets, and a new way to understand the Court and its role.

Comparing four brilliant but very different jurists of the Roosevelt Court-Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, and Robert Jackson-William Domnarski paints a startling picture of the often deeply ambiguous relationship between ideas and reality, between the law and the justices who interpret and create it. By pulling aside the veil of decorous tradition, Domnarski brings to light the personalities that shaped one of the greatest Courts of our time-one whose decisions continue to affect judicial thinking today.

William Domnarski is the author of In the Opinion of the Court (1996), a study of the history and nature of federal court judicial opinions. He holds a J.D. from the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. in English from the University of California. Domnarski currently practices law in California, where he is also working on a forthcoming biography of legendary Hollywood lawyer Bert Fields.
[more]
front cover of Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea
Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea
Joshua Horwitz and Casey Anderson
University of Michigan Press, 2009

The NRA steadfastly maintains that the 30,000 gun-related deaths and 300,000 assaults with firearms in the United States every year are a small price to pay to guarantee freedom. As former NRA President Charlton Heston put it, "freedom isn't free."

And when gun enthusiasts talk about Constitutional liberties guaranteed by the Second Amendment, they are referring to freedom in a general sense, but they also have something more specific in mind---freedom from government oppression. They argue that the only way to keep federal authority in check is to arm individual citizens who can, if necessary, defend themselves from an aggressive government.

In the past decade, this view of the proper relationship between government and individual rights and the insistence on a role for private violence in a democracy has been co-opted by the conservative movement. As a result, it has spread beyond extreme "militia" groups to influence state and national policy.

In Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea, Josh Horwitz and Casey Anderson reveal that the proponents of this view base their argument on a deliberate misreading of history. The Insurrectionist myth has been forged by twisting the facts of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States, the denial of civil rights to African-Americans after the Civil War, and the rise of the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler. Here, Horwitz and Anderson set the record straight. Then, challenging the proposition that more guns equal more freedom, they expose Insurrectionism---not government oppression---as the true threat to freedom in the U.S. today.

Joshua Horwitz received a law degree from George Washington University and is currently a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. He has spent nearly two decades working on gun violence prevention issues. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Casey Anderson holds a law degree from Georgetown University and is currently a lawyer in private practice in Washington, D.C. He has served in senior staff positions with the U.S. Congress, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and Americans for Gun Safety. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

[more]

Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter