GETTING JUSTICE

By no means a manual such as Galatti's Law of the Land (p. 1326, 1970), or narrowed to the question of the individual's rights when involved in a criminal proceeding as against Dorsen's broader consideration of The Rights of Americans (p. 83) and not solely preoccupied with the young -- cf. Lobenthal's Growing up Clean in America (1970)--this will also have a foreword by Ramsay Clark. Mr. Gillers, a young New York lawyer concerned equally with social, political and personal justice, however difficult it may be to secure, examines first the overall legal apparatus, from the Bill of Rights down to the all-important 'due process' -- ""vague and its location critical."" lie also discusses wiretapping and eavesdropping and the Fourth Amendment, following the distortions of the early Olmstead derision, which protected 'material things' rather than conversations; the rights to secure counsel where the poor are as disadvantaged as ever; and juvenile justice -- in 1969 the young were responsible for 37% of the crimes in close to 4000 cities, but then our system of so-called penology and rehabilitation brutalizes and maims. Throughout and extensively Gillers includes a great many applications, interpretations and dissents from Supreme Court Decisions only a few of which, such as the Miranda case, will be within the recognition of the general reader. And the closing chapter on overcriminalization and police lawlessness underlines the book's importance for those concerned with broader aspects of our social and political welfare. Demanding but clearly, stringently written and of prime interest to young lawyers, politicians and those with more than a motivated self-interest in ""getting justice.