Judicial System Books

The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight over Presidential Power

Jonathan Mahler

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Amazon Best of the Month, August 2008: There have by now been many insider accounts of the Bush Administration and its War on Terror. Jonathan Mahler's The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight over Presidential Power, on the other hand, is very much an outsider's account: the story of two lawyers and their attempt to scale the walls of the American government and overturn the system of military commissions set up to try the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. One observer called Hamdan v. Rumsfeld "the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law, ever," and Mahler's focus on the odd-couple lawyers--the blustery, impulsive Navy JAG who made defending Hamdan his mission and the brilliant and tireless Indian immigrant's son who risked a meteoric career with his obsession with the case--and his ability to communicate the grave constitutional consequences of the case and the often bizarrely circuitous path they must take to reach the Supreme Court make for a thrilling and moving drama of justice, democracy, and the patriotism of challenging your own government. --Tom Nissley

Represent Yourself in Court: How to Prepare & Try a Winning Case

Paul Bergman, Sara J. Berman-Barrett

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Prepare and present a winning civil court case!

Written in plain English, Represent Yourself in Court breaks down the trial process into easy-to-understand steps so that you can act as your own lawyer -- safely and efficiently. Find out what to say, how to say it, even where to stand when you address the judge and jury.

Armed with these simple but thorough instructions, you'll be well prepared to achieve good results, without the cost of an attorney. Find out how to:

file court papers

handle depositions and interrogatories

comply with courtroom procedures

pick a jury

prepare your evidence and line up witnesses

present your opening statement and closing argument

cross-examine hostile witnesses

understand and apply rules of evidence

locate, hire and effectively use expert witnesses

make and respond to your opponent's objections

get limited help from an attorney as needed

monitor the work of an attorney if you decide to hire one

Whether you are a plaintiff or a defendant, this book will help you confidently handle a divorce, personal injury case, landlord/tenant dispute, breach of contract, small business dispute or any other civil lawsuit.

The 6th edition is completely updated to include the latest rules and court procedures and more sample documents to help guide you through your case.

What's New
The 6th Edition of Represent Yourself in Court contains completely updated legal information, including:

updated discovery rules

new information about electronic discovery and the use of electronic evidence, and

a new section that contains an example of a custody hearing.

Beat Your Ticket: Go to Court & Win (5th edition)

David Wayne Brown

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Sticking it to the Man 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I've been to traffic court many, many times and I always feel like I'm misunderstanding something because I get shafted left and right. As it turns out, I was misunderstanding something. I flew through this book, which is odd because it's technically a law book, but it's written in a very accessible way. It's good to just have the knowledge of how to stand up for yourself, and even if you don't stand a chance in court, you at least know what to sat, when to say it, and what the heck is going on. I highly recommend this to anyone considering buying it.

Editorial Review:

Everything you need to fight an unfair ticket!

We've all received one -- a traffic ticket that seems completely unfair, the result of an officer's evening quota rather than a serious moving violation. But do you have to pay the penalty and watch your driving record crash and burn?

Not if you choose to fight back with Beat Your Ticket.

Beat Your Ticket simply and clearly lays out the best strategies for beating tickets in court. The book explains in plain English how to:

use the law to fight an unwarranted ticket

find out what the police officer plans to say at your trial

attack radar and other detection methods

pick a jury

present your case

cross-examine the ticketing officer

The 5th edition is extensively updated to reflect your state's current traffic laws and court procedures.

Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse

Steve Bogira

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

exciting look behind the scenes - but sadly terribly biased 1 out of 5 stars.
10 of 21 people found this review helpful.

It seems to be an exciting look behind the scenes of a typical big city courthouse. And it is, the reader will be given an interesting and sometimes spellbinding look into the lockups, the backrooms and chambers where justice is being sought, sometimes found, sometimes not. Having spent many years in New York City courtrooms I can agree with the descriptions in this book.

However, every page is dripping with bias. You will find every liberal prejudice that ever was invented: The deputies are pretty much heartless sadistic roboters, the prosecutors overzealous apparachicks who waste taxpayers' money -and always are white, which is pretty unbelievable-, corruption among the judges is rampant -which is even more unbelievable-, and the defendants always are poor, disadvantaged minorities, who in the author's view are only victims of society and should not be held responsible for their crimes. Luckily the author found a judge, who pretty much shares this attitude.
The author only changes his view where the defendants are white. Here the judge cannot throw the book hard enough at them.

Once the reader has been numbed enough to just ignore this mantra, the book is mildly interesting. Sadly, as in most liberal descriptions of our justice system, you read a lot about the defendants, the judges, the lawyers, but almost nothing about the victims of the defendants' crimes.

Sadly, after a few pages you have already had all the information you will get. The rest of the book will only repeat the author's ideology. That makes reading this book pretty much a waste of time.

Editorial Review:

Courtroom 302 is the fascinating story of one year in Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the busiest felony courthouse in the country. Here we see the system through the eyes of the men and women who experience it, not only in the courtroom but in the lockup, the jury room, the judge's chambers, the spectators' gallery. From the daily grind of the court to the highest-profile case of the year, Steve Bogira’s masterful investigation raises fundamental issues of race, civil rights, and justice in America.

Indefensible: One Lawyer's Journey into the Inferno of American Justice

David Feige

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A young lawyer's outrageous and heartbreaking long day's journey into night court.

If M*A*S*H took place in the Bronx instead of Korea and was about lawyers and judges, not doctors and officers, it would look a lot like INDEFENSIBLE, David Feige's darkly funny and thrilling account of an ordinary day in the complicated life of a public defender in the South Bronx. In the span of a single day we meet murderers and misdemeanants, loutish lawyers, and vindictive judges. We race from courtroom to courtroom, judge to judge, and defendant to defendant, in a shocking behind-the-scenes look at big city justice as it really happens.

This is a book full of black comedy and outrage, of unforgettable characters and situations. Written with the verve and insider know-how of a John Grisham thriller, but with the social conscience of a Barbara Ehrenreich, INDEFENSIBLE has real crossover potential--and should ignite a profound debate about law and order in America. It puts a human face on the terrifying systemic failures that make American criminal justice the dirty little secret of our time.

Nolo's Deposition Handbook

Paul Bergman, Albert J. Moore

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Court cases are never as quick and tidy as television dramas would have us believe. In fact, most civil disputes are settled long before a judge has a chance to pound a gavel. That's why pretrial fact-finding procedures such as depositions play an increasingly important role in legal quarrels. In fact, it's not uncommon for a deposition to be the only testimony given. All of this explains why Nolo's Deposition Handbook can be such a useful resource. For the uninitiated, depositions are the process that enable either party in a lawsuit to question the other, as well as other witnesses, under oath before a trial begins. To prepare readers, authors (and attorneys) Paul Bergman and Albert Moore do a commendable job of dealing with real-life issues, such as what to do--and not to do--in preparation for a deposition, what to do if you're asked to bring documents to a deposition, how far you can be required to travel, and how to deal with trick questions that many lawyers love to ask. Three "Golden Rules" are also offered to help people through the deposition process. Put simply, the rules are to listen to the entire question and then answer only that question; answer truthfully and completely; and if you don't understand a question, don't answer it. The tone of the entire book acknowledges--without being condescending--that legal arenas are an area where novices feel quite underqualified. For example, the authors warn against engaging in seemingly harmless chit-chat with a companion before and during breaks in a deposition. The reason is one that most non-lawyers would be hard-pressed to imagine: Deposing counsel can ask the companion to reveal what the deponent said. Of course, readers intrigued by that line of thinking will thoroughly enjoy the last half of the book, which is devoted to those interested in representing themselves in legal matters. --John Russell

Fight Your Ticket & Win in California

David Wayne Brown

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Only 1 out of every 50 traffic tickets are disputed 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Police officers know this statistic and that's one reason why they write tickets that they know wouldn't hold water! That's one of the points in this book. But more importantly the author explains clearly exactly what vehicle code you've been accused of and how you might benefit from disputing it. For example: the most common vehicle code violation in California is Section 22350. Do you know what that means? The author explains it in an easy to understand way. There are something like 5 conditions that have to be met to prove your guilt (I don't have the book right in front of me at the moment). He also explains that ALL of the conditions of Section 22350 have to be met in order for you to be found guilty. Not one or most of the conditions, but ALL of them. I found it pretty easy to get out of one of the conditions and the judge had no choice but to dismiss the charge.

First thing that happens is the officer is given a chance to say his part. He rants on and on about how he's the radar god, the gun was calibrated that morning, blah blah blah. Then it's your turn. Yes you're nervous, but you're also prepared! I said that I didn't dispute the radar's accuracy or the officer's ability to use it, and went on to my defense using the information learned in the book. I highly recommend it. For me, it was worth every penny...and another $421 on top of that ;-)

Editorial Review:

Thousands of Californians have used this book to win their traffic court cases!

A traffic conviction can add hundreds of dollars to your yearly auto insurance premiums. Fight Your Ticket & Win in California shows you how to handle your case in traffic court, get the right kind of hearing and win.

Attorney David Brown provides you with the detailed tactics you need to:

prepare and present your evidence

argue before a judge

cross-examine a police officer's testimony

get your case dismissed

appeal a decision

determine the consequences of your violation

The 12th edition provides the latest legal information, including fines and penalties.

Law and Judicial Duty

Philip Hamburger

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Subjects -> Law -> Legal History -> General AAS

Editorial Review:

Almost every day, a judge in the United States holds a statute unconstitutional. This power of the judges is known as “judicial review,” and it often seems the central feature of American constitutional law. The authority and scope of this power, however, have long remained unclear, and because historical accounts have tended to suggest that the judges themselves largely developed judicial review, the history has given credence to the view that judges enjoy considerable discretion over the extent and exercise of this power.

Law and Judicial Duty presents a very different history and a very different conception of the power of the judges. Drawing upon previously unexplored evidence, Philip Hamburger reveals the familiar notion of judicial review to be largely an illusion produced by modern assumptions, and he shows that what today is called “judicial review” was once understood more simply as part of the duty of judges to decide in accord with the law of the land. His book challenges many modern assumptions about the extent of judicial power, and by exploring judicial duty in its social context, the book raises sobering questions about the nature of law and the possibility of government under law.

The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? Second Edition (American Politics and Political Economy Series)

Gerald N. Rosenberg

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In follow-up studies, dozens of reviews, and even a book of essays evaluating his conclusions, Gerald Rosenberg’s critics—not to mention his supporters—have spent nearly two decades debating the arguments he first put forward in The Hollow Hope. With this substantially expanded second edition of his landmark work, Rosenberg himself steps back into the fray, responding to criticism and adding chapters on the same-sex marriage battle that ask anew whether courts can spur political and social reform.
Finding that the answer is still a resounding no, Rosenberg reaffirms his powerful contention that it’s nearly impossible to generate significant reforms through litigation. The reason? American courts are ineffective and relatively weak—far from the uniquely powerful sources for change they’re often portrayed as. Rosenberg supports this claim by documenting the direct and secondary effects of key court decisions—particularly Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. He reveals, for example, that Congress, the White House, and a determined civil rights movement did far more than Brown to advance desegregation, while pro-choice activists invested too much in Roe at the expense of political mobilization. Further illuminating these cases, as well as the ongoing fight for same-sex marriage rights, Rosenberg also marshals impressive evidence to overturn the common assumption that even unsuccessful litigation can advance a cause by raising its profile.
Directly addressing its critics in a new conclusion, The Hollow Hope, Second Edition promises to reignite for a new generation the national debate it sparked seventeen years ago.

Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court

Ralph Warner

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The only guide to small claims court that provides insights from judges.

Smart preparation for your day in small claims court can make the difference between writing a check and receiving one.

Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court provides the information, tips and strategies you need to sue someone successfully, or put up a winning defense. Find out how to:

write a demand letter

file and serve papers

prepare a winning presentation

prepare evidence

line up persuasive witnesses

figure out your damages

mediate a settlement

collect money when you win

Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court gives you down-to-earth examples of common cases, including:

auto repair

rental deposit

auto warranty

property damage

small business disputes

The 12th edition is completely updated by a state-by-state appendix of small claims rules, including increases of limits on how much people can sue for, an expanded discussion of mediation, and more advice from real judges and commissioners.