With Justice For Some: Victims' Rights In Criminal Trials - Hardcover

Fletcher, George P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0201622548 ISBN 13: 9780201622546

Publisher: Addison Wesley, 1995

Synopsis

On November 27, 1978, councilman Dan White bypassed the San Francisco City Hall security systems by crawling through a basement window with a loaded .38. By the time he left City Hall that day, Mayor George Moscone and openly homosexual councilman Harvey Milk had been shot dead—point blank. Convicted of manslaughter, not first degree murder, Dan White and the infamous ”Twinkie defense” entered the legal vocabulary. The Harvey Milk case also, more ominously, was the beginning of a trend in criminal trials that has led to such disturbing verdicts as those in the recent Lorena Bobbitt, Rodney King, and Menendez brothers trials. With Justice for Some: Victims' Rights in Criminal Trials, a ground-breaking book by renowned legal scholar George P. Fletcher, is the first effort to examine the new political trial. In the high-profile, politicized trials of the 1990s, punishment becomes a means of self-vindication for disenfranchised groups who identify with the victims. Criminal trials have become the focal points for activist groups who have suffered in the palace of justice, and who now take their grievances to the street. Gay men stream out of the Castro and riot after the unexpected manslaughter verdict in the slaying of Harvey Milk. Blacks and Hispanics rebel in Los Angeles after the first Rodney King verdict, leaving South-Central L.A. in ruins. Hasidic Jews march and scream their bitter disappointment after the surprise acquittals in trials for the murders of Meir Kahane and Yankel Rosenbaum. Feminists fill the streets to ”take back the night” and toughen our laws against rape.With his insightful, angry critique, George Fletcher confronts the flaws in America's system of criminal prosecution. He explains exactly how such miscarriages of justice have become endemic. The primary function of today's criminal trials, Fletcher argues, is no longer to determine guilt of condemn evil. It is rather to understand the mind of the criminal, to camouflage the crime as less heinous and less deserving of punishment. Under the influence of psychiatric experts, criminal evil becomes ”deviant behavior.” Cold-blooded murderers are treated as abused children. Blaming the victim, defense lawyers picture Rodney King as ”in control” of his beating and claim that Yankel Rosenbaum ”sacrificed himself.” Judges have lost control over their courtrooms, giving lawyers free reign to divert jurors from the facts with outlandish theories that portray their clients as the supposed victims.No one could have anticipated the effect that tabloid television, public relations firms working for accused murderers, and jury consultants who use marketing skills and opinion polls to stack juries would have on the system that is supposed to guarantee our liberties. The abandoned victims now cry out for reform. With critical sophistication and a profound understanding of criminal law here and abroad, George Fletcher offers sensible, realistic suggestions for reform. An urgent call for victims' rights, With Justice for Some engages the reader with an evocative portrayal of what's wrong with the system and what needs to be done to fix it.

About this title

About the Author

George P. Fletcher is Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia Law School.

Reviews

This study is a worthy complement to Stephen Adler's The Jury (Forecasts, July 11) and Jeffrey Abramson's We, the Jury (Forecasts, Oct. 17). Fletcher, a professor of law at Columbia University Law School, supports the advances of the 1960s that protected the rights of the accused, but he argues convincingly that we must heighten sensitivity to the victim. He looks at several highly charged cases-"a novel form of political trial"-which frustrated the compatriots of the victims: the killing of gay politico Harvey Milk in San Francisco; the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers; the killing of Hasidic Jew Yankel Rosenbaum during the Crown Heights riots in New York City; the rape cases against Mike Tyson and William Kennedy Smith. Fletcher's suggestions are sensible and provocative: abolish changes of venue, which ignore the local, communal stake in a case; consult victims in plea bargaining; allow jurors to be more active participants in trials; restrict psychiatric testimony on moral responsibility; allow a two-stage verdict that first establishes a criminal act, then assesses whether the defendant was fully accountable.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Whereas Jeffrey Abramson (We, the Jury ) stressed reform of the U.S. jury system in response to changing definitions of the knowledge, representation, and deliberation expected of jurors (and in the name of participatory democracy), George Fletcher organizes his analysis of the jury system around what he calls the "new political trial," trials that focus on the victim (not the defendant) and move an element of the public to urge a particular verdict based on its identification with that victim. Prime examples of this phenomenon are the murders of Harvey Milk, Meir Kahane, Yankel Rosenbaum, and the Menendez parents; the beatings of Rodney King and Reginald Denny; the rape trials of William Kennedy Smith and Mike Tyson; both Bobbitt cases; and the growth of the "battered woman syndrome" defense. Abramson and Fletcher recommend some of the same changes; they disagree in that Fletcher's proposals reflect his conviction that, ultimately, "the purpose of the trial is to stand by the victim." With the O. J. Simpson case and Court TV keeping the selection and functioning of juries in the public eye, both studies contribute to a key public policy debate. Mary Carroll

In order to protect the rights of the accused, we are careful to follow the Constitution. While doing so, we often fail to meet the needs of crime victims. Law professor Fletcher (A Crime of Self-Defense: Bernhard Goetz and the Law on Trial, LJ 7/88) characterizes this emphasis on the rights of the accused as the new "political trial," which functions not to seek the facts and condemn evil but to understand the mind of the suspect. Using four recent trials-the case of Yankel Rosenbaum, a Hasidic Jew murdered during the Crown Heights riots; both Rodney King trials; the Mike Tyson rape trial; and the Harvey Milk trial and its famous" twinkie defense"-Fletcher illustrates how powerful but flawed the American jury system has become. He offers ten proposals for bringing justice both to defendants and victims. They include changes in the jury selection format, allowing the victim to take part in the trial and to participate in plea bargaining, and limiting the use of certain types of experts. Fletcher's provocative book is highly recommended for all collections.
Sandra K. Lindheimer, Middlesex Law Lib., Cambridge, Mass.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Addison Wesley
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0201622548
• ISBN 13: 9780201622546
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304