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2018 FAPA President’s book award medalist in the non-fiction adult, biography, and political/current events categories
2018 ISHS Annual Award Winner for a Scholarly Publication

According to conventional wisdom, Abraham Lincoln spent most of his law career collecting debt and representing railroads, and this focus made him inept at defending clients in homicide cases. In this unprecedented study of Lincoln’s criminal cases, George Dekle disproves these popular notions, showing that Lincoln was first and foremost a trial lawyer. Through careful examination of Lincoln’s homicide cases and evaluation of his legal skills, Dekle demonstrates that criminal law was an important part of Lincoln's practice, and that he was quite capable of defending people accused of murder, trying approximately one such case per year.

Dekle begins by presenting the viewpoints of not only those who see Lincoln as a perfect lawyer whose only flaw was his inability to represent the wrong side of a case but also those who believe Lincoln was a less-than-honest legal hack. The author invites readers to compare these wildly different stereotypes with the flesh-and-blood Lincoln revealed in each case described in the book, including an axe murder suit in which Lincoln assisted the prosecution, a poisoning case he refused to prosecute for $200 but defended for $75, and a case he won by proving that a supposed murder victim was actually still alive.

For each case Dekle covers, he first tells the stories of the feuds, arguments, and insults that led to murder and other criminal activity, giving a gripping view of the seamy side of life in nineteenth-century Illinois. Then he traces the course of the pretrial litigation, describes the trials and the various tactics employed in the prosecution and defense, and critiques the performance of both Lincoln and his adversaries.

Dekle concludes that Lincoln was a competent, diligent criminal trial lawyer who knew the law, could argue it effectively to both judge and jury, and would use all lawful means to defend clients whether he believed them to be innocent or guilty. His trial record shows Lincoln to have been a formidable defense lawyer who won many seemingly hopeless cases through his skill as a courtroom tactician, cross-examiner, and orator. Criminal defendants who could retain Lincoln as a defense attorney were well represented, and criminal defense attorneys who sought him as co-counsel were well served. Providing insight into both Lincoln’s legal career and the culture in which he practiced law, Prairie Defender resolves a major misconception concerning one of our most important historical figures.

From the chain gang to the electric chair, the problem of how to deal with criminals has long been debated. What explains this concern with getting punishment right? And why do attitudes toward particular punishments change radically over time? In addressing these questions, Philip Smith attacks the comfortable myth that punishment is about justice, reason, and law. Instead he argues that punishment is an essentially irrational act founded in ritual as a means to control evil without creating more of it in the process.
            Punishment and Culture traces three centuries of the history of punishment, looking in detail at issues ranging from public executions and the development of the prison to Jeremy Bentham’s notorious panopticon and the invention of the guillotine. Smith contends that each of these attempts to achieve sterile bureaucratic control was thwarted as uncontrollable cultural forces generated alternative visions of heroic villains, darkly gothic technologies, and sacred awe. Moving from Andy Warhol to eighteenth-century highwaymen to Orwell’s 1984, Smith puts forward a dazzling account of the cultural landscape of punishment. His findings will fascinate students of sociology, history, criminology, law, and cultural studies.