Legal Books

Justice: Crimes, Trials, and Punishments

Dominick Dunne

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> True Accounts -> True Crime

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 79 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"In my everyday life over the last fifty years, it has been my curious lot to move among the rich and famous and powerful, always as an outsider, always listening, watching, remembering."

Writing about the crimes of the rich and famous for Vanity Fair with this insider's status, Dominick Dunne has borne witness to the often bizarre personalities who surround high-profile cases and their telling intimacies. Andrea Reynolds, for instance, dressed only in a negligee and jewelry, insists that her jewels are finer than those of the comatose woman in whose apartment she resides and whom her lover, Claus von Bulow, is charged with attempting to murder. The essays in Justice offer a fascinating, disturbing, and wry look at the cast of a half dozen high-profile trials, including Lyle and Erik Menendez, who murdered their affluent parents; Marvin Pancoast, who beat the $18,000-a-month mistress of Alfred Bloomingdale to death with a baseball bat; the multibillionaire banker Edmund Safra, who suffocated in his own bunker-like bathroom in Monaco; and the gossiping members of Los Angeles society during "All O.J., All the Time."

The most moving story by far is the title piece, about the murder of Dunne's daughter, the actress Dominique Dunne, by her ex-boyfriend, who walked away with a pitifully light sentence thanks to the extremes taken by his defense lawyer and the vanity of the judge. While the succeeding stories don't have the same poignancy, Dunne still makes them personal--after all, he knows many of those involved, and justice truly is personal for him. In fact, it is this moral authority that enables him to enter the strange universe of high-society crime and write about it with no pretense of objectivity, but rather with rage toward the short shrift justice is so often given in celebrity cases. The counterpoint to his anger is a delicious irony in the form of fascinating subplots, jet-set gossip, and terrific quotes straight from some of the horses' mouths. Dunne has both a sharp sense of the absurd and a trenchant eye for injustice in any form. --Lesley Reed

No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of Justice in America

Ralph Nader, Wesley J. Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

important 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 20 people found this review helpful.

No Contest book by Ralph Nader and Wesley Smith.... In their book No Contest by Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith, the authors give a series of examples about law at the corporate level. Many of their examples deal with wronged individuals suing a corporation. Frequently the plaintiffs are frustrated by a series of delays, misrepresentations, intentional misunderstandings, and multiple appeals. The judges do not discipline the lawyers, at least not to any effective extent, and the judges do not throw out frivolous motions. The judges tend to side with big law firms and with clever lines of reasoning, and not with the plaintiff. The original plaintiff injury, such as a wrongful death due to negligent corporate behavior, is forgotten in the mire of lawyer activity, and the judges fail to consider the need for relief of the plaintiff, without further anguishing delay. The plaintiff is faced with interminable costs and tedious delays without relief. There is no doubt reform is needed. ................ For a remedy, authors Nader and Wesley suggest an Appleseed Foundation, formed of local community volunteer groups, together with some overseeing coordinating committees. They mention Harvard graduates as playing a prominent behind the scenes part in overseeing reform. .............. The problem with this approach is: first, volunteerism, presumably without pay, is insufficient motivation to overcome such entrenched and profitable bad habits. Second, it is not clear just what specific steps these groups should recommend, other than complain, and point out injustices of which many persons are already aware. . Third, there are already volunteer groups (I have a list of over 20) around the country who are angry with their treatment by the law and yet who have not been able to bring about a change in habits.

Editorial Review:

The most controversial section of this ringing denunciation of corporate law is that on tort reform, which Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and 1996 Green Party Presidential candidate, and Wesley J. Smith denounce as "tort deform" measures sure to further insulate corporations from the damage wrought by pollution and dangerous products. But Nader has never shied from controversy, and this series of case studies attacks confidential settlements in injury cases, state ethics boards, and links between high-power corporate lawyers and government officials with an equal measure of indignation and reformist zeal.

The Success of Open Source

Steven Weber

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Business & Culture -> Government
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Programming -> Software Design, Testing & Engineering -> Software Development
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Software -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Much of the innovative programming that powers the Internet, creates operating systems, and produces software is the result of "open source" code, that is, code that is freely distributed--as opposed to being kept secret--by those who write it. Leaving source code open has generated some of the most sophisticated developments in computer technology, including, most notably, Linux and Apache, which pose a significant challenge to Microsoft in the marketplace. As Steven Weber discusses, open source's success in a highly competitive industry has subverted many assumptions about how businesses are run, and how intellectual products are created and protected.

Traditionally, intellectual property law has allowed companies to control knowledge and has guarded the rights of the innovator, at the expense of industry-wide cooperation. In turn, engineers of new software code are richly rewarded; but, as Weber shows, in spite of the conventional wisdom that innovation is driven by the promise of individual and corporate wealth, ensuring the free distribution of code among computer programmers can empower a more effective process for building intellectual products. In the case of Open Source, independent programmers--sometimes hundreds or thousands of them--make unpaid contributions to software that develops organically, through trial and error.

Weber argues that the success of open source is not a freakish exception to economic principles. The open source community is guided by standards, rules, decisionmaking procedures, and sanctioning mechanisms. Weber explains the political and economic dynamics of this mysterious but important market development.

(20040416)

Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder

Vincent Bugliosi

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Total reviews: 125 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Here at last is the account of the O.J. Simpson case that no one else has dared to write, that no one else could write. In Outrage, the famed prosecutor of Charles Manson and bestselling author of Helter Skelter goes to the heart of the trial that divided the country and made a mockery of justice.  Vincent Bugliosi, who never lost a murder case, brilliantly outlines the five reasons why O.J. Simpson got away with murder: the worst possible jury, a sloppy and incomplete prosecution, a fatal change of venue, judicial error that allowed the defense to play the race card, and a weak summation and rebuttal that barely addressed the defense's frame-up and conspiracy theories. He reveals:

--The offer Marcia Clark and Bill Hodgman should never have refused.
--The bluff that saved the defense's cardboard case.
--What Deputy Sheriff Jeff Stuart overheard when Rosey Grier visited Simpson in jail.
--The 17 words Johnnie Cochran used to cover his argument that could have been his undoing if caught.
--Why the jurors never heard Simpson's first police interview-- filled with self-incriminating statements that alone could have convicted him of murder.

1.  What mistake in jury selection could have cost Marcia Clark the trial--even before she argued the case?

2. What did Simpson do to make sure the gloves wouldn't fit?

3. How did Judge Ito's behavior towards Marcia Clark prejudice the jury?

4. Why did the prosecutors suppress Simpson's "smoking gun"?

5. How did Johnnie Cochran con the jury?

6. Who might really have suggested that Simpson try on the evidence gloves?

Under Investigation: The Inside Story of the Florida Attorney General's Investigation of Wilhelmina Scouting Network, the Largest Model and Talent Scam in America

Les Henderson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

THE WORLD’S LARGEST talent and model scouting company, led by celebrity boy-band promoter Lou Pearlman, recruited over 150,000 members across America from 2000 to 2003. Based in Orlando, Florida, this enterprise operated under many names: Studio 58 Models; WHY Models; eFashionShow.com; emodel.com; Options Talent; Trans Continental Talent; Wilhelmina Scouting Network; and Web Style Network.

It charged upfront fees ranging from $395 to $995 to put an aspiring model’s picture on their website, a service purportedly used by 1000 modeling agencies seeking new talent. “You could be discovered,” their army of talent scouts pitched. “Become a model!” “You have the look!”

Extremely controversial, subject to many local news reports, it also received national attention in Jane, Newsweek, and on Dateline NBC. More than 2000 complaints were filed with the Florida Attorney General’s Office, many with signed and notarized affidavits from consumers who felt they had been scammed. An investigation, led by Assistant Attorney General Jacqueline Dowd, was opened in July 2002.

Everyone expected Attorney General Charlie Crist to act. But he didn’t. Why not? Using previously secret documents obtained through public records requests, Under Investigation takes you inside the Florida Attorney General’s Office to see how the two-year investigation unfolded, and then was ultimately shut down under suspicious circumstances.

Devil's Knot : The True Story of the West Memphis Three

Mara Leveritt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 74 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

On the evening of May 5, 1993, in the small town of West Memphis, Arkansas, three eight-year-old boys disappeared. The next afternoon, the naked bodies of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore were found submerged in a nearby stream. The boys had been bound from ankle to wrist with their own shoelaces and severely beaten. Christopher had been castrated.

The crime scene had yielded few clues, and despite Christopher's castration, there was a remarkable absence of blood. The police were stymied, and citizens' alarm mounted as weeks passed without an arrest. Finally, a month after the murders, detectives announced three arrests -- and a startling theory of the crime: that the children had been killed by members of a satanic cult.

Detectives attributed their break in the case to a former special education student, seventeen-year-old Jessie Misskelley Jr. Although Jessie insisted he knew nothing of the crime, after eight hours of questioning, police announced that he had implicated himself and accused two other teenagers, eighteen-year-old Damien Echols and sixteen-year-old Jason Baldwin. Damien and Jason both denied Jessie's account, and Jessie himself recanted it within hours, but by then all three had been charged with the murders.

With no physical evidence connecting anyone to the crime, prosecutors contended that the murders bore signs of "the occult" and that the three accused teenagers possessed a "state of mind" that pointed to them as the killers. As proof of the defendants' mental states, they introduced items taken from their rooms -- such as books by Anne Rice and album posters for the rock group Metallica. Jurors found all three teenagers guilty. Jessie and Jason were sentenced to life in prison. Damien was sentenced to death.

While the verdicts were popular in Arkansas, an HBO documentary raised questions about the lack of evidence in the case, and a Web site was formed to support the inmates, now known as "The West Memphis Three." When the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the verdicts, state officials insisted that anyone who questioned the trials simply did not know "the facts."

Now, for the first time, an award-winning investigative reporter examines that official stand. In riveting narrative, Devil's Knot draws readers into the drama of a modern-day courtroom dominated by references to Satan. In laying out "the facts" of this still-unfolding case, it offers a frightening look into America's system of justice.

Damages

Barry Werth

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Professionals & Academics -> Medical
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Personal Health -> Women's Health -> Pregnancy & Childbirth -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

On April 1, 1984, Donna Sabia went into labor expecting twins. But one of the babies arrived stillborn, while the other--Anthony Jr.--was barely alive, with an Apgar score (rating newborn vitality on a scale of 0 to 10) of 1. In the following years, he suffered from spastic quadriplegia, cerebral palsy, and cortical blindness, and would require lifelong medical attention costing millions of dollars just to survive. The Sabias' lawyers faulted Donna's maternity clinic and the delivering physician for her son's condition, initiating a 7-year lawsuit on the claim that a simple $40 ultrasound could have eliminated incalculable suffering and catastrophic expense.

Damages is a careful analysis of how the fields of law and medicine intersect in the realm of medical malpractice, where lawyers sue not only to redress suffering but to make sure that doctors and hospitals are more vigilant in the future, if only to avoid being sued again. Werth leads readers carefully through the litigation, from the deposing of expert witnesses, through the preparation for trial, to the posturing of settlement negotiations. Always firmly aware that lawyers sue doctors on behalf of human beings, however, he reveals the emotional and psychological consequences of a civil justice system that is often neither civil nor just. Werth explains esoteric legal and medical procedures in understandable terms that laypeople will not find condescending, while describing the human side of the Sabias' case without patronizing attorneys and physicians. Ultimately, Damages is the chronicle of a devoted family braving a medical malpractice industry in which the decision-making process on both sides is governed by a cost-benefit analysis that leads, perhaps inevitably, to the commodification of human life. "Even after a big verdict," Werth quotes one malpractice lawyer, "I'm suffering because all I could get my clients, who've been brutalized by the most appalling malpractice, was money." --Tim Hogan

Underworld Secrets: Jimmy Hoffa to Las Vegas

Jerry Van Hoorelbeke

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Bad, Bad, Bad 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book is very unorganized and hard to follow. Events and thoughts at times do not make sense I.E chapter one page 5 "I went to live with my sister and Dennis's father gave me a job in his factory". No where is it mentioned who Dennis is and why he is mentioned, or was that his sisters name and they had different fathers? In the same sentence it goes on to say something about Oakland Community College and football with reference to the the colleege retruning to the Reformatory? What is the Reformatory and what does it have to do with football
is th
It is full of events, names and happenings that just don't "gel" together..with no explaination of why a particular person or event is/was or what the relevence is in the story..

I had to give up reading it less then half way through, do to the lack of consistant thoughts...too confusing...

Editorial Review:

Jerry Van, friend of Jimmy Hoffa, describes his association with underworld figures in Las Vega and Los Angeles. The people he associated with included Eddie Nash ("four-on-the-floor" Hollywood murders); Tony Spilotro and Tony Spalatro, infamous Las Vegas mob figures; sex and prostitution in Las Vegas.

Taming the Lawyers: What to Expect in a Lawsuit and How to Make Sure Your Attorney Gets Results

Kenneth Menendez

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Author's humour makes a breadth of material fun and readable 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Required reading for this student of Georgia State University's Executive MBA program ... and I would recommend it to anyone who is or knows an entrepreneur. Ken Menendez does a great job covering a great breadth of factual material and commentary in a conversational, slightly cynical tone. Though written for the businessperson with little exposure to the legal profession, the author manages to keep the experienced reader's interest by offering clever quips and insightful points of advice. It's on my gift list for every small businessperson I know.

A must for reporters 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I am a reporter and Ken's book proved to be a wonderful find. It explains complex legal issues that reporters cover on a daily basis. For any reporter, beginner or experienced, this is perfect addition for you library or just good reading if you want a better understanding of the legal system.

Editorial Review:

This book explains the mechanics of a civil lawsuit in terms that any law person can understand.

Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization

Pat Choate

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The problem of pirating and counterfeiting has grown from small-scale imitations of Levi’s jeans and Zippo lighters to a phenomenon that costs the United States an estimated $200 billion dollars per year. Pirated DVDs, computer software, designer clothes, and machinery flood global markets, inflicting heavy losses on U.S. businesses, while counterfeit medicines, auto and aircraft parts, and baby formula regularly cause fatalities around the world. The theft of artistic and scientific creation is draining our economy. It is the great economic crime of the twenty-first century.

Pat Choate, the author of the best-selling Agents of Influence, examines the roots of conflicts over intellectual property and how the establishment of patent and copyright protections helped propel the American economy. He interweaves the stories of Eli Whitney, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison to illustrate how the United States transformed itself from a largely agricultural society into a manufacturing, scientific, and technological superpower, giving rise to further copyright and patent protection laws. He traces the emergence of Germany, Japan, and China as rivals to American primacy through copying, counterfeiting, and underpricing American products and media. He reveals the shockingly meager effectiveness of current efforts to defend American businesses, inventors, and artists from corporate espionage. And he sounds a powerfully convincing warning that the general indifference of our government toward the security of American intellectual property is already affecting job security and the economy in general (an estimated $24 billion is lost each year to pirated films, music recordings, books, and other merchandise in China alone).

Hot Property is an impassioned, clear-eyed, and sound assessment of one of the most serious problems facing the American economy today, certain to be one of the most widely discussed books of the year.