Pacaritambo

ADAMS V. TEXAS
(The True Story Made Famous by the Documentary, The Thin Blue Line)
by Randall Adams with William Hoffer and Marilyn Mona Hoffer. Condition: NEW 1991 Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Press hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first edition, first printing. Content: In 1976 Ohioan Randall Adams, 28, who had gone to Dallas to seek work, was arrested for the murder of a police officer actually slain by 16-year-old David Harris, with whom Adams had spent part of the day. The prosecutor, Douglas Mulder, suppressed or distorted evidence and bribed witnesses; presiding over the trial was "hanging judge" Donald J. Metcalfe. Adams was convicted and sentenced to death. After 12 years in jail--described by Adams and the Hoffers ( Midnight Express ) as a barbarous experience--the prisoner was ultimately exonerated and freed, even though many Dallas judicial officials refused to accept his innocence. Adams's account of his ordeal is a scathing indictment of Texas justice. Unfortunately, however, this exceedingly depressing book lacks the dramatic pulse of Errol Morris's film about the case, The Thin Blue Line. [1 copy available]
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AMERICA'S FIRST WOMAN LAWYER: The Biography of Myra Bradwell
by Jane M. Friedman. B&W photo section. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect, 1993 Prometheu hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. PROBLEM: Something was written on the loose end page and has been "blacked" out. Interior clean & tight. Content: After she applied to practice law in 1869 in her home state of Illinois and was denied, Myra Bradwell (1831-1894) instead became a legal journalist, publishing and editing the influential Chicago Legal News. In this heavily footnoted and prodigiously researched study, Wayne State University law professor Friedman posits that Bradwell's achievements have been overlooked because her disagreements with feminist Susan B. Anthony led Anthony to exclude Bradwell from her definitive History of Woman Suffrage. Using her journal as a forum, Bradwell successfully agitated for judicial reform and women's rights, particularly the right of married women to enter the professions. She and her husband James, an attorney, obtained the release of Mary Todd Lincoln, who had been committed to an insane asylum by her son. Although Friedman celebrates Bradwell's legal skill and tenacity, she also acknowledges her frequent lapses into duplicity and anti-Semitism in this objective portrait. [1 copy available]
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CLARENCE DARROW FOR THE DEFENSE
by Irving Stone. Condition: Good+ 1971 Signet paperback edition, 8th printing. Light edgewear with pale spine crease. Interior clean & tight with light tanning to page edges. Very slight roll. Content: The best biography of America's best lawyer. [1 copy available]
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THE DISSIDENT WORD: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1995
edited by Chris Miller. Condition: NEW 1995 Basic Books (HarperCollins) hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket). Content: A reminder from Amnesty International of the power of free speech in the face of oppression--and of the fact that ``ordinary people, not just journalists, novelists, and poets . . . can be saved by international opinion.'' In this collection of addresses delivered at Oxford University, six novelists speak to aspects of political dissent.: Andre Brink, Wole Soyinka, Edmund White, Taslima Nasreen, Gore Vidal, and Nawal El Saadawi. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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AN ESSAY ON CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS
by Cesare Beccaria. Edited by and with Introduction by Adolph Caso. Condition: UNREAD 1992 Braden Books Trade Paperback - now here's the kickker - "original fourth edition" - second ediiton. Tiny edgewear. Content: Exactly what the title says - a treatise on and observations on legal systems related to crime and punishment. Some of his observations: "Secret accusations make men false and treacherous; in any government, power is vested in the whole of the people and not in any part of the society; individuals are innocent until found guilty; judges have no right to interpret the laws; and punishment of a nobleman should not differ from that of the lowest member of society. [1 copy available]
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GIDEON'S TRUMPET
by Anthony Lewis. Condition: UNREAD 1966 Vintage paperback. Tag removal mark top front cover. Interior clean & tight with tanning to page edges. Content: A history of the landmark case of James Earl Gideon's fight for the right to legal counsel. Notes, table of cases, index. The classic backlist bestseller. Also a great made-for-TV 1980 movie directed by Robert Collins, starring Henry Fonda (Gideon), José Ferrer, Fay Wray, John Houseman, Sam Jaffe, Dean Jagger, Lane Smith, and Ford Rainey. [1 copy available]
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A HANDBOOK ON HANGING
by Charles Duff. Intro by Christopher Hitchens. Condition: NEW 2001 NYRB Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: This is a Swiftian tribute to that unappreciated mainstay of civilization: the hangman. With barbed insouciance, Charles Duff writes not only of hanging but of electrocution, decapitations, and gassings; of innocent men executed and of executions botched; of the bloodlust of mobs and the shabby excuses of the great. This coruscating and, in contemporary America, very relevant polemic makes clear that whatever else capital punishment may be said to be -- justice, vengeance, a deterrent -- it is certainly killing. Though published in 1923, this is not out of place in today's society. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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LEGAL BLUNDERS
by Geoff Tibbals. Condition: NEW 2000 Carroll & Graf Trade Paperback, first thus, first printing. Small edgewear. Remainder. Content: Covers the errors made in the cases of: Ruby Ridge, O.J. Simpson, Son of Sam, WAco, Raymond Burr, Yorkshire Ripper, et al. For budding attorneys, this is what NOT to do. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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MUCKRAKING: Three Landmark Articles
edited by with introduction by Ellen F. Fitzpatrick. B&W era photos illustrate. Condition: UNREAD 1994 Bedlam/St. Martin's Press Trade Paperback, fourth printing. Tiny edgewear. Content: Reviewer: "This edition contains, three landmark articles that were all published in McClure's magazine in January 1903. The articles, "The Oil War of 1872" by Ida M. Tarbell; "The Shame of Minneapolis" by Lincoln Steffens; and "The Right To Work" by Ray Stannard Baker are indeed rare to find collected in one volume. Thankfully, for students of journalism and history they are collected here. When looking at all three articles, they might seem to a 21st century reader as a little flat and not all that shocking or sensational. However, if one looks back at some of the hokey pablum that many papers and magazines employed, these articles were nothing short of a bombshell. Some of the journalism of that era smacked of boosterism or partisan sentiment, but these articles were indeed beholden to none but the truth (or as close to that moving target as you can get). There is also a history of "muckraking" included. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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THE PROSECUTORS: Inside the Offices of the Government's Most Powerful Lawyers
by James B. Stewart (Pulitzer Prize winner for The Partners.) Condition: UNREAD 1987 Touchstone Trade Paperback, second printing. Shelfwear diagonal crease bottom front cover corner. Content: Stewart concentrates on white-collar crime in this fine survey. Included are cases involving the McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company charged with bribing Pakistani officials; Japan's Hitachi Company and allegations of industrial espionage; Morgan Stanley and insider trading; the Bank of Nova Scotia in connection with tax-shelter fraud; and the investigation of Edwin Meese on his nomination as attorney general. Readers are made aware of the clout large corporations wield, the power of prosecutors and the instructive fact that they spend little actual time in the courtroom. There are also portraits of several prosecutors, the most memorable of them Rudolph Giuliani of New York. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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ROBERT'S RULES OF ORDER, REVISED
by General Henry M. Robert; new foreword by Henry M. Robert III. Condition: UNREAD 1979 Morrow Quill Paperbacks Trade Paperback, 6th printing. "The only authorized paper edition." Tiny edgewear. Content: The classic 1915 edition revised. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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ROE V. WADE: The Complete Text of the Official U.S. Supreme Court Decision
annotated by Bo Schambelan, J.D. Condition: UNREAD 1992 Running Press Trade Paperback, first printing. Tiny edgewear bottom back cover corner tip. Content: Reviewer: "This book is of doubtless value to those who, despite having never read a Supreme Court opinion, wish to dive immediately into the deep end of the pool. Intended primarily for a lay audience with a fervid interest in the controversial case, Schambelan's book is comprised mostly of text taken verbatim from the Court's own published opinion. On the upside, most of the book's content comes directly from the horse's mouth. On the downside, the Court's text hardly makes for an easy read for the uninitiated. Essentially a reference work, Roe V. Wade provides readers with abridged transcripts of the Court's decisions in both Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, as well as all concurring and dissenting opinions, including original footnotes and citations. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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SACCO-VANZETTI: The Murder and the Myth
by Robert H. Montgomery. Condition: UNREAD, but not perfect: small edgewear, binder's glue strings down spine, interior tanning. 1965 Americanist Library paperback. Content: The story of just one of the American "Trials of the Century." The arrest, trail, and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti is still a hotly disputed issue. The author knew many of the persons involved in this trial, however, it was written some 30 years later. The beginning of the great "Red" scares in American which reached it's peak with Senator McCarthy in the 1950s. [1 copy available]
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THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS (Volumes 1 & 2)
by Baron de Montesquieu. Translated by Thomas Nugent. Foreword by Franz Neumann. Condition: Most likely gently pre-read 1965 Hafner Publishing Trade Paperback, 4th printing. Light tanning to page edges. Pale hinge crease with binder's glue string down spine. Content: The Spirit of the Laws is without question one of the central texts in the history of eighteenth-century thought, yet there has been no complete scholarly English language edition since 1750. This lucid translation renders Montesquieu's problematic text newly accessible to a fresh generation of students, helping them to understand why Montesquieu was such an important figure in the early enlightenment and why The Spirit of the Laws was such an influence on those who framed the American Constitution. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
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YOU'RE THE JURY:
Solve Twelve Real-Life Court Cases Along with the Juries Who Decided Them
by Judge Norbert Ehrenfreund and Lawrence Treat. B&W "exhibit" drawings & maps. Condition: NEW 1992 edition Owl Books (Henry Holt) Trade Paperback, 11th printing. Perfect. Content: These 12 cases, all based on actual trials, give readers an opportunity to become participants in the judicial process. Future jurors become acquainted with the process itself, but even more importantly, they must confront the issues and assume the awesome responsi bility that accompanies jury decisions. The cases reflect everyday news: a teacher is charged with his wife's murder; a black man is accused of raping a white woman; a woman seeks a court order for the removal of a feeding tube from her 92-year-old comatose mother. Not for the casual reader, the book takes concentration and critical thinking. For each case, there are possible verdicts, questions, analyses, and instructions. Finally, the verdict is stated and explained. Some of the cases are lengthy, but the exchanges between the attor neys, defendants, and witnesses are often live ly. It's difficult to capture the nuances of real courtroom interaction in print, but even those who are not Court TV fans will find this a good reflection of the process as they sit in the jury box. Recommended for ages 9 and up, but even Young Adult readers might have trouble with the theory, language, and rigor of the book. Excellent! [1 copy available]
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THE VINDICATIONS: The Rights of Men; The Rights of Women
by Mary Wollstonecraft. Edited by D. L. Macdonald & Kathleen Scherf. Condition: Gently pre-read 1997 Broadview Press Trade Paperback, no printing given. Although book appears new from the outside (with light edgewear), there are several pages (not many) with notes in the margins and underlinings. Content: "This new edition of Mary Wollstonecraft's two vindications contextualizes these crucial works more fully than any other edition thus far." It is not widely known that the germ of Wollstonecraft's great work came out of an earlier and much shorter piece: her Vindication of the Rights of Man, written in the context of the issues raised by the French Revolution. This edition includes a range of materials that help the reader to see the work in the context of its era, opens with Wollstonecraft's ‘other vindication,’ includes as appendices a variety of other documents that together make this the finest available edition f or teaching purposes, and is currently being used in Columbia University's core curriculum for Humanities Students. [1 copy available]
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A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN
by Mary Wollstonecraft. Introduction by Barbara Taylor. Condition: NEW 1992 Everyman's Library hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), no printing given. Content: Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) wrote on political and social topics, polemics as well as fiction. Writing in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecraft produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate and forthright, this work attacked the prevailing view of docile, decorative femininity and instead laid out the principles of emancipation: an equal education for girls and boys, an end to prejudice, and the call for women to become defined by their profession, not their partner. Mary Wollstonecraft’s work was received with a mixture of admiration and outrage—Walpole called her “a hyena in petticoats”—yet it established her as the mother of modern feminism. [1 copy available]
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