The Best Defense

Dershowitz is a great writer. Love him or hate him, you can't deny this man's writing ability. His style is relatively informal, avoiding overly-intelectual language and instead opting to use plain language. This style allows the reader to focus on the content and ideas behind text, rather than constantly look words up in the dictionary. In this book, Dershowitz retells some of the more gripping cases he's been involved in. The book is partly crime novel, taking the reader thru the case step by step. The book is partly theoretical, using the cases to instruct on the way the legal system should or does work. I recommend the book highly for the law student, lawyer, and lay person as it will instruct you to how the criminal justice system really is.

The author of this book is a law professor who does appellant work part time. Unlike the cut and thrust of jury work appeals have generally been seen as dry rarefied and uninteresting. The author however writes in an entertaining and self deprecating way which brings the process alive. It is one of the most enjoyable books written about the law that I have read for some time. The author also writes about the cases he loses. So many books by advocates focus on the success and are about self grandisment. Overall the impression given is how much of a dogged slog it is to achieve justice in the American System and how much calculation and thought has to go into every strategy and move. One of the amazing things in the book is how the author is so critical of a number of judges and how willing he is to make those criticisms. It is an excellent book which shows the many flaws and weakness of the American justice system.

This book is a pleasure to read. In spite of its almost casual narrative style, the book is full of highly valuable insights into the theory and functioning of criminal justice administration. It also reveals some of the corruption of the system which, even with the alleged best intentions, destroys the essence of democracy. The cases of judicial arrogance and arbitrariness revealed by Professor Dershowitz, are enough to give one the creeps. How many defendants, who did not have the benefit of a true defense of their interests, may be pining away in prison, victims of the connivance of police, prosecutors and judges. Be that as it may, it is fascinating to see a legal mind at work, and everything explained in a manner accesible to lay people. I certainly hope the good Professor keeps on writing. We, the People, need lawyers like him.

Agreed with Harris below, and would like to add that Dershowitz etal at Harvard did a longitudinal study of post-convictions and found 5% of convictions and guilty pleas were erroneous. Insignificant? Imagine walking through a prison knowing one in twenty should not be there! Of course there are many more guilty who unfortunately get off the hook; but what does that have to do with the innocent locked up? As Dershowitz suggests, our sense of justice seems to be slipping away. Far more provocative than Bailey's recountings of victory and defeat.

Forget what you've seen on television. This book reveals Prof. Dershowitz for what he truly is--a principled civil libertarian of the first order. I was fortunate enough to study criminal law with Prof. Dershowitz, and this book recounts the very best of his early "war stories." It's as readable as fiction, and far more interesting! Read this book and find out why William F. Buckley, whose politics differ widely from Prof. Dershowitz's, called for him to receive the Medal of Freedom for his "fundamentalist" defense of the American legal system. From Soviet Jews, to teenagers on death row, to porn-star Harry Reems, Prof. Dershowitz has defended the powerless and the unpopular and suffered the criticism of others with good humor and a constant willingness to debate. I read this book in high school, and again in law school. I cannot recommend it highly enough.