"Written for a general audience. . . . Excellent. . . . If enough
American judges and law professors read his book, some of the silly
rules that he criticizes will be discarded."
"--Judge Richard A. Posner, Times Literary Supplement"
"A beautifully written, finely nuanced work, a marvelous
comparative constitutional study of criminal procedure that seeks
to understand the larger culture."
"--Lawrence Fleischer, New York Law Journal"
"In a cogent, direct argument, Pizzi inveighs against the
triumph of the law of unintended consequences over the law of
practicality. . . . An important book."
"--Publishers Weekly"
"Pizzi is certainly convincing in his argument that the American
trial system is in dire need of overhaul. "
--"Law Society Journal," July 2002 Rodney King. Reginald Denny. O.
J. Simpson. Colin Ferguson. Louise Woodward: all names that have
cast a spotlight on the deficiencies of the American system of
criminal justice. Yet, in the wake of each trial that exposes
shocking behavior by trial participants or results in
counterintuitive rulingsaoften with perverse resultsathe American
public is reassured by the trial bar that the case is not "typical"
and that our trial system remains the best in the world.
William T. Pizzi here argues that what the public perceives is
in fact exactly what the United States has: a trial system that
places far too much emphasis on winning and not nearly enough on
truth, one in which the abilities of a lawyer or the composition of
a jury may be far more important to the outcome of a case than any
evidence.
How has a system on which Americans have lavished enormous
amounts of energy, time, and money been allowed todegenerate into
one so profoundly flawed?
Acting as an informal tour guide, and bringing to bear his
experiences as both insider and outsider, prosecutor and academic,
Pizzi here exposes the structural faultlines of our trial system
and its paralyzing obsession with procedure, specifically the ways
in which lawyers are permitted to dominate trials, the system's
preference for weak judges, and the absurdities of plea bargaining.
By comparing and contrasting the U.S. system with that of a host of
other countries, Trials Without Truth provides a clear-headed,
wide-ranging critique of what ails the criminal justice systemaand
a prescription for how it can be fixed.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!