Everybody knows the criminal justice system is far from perfect. But journalist and lawyer Amy Bach sees it from a different perspective — injustice that is a product not of incompetence, but of the natural human instinct to go along to get along.Bach, 41, is a New York City native who has lived in Rochester for four years. She worked five years as a journalist, writing for publications such as The Nation and New York magazine. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School, and thanks to a Soros Foundation grant, was able to travel the country for a year observing courtrooms and discovering what she calls a "pattern of lapses" that legal professionals often do not feel responsible for. Hence the title of her just-released book, Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court (Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company).
Bach's reporting challenges the reality of the justice system Americans believe in: a speedy trial, a competent defense, prosecutors in search of the truth (not just a win), victims treated fairly.
Bach is quick to say that this is not a book about villains, about lawyers and judges who willfully subvert the pursuit of justice. It is about the natural human inclination to avoid conflict.
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Lawyer's Book Tells of Lapses in Legal System
7 comments:
Sounds like a winner! Anyone who's been through the system knows just how sick it is!
Looks like it's a good book.
Very interesting concept!
Thanks, this book looks like a good find.
I particularly like the name of the book, because it seems injustice has indeed become very ordinary!
I haven't read the book, but I disagree that injustice is not a produce of incompetence.
I think there are a lot of incompetent lawyers out there. And judges.
Injustice is also a product of corruption as many have experienced directly.
Aren't lawyers and judges who willfully subvert the pursuit of justice villians???
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