A brisk legal summary that acknowledges the flaws of American criminal justice while also making a case that it may not be...
Oberer, who worked as a prosecutor in Baltimore, outlines famous American miscarriages of justice as well as incidents of police brutality, plea deals, and corruption.
The author, a lawyer and a former law clerk for the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, briefly encapsulates weighty court-docket and true-crime material, showing the present state of American criminal justice. He defends the system by emphasizing how law and justice may not always seem to be the same thing, especially to crime victims. A rundown of basic rights under the U.S. Constitution is followed by quick, concise summaries of several well-known homicide cases, in which the author clearly explains the acquittal of seemingly guilty plaintiffs with strict interpretation of statutes and criminal procedure—a useful reminder of an oft-quoted dictum that it’s better that 100 wrongdoers go free than one innocent person be punished. A chronicle of both police brutality from the 1960s to 2020s and public reactions to George Floyd’s murder follows that readers will find dispiriting; Oberer puts them into perspective by backgrounding them against the once-trendy “broken windows” public-safety policy, which theorized that if officers punished minor infractions, crime rates and their societal effects would lessen. The book clearly shows that, in Baltimore, this strategy mostly fueled hatred of police among members of the Black community, who were chiefly victimized, and may have fueled corruption among cops and lawyers. The get-tough approach is also revealed to have overtaxed personnel and jury pools in urban areas, resulting in questionable plea deals, mistrials, and dismissals. Jurors bedazzled by Hollywood shows, the author asserts, have no clue how evidence and proof work in reality. It’s no wonder, then, that he rounds out his book with the insight that “Without a complete understanding of the American version of justice…Americans are often left frustrated, dismayed, and angry.” He ends with a straightforward exhortation to better education of the public and a scrutiny of policies in other countries, among which the American justice system ranks dismally.
A brisk legal summary that acknowledges the flaws of American criminal justice while also making a case that it may not be as dysfunctional as it looks.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781639887682
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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